Nicola Lo Calzo

Nicola Lo Calzo, photographer born in Torino in 1979, lives and works between Paris, West Africa and Caribbean. After studying landscape architecture, he shifted to photography. His photographic practice and research are attentive to questions surrounding coloniality, decolonial representation and identity. Imbued with profound empathy, Nicola Lo Calzo’s photographs show the ways in which minority groups interact with their environment, the ways in which they develop strategies of survival and resistance. For nearly seven years, he has been engaged in a long-term photographic research project on the memories of the slave trade and slavery. This ongoing ambitious project, entitled Cham, has been elaborated into different series in Africa, the Caribbean and America. His photographs have been widely exhibited in museums, art centers and festivals, most notably the Macaal in Marrakesh, the Afriques Capitales in Lille, the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, the National Alinari Museum of Photography in Florence, and the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. His photography is present in many private and public collections including the Lightwork collection in Syracuse, Alinari Archives in Florence, the Pinacoteca Civica in Monza, the National Library of France in Paris or the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. Kehrer has published three of Nicola Lo Calzo’s books: Regla (2017), Obia (2015) and Inside Niger (2012). He is also a regular contributor to the international press including Le Monde (the newspaper and magazine), The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Corriere della Sera and is occasionally commissioned by institutional or commercial enterprises.