Gabriele Basilico Prize 2025: the winner

The 58 candidates under 40 operating across 34 countries were nominated by 40 nominators - critics, curators, lecturers, museum directors, and specialists in photography and the visual arts - operating across 25 countries.

The jury was composed of Giovanna Calvenzi, Director Studio Gabriele Basilico; Matteo Balduzzi, MuFoCo; Lorenzo Bini, Councillor, Milan Order of Architects; Francesca Fabiani, Head of Contemporary Photography / ICCD-MiBAC; Giovanni Hänninen, Photographer; Martino Marangoni, President at Fondazione Studio Marangoni; Sandra Phillips, Curator Emerita of Photography at the SFMoMA; Franco Raggi, Architect; Roberta Valtorta, Historian; Bas Vroege, Director at Paradox, decided to award the Gabriele Basilico Prize for Architecture and Landscape Photography to Matteo de Mayda's photographic work There's no Calm after the Storm, dedicated to the disaster caused by Storm Vaia in autumn 2018 in the forests of the Dolomites, between Veneto, Trentino Alto-Adige and Friuli Venezia Giulia. 

The comment of the jury: "the artist analysed the devastating effects of the storm through photographs, archive photos, satellite and microscope images, community testimonies and scientific explanations. The work, which is highly articulated in its different types of images but characterised by a compelling visual coherence, was chosen for its freshness of language, the delicacy of its approach and, above all, as the Basilico Prize intends, for the important project with which de Mayda intends to continue it. The idea of social participation already present in the work will in fact be deepened and enhanced through the involvement of young people belonging to the communities affected by the disaster. Thanks to the use of photographs taken by them, family photographs, local newspaper articles, drawings, writings, collages of images, and materials produced during workshops that will be organised, the initial project will be “expanded” into a layered, multi-voiced work, confirming the idea of photography as a relational practice and as a possible intersection of points of view, sensibilities, and memories".

The six finalists are: Chase Barnes (USA), nominated by Jiehao Su (winner of the Basilico Prize in 2017); Marwan Bassiouni (Switzerland, Netherlands), nominated by Christian Caujolle; Matteo de Mayda (Italy, winner), nominated by Michele Borzoni (winner of the Basilico Prize in 2019); MD Fazle Rabbi Fatiq (Bangladesh), nominated by Shahidul Alam; Prasiit Sthapit (Nepal), nominated by Tanvi Misra; Kurniadi Widodo (Indonesia), nominated by Asep Topan.

The Jury declared the winner to be Italian photographer Matteo de Mayda, born in 1984.

From the description of the project submitted for the Prize: In October 2018, an extreme weather event struck north-eastern Italy, significantly devastating the landscape. Sirocco winds swept through the Dolomites at 200 km/h, toppling fourteen million trees. More than six years later, the effects of Storm Vaia are still visible. Through a layered approach combining photography, archival material and scientific research, the project will focus on the relationship between communities and nature.

The photographer’s aim is “to look beyond the fallen trees and explore deeper causes and long-term consequences, such as the spread of the spruce bark beetle, a parasite drawn to weakened wood. Storms have long shaped forests, but climate change is altering their frequency and intensity.”

Through the Prize, the project will be brought to schools in communities affected by extreme weather events. “The goal is to initiate a dialogue with younger generations through the exhibition - but above all through talks, readings, meetings, and workshops - inviting students to participate in collaborative projects and to create new content inspired by the project’s layered approach, which will combine images, family archives, local newspapers, texts, drawings and collages. This is also a way to share photography as a relational practice: not to colonise a place, but to inhabit it - and to acknowledge the tension between the inner world of the author and the external world that exists independently of us”.

The Gabriele Basilico Prize, which consists of a grant of €12,000, will support the realisation of a photographic project (to be completed by February 2026) to be published in a book and displayed in an exhibition.

The biennial Prize is dedicated to the memory of Gabriele Basilico (Milan, 1944–2013), a major figure in international architectural and landscape photography. Over time, the Prize has become a key platform for research and experimentation in visual languages among younger generations - generations with whom the Milanese artist has always engaged in an open and constructive dialogue.