• Mattia Balsamini

Stories

In Search of Appropriate Images


This body of work started around early March 2020. I felt the urge to take advantage of the suspended time that we all had available, trying to learn something from it. Home and its territory have always been a mysterious combination of known and unknown. The way I find myself most comfortable exploring its surroundings is usually by taking into account both aspects. Looking close and looking far. A little at a time. These images were made in the difficult and surreal circumstances we are still living in a year later. They have been an exercise to train the eye, to seek some sort of meaning in the objects, atmospheres and thoughts I’ve always been attracted to.

Contingency Plans


When Italy hit sixty thousand infections and five thousand fatalities, on March 22nd, 2020 a decree imposed the lockdown of a large part of the Italian productive apparatus, as well as prohibiting any form of unjustified displacement and enforcing confinement of the population to their homes. Companies were ready to multiply efforts to ensure that the country does not lack resources in the Coronavirus emergency. On the other hand, those considered non-strategic, which with reactivity, resourcefulness and a spirit of solidarity have made themselves available to be reinvented and to support the common effort.

Horizons 57 – The preparation of Alexander Gerst


The visual essay shows the astronaut’s preparation process between Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas, where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted and Star City – a common name of an area in Zvyozdny gorodok, Moscow Oblast, Russia, which has since the 1960s been home to the Yuri Gagarin.

Portfolio

Mattia Balsamini (1987, Italy) is a photographer. He began his studies at the Brooks Institute of California where he graduated with Honorable Mention in 2011. In 2010 he worked at David LaChapelle’s studio as a studio assistant and archivist. Mattia focuses his attention on the concept of work and scientific research as an identity factor for human kind. His images reveal interest the functionality of technology and the graphic elements of the ordinary. Over the years he has carried out personal and editorial projects in and for institutions such as the Max Planck Institute for Physics, MIT, NASA, Institute of Forensic Medicine University of Zurich, Laboratory of Anthropology and Forensic Odontology of the University of Milan, the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy in Amsterdam and Sprind – Bundesagentur für Sprunginnovationen.
His images have been exhibited at Milan Triennale, MAXXI, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation and the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco.

Based in Venice, Italy

More info

Books

In Search of Appropriate Images. Skinnerbook. 2021

Exhibitions & Screenings

2021. CONTINGENCY PLANS. Biennale Usimages, Picard, France
2020. CONTINGENCY PLANS. Cortona On The Move, Cortona, Italy
2019. EXPEDITION 57: HORIZONS. Photolux. Lucca, Italy
2019. FUTURE SHOCK. Fonderia Napoleonica, Milan, Italy
2019. Riaperture. Ferrara, Italy
2018. Step, Touch, Kneel, Look, Rub, Grasp, Repeat, Page Blanche. Paris, France
2018. Available Resources / OMNE. Casa Giorgione. Castelfranco Veneto, Italy
2018. ULTRA. Corte di Genova. Prato, Italy
2018. Olivetti World. Istituto Italiano Cultura. San Francisco, USA
2018. Lei non sa chi sono io. Leica Galerie. Milan, Italy
2017. Wow – Immagini dal Futuro. MAXXI. Rome, Italy
2017. Wow – Immagini dal Futuro. La Triennale di Milano. Milan, Italy
2017. Premio Friuli Venezia Giulia 2017. Centro di Ricerca ed Archiviazione Fotografica. Spilimbergo, Italy
2016. 100ma Collettiva Giovani Artisti. Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. Venice, Italy
2016. Passo Dopo Passo. Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo. Turin, Italy
2016. Elementi Utili – Show & Tell. T14 Gallery. Milan, Italy
2015. 99ma Collettiva Giovani Artisti. Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa. Venice, Italy