New Documentary Practices at CAMERA Torino Rethinks Photographic Truth

CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia in Turin hosted New Documentary Practices, a program curated by Giangavino Pazzola in early December 2025. The event featured a talk by Marina Caneve and workshops led by Lorenzo Vitturi and Oliver Chanarin, exploring documentary photography as a research practice that questions objective truth. Caneve's project "Are They Rocks or Clouds?" addresses hydrogeological risk in Alpine areas through photographs, technical documents, and research materials, inviting active viewer interpretation. Vitturi's workshop focused on gentrification in London's Dalston neighborhood, where participants created ephemeral sculptures from discarded objects from Ridley Road Market, photographing them before and after collapse. Chanarin's workshop used an automated device that moves framed photographs, generating shifting meanings and emphasizing the instability of photographic significance. Pazzola stated the practices demonstrate complex, innovative ways to analyze contemporary political, social, and cultural dynamics based on facts, data, and research, exemplifying a new ethics of making and showing the world through photography.