Visual storytelling as a way of resistance. This is the work of Matteo Trevisan, a storyteller who collects powerful testimonies from marginalised communities and places of conflict, documenting often ignored realities with a deeply human and attentive gaze.

Matteo Trevisan is a documentary photographer and videomaker, represented by the Contrasto agency, who divides his time between Rome, the city where he lives and works, and Gorizia, his place of origin. In 2018, after studying photography at the ISCFC school in Rome and attending some specialisation courses at Officine Fotografiche Roma, he started working as a photographer and videomaker. As a passionate mountaineer born on the border between Italy and Slovenia, Trevisan's projects mainly focus on social issues, particularly those related to the environment and anthropology. His photographs have been published in major magazines such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Internazionale, National Geographic Italia, Espresso and others. He is currently working on a personal project on the Italian region Friuli Venezia Giulia and a long-term environmental project in the central Balkans. In 2022, he won the FotoLeggendo Award - Festival conceived and produced by Officine Fotografiche Roma - as best portfolio with the project We are still dreaming.

In November, We Are Still Dreaming, Matteo Trevisan’s visual investigation into young people under 30 living in the Susa Valley, will be presented at Studio Tommaseo in Trieste (Via del Monte 2/1). The meeting with these young people, portrayed by the photographer, will be an opportunity to recount the social scars that major collective struggles leave on individuals. We Are Still Dreaming is a field research project by the young Gorizia-born photographer about the inhabitants of the Susa Valley, who have directly or indirectly suffered the threat of change in one of Italy’s most untamed Alpine valleys, endangered by over 20 years of construction work for the high-speed train (known as TAV). The No TAV movement, which began in the early 1990s, has been opposing the construction of the Turin-Lyon high-speed railway line for over 20 years, considering it a waste of public money and harmful to the area. Over these years, the movement has remained the last bastion of civil protest and has become the longest-lasting movement in Italian history, while the Susa Valley has gained the unfortunate title of the most militarized area in the country. In his project We Are Still Dreaming, Matteo Trevisan visited and met many people in the community, portraying the struggle through their faces and their surroundings. This work is an intimate portrait of a generation that has spent its life fighting, challenging, getting arrested, and protesting. At the exhibition's opening, which will take place on November 9th at 6 p.m., the curator Annalisa Polli and photographer Matteo Trevisan will participate. During the event, there will be a discussion on photojournalism and its treatment by Italian and international media.  

Matteo Trevisan will also be teaching Visual Hub's in October Narrare storie per immagini at Stage21 Trieste.

https://www.visualhub.it/prodotto/matteotrevisan/ In the photos: Photo taken from the series, We are still dreaming, 2022. Matteo Trevisan, portrait. (all photos: courtesy Matteo Trevisan)