Portrait nominee

This fine-art book portrays the ordeal of LGBTQI+ refugees, asylum seekers who are subject to discrimination and persecution in their home countries based on their gender and sexual orientation. Told visually, it features portraits of asylum seekers and describes the challenges they face during the asylum process. With a foreword by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees FILIPPO GRANDI.
Through the use of beautiful “glossy images,” such as those used in fashion and advertising, the project seeks to engender empathy for the subjects involved and their stories. Asylum seekers become celebrities, idols, and heroes as they are. Therefore, it is not a photographic reportage but, rather, an art project focused on restoring their dignity. LGBTQI+ refugees often face double discrimination: in their home country and in their destination, as they are both immigrants and LGBTIQ+. The aim of this project is to give these individuals the identity they are often deprived of when they are reduced to
an indistinct mass and to show the world their true beauty.

Born in Padua, Italy. He graduated in the early 2000 at “I.S.I.A.” (Higher Institute for Artistic Industries, University of Urbino), and at the Fachhochschule in Augsburg (Germany). He attended the “Università dell’Immagine” (University of Image), the first course on the five senses in Milan created by Fabrizio Ferri. He began his professional career as assistant photographer and in 2005 he opened his own studio, Das Studio, which deals with photography, video, art installations, graphic design & creative direction. His first photography fine-art book titled "Asylum" was released on May 16, 2023, published by Rizzoli New York.