Mudec and Deloitte Foundation to support contemporary photography

Established in 2023, the Deloitte Photo Grant is one of the most important international awards dedicated to photography. An initiative born from the long-standing collaboration between the museum and Deloitte, a group active in the promotion of culture and the enhancement of cultural differences. Fondazione Deloitte, with this initiative curated by Denis Curti, wants to be a promoter of concrete support to contemporary cultural production and in particular to photography as an artistic language of reading and interpretation of reality. The winner is offered a cash prize, but above all the creation of a solo exhibition at Mudec, accompanied by a catalog published by 24 ORE Cultura. Possibilities and Connections, these were the themes of the first two editions of the prize.

Possibilities: Davide Montenapoleone wins the 2024 edition.

Italian artist Davide Monteleone, with Critical Minerals – Geography of Energy, is the winner of the Reporting section of the Deloitte 2024 Photo Grant. The theme designated for 2024, Possibilities, was an invitation to reflect on the power of the choices that each of us, as individuals and as a community, can make, in the knowledge that the task of art-and photography-is also to question us about the responsibilities and possibilities associated with our actions. This is where Monteleone’s reportage fits in, a visual journey that explores the transformations of the global energy landscape toward renewable energy sources and reveals the intertwined geopolitical, social and environmental narratives that result.

Born in 1974, Monteleone is among the top representatives of a contemporary photography that knows how to take a stand on social issues, combining ethics and aesthetics. He was featured in an exhibition at Mudec Photo in Milan from Nov. 9 to Dec. 15, 2024 with a catalog published by 24 ORE Cultura. Monteleone came out on top in the Reporting category, within which 10 signalers submit two projects apiece, unpublished, by authors from around the world for the jury’s vote. Alongside the main prize is also an Open Call contest reserved for artists and female artists under 35, which offers a cash contribution of 20,000 euros for the realization of their project idea and which this year went to Venezuelan photographer Fabiola Ferrero for her project Reinas (Queens), which focuses on the female perspective in the history and identity of the artist’s country of origin, Venezuela.

Also on display alongside Monteleone’s images will be the works of Brazilian photographer Fernanda Liberti, winner of Open Call 2023, with her project Dust From Home, completed thanks to the grant and presented for the first time at Mudec.

Connections, the first edition of the Deloitte Photo Grant

With the exhibition And They Laughed at Me set up in November 2023 at Mudec Photo featured the work of Newsha Tavakolian, winner of the first edition of the Deloitte Photo Grant dedicated to the theme of “connections” to which the artist responded through witnessing an evolving society, Iran’s, and the struggles of those who make it up. Newsha Tavakolian, born in Tehran in 1981, has worked on the streets as a photographer during times of openness in her country, but during periods of great censorship she has found and experimented with alternative ways to contribute her artistic language to documenting those changes and events that have shaped the social structure of her home country. With more than 70 works including archival images, unpublished shots and stills, the exhibition was a powerful visual testimony to the dramatic face of oppression in Iran from 1996 to the present.

The winner of the 2023 Open Call is also an artist inspired by the stories of her home country, reworked through the filter of memory: Brazilian photographer Fernanda Liberti with the project Dust From Home traces the migration story of her family of Syrian, Italian and Albanian origin. This project develops from the precious family photographic archive, in a journey that questions family connections and roots. A family history that becomes universal, evoking such topical issues as migration and uprooting.