Interviewee: Nadia Marmondi
Project: Divenire
Instagram: @nadiamarmondi
Website: www.nadiamarmondi.com
In 2024 the Urban Photo Awards launched a new prize dedicated to the world of the photographic zine: the URBAN Zine Award. The first edition was won by Nadia Marmondi, with her project Divenire [Becoming], a work that explores transformation and identity through the parallel between rocks and human beings: just as external forces shape stone over time, so life’s experiences forge a person’s identity, making it unique.
A graduate of the Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Milan in 2023, her work explores themes of personal growth and transformation, in which elements of nature become metaphors for human experience. The project Divenire came about almost by chance, during a trip to Val Masino with her analogue camera. The zine weaves together photographs, texts, a passage from a nineteenth-century geology book and a score by Ludovico Einaudi — whose piece is called, not by coincidence, Divenire. Through her distinctive approach, Marmondi transforms colour into a narrative element, creating abstract landscapes that reflect the fluidity of thought and change.
Juror Federica Berzioli described Divenire as an inner journey that transports the viewer into the realm of human emotions and natural elements, in which the photographic language turns colour into non-colour, making it a primary element of the narrative.
The story of her entry into the competition is equally emblematic: a coincidence, an unexpected encounter, and a zine born out of play that reached the summit.
