Biography

Nicolò Degiorgis is known for his conceptually driven works that meticulously chart territories and the communities inhabiting them. His artistic practice is inherently interdisciplinary, encompassing a diverse array of mediums that include books, installations, collages, photographs, videos, and maps.  

Born in 1985, his upbringing between Ticino in Switzerland and South Tyrol in Italy, two distinct border regions, instilled in him an early awareness of multilingualism and the nuanced complexities of belonging to a dominant culture versus a cultural minority.

His academic path started at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, where he graduated in ‘Languages and Economy and Law from East-Asia’ from the Department of Asian and North African Studies in 2008. Following his studies in Venice, he further expanded his global perspective by moving to Hong Kong to work for a trading company and a communication agency and subsequently to Beijing to continue his studies at Capital Normal University.

In 2007 Degiorgis completed a six-month internship as producer at Magnum Photos in Paris, followed by a Fabrica scholarship from Benetton’s research and communication center in Treviso (2008-2009), which provided an early platform for experimental and socially conscious work. In 2009, his academic and artistic interests converged when he received a research fellowship from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Trieste, specifically focusing on immigration issues. This deliberate and early commitment to social documentary and research-based artistic practice laid the groundwork for his later in-depth, multi-year projects. The same year, he was granted a one-year artist-residency in Venice at the art Foundation Bevilacqua La Masa and started exhibiting his work.

He joined Italian leading photo agency Contrasto in 2009, embarking on an intense period of editorial assignments for major international magazines, documenting diverse global events from art biennales to the Arab Spring. His garnered early industry recognition, with Photo District News ranking him among the “thirty emerging photographers to watch” in 2011. 

At the core of his professional identity is Rorhof, an independent publishing house based in Bolzano, Italy. The unique structure of Rorhof underscores a fundamental ethical and community-oriented dimension. 

His seminal work Hidden Islam received international acclaim in 2014, winning the Author Book Award at the Rencontres d’Arles festival, the Aperture Pairs Photo First Book Award and Gold at the German Photobook Awards. Degiorgis served as a distinguished guest-curator at Museion, Bolzano-Bozen, in 2017. This curatorial role directly influenced and informed subsequent projects, such as Prison Museum, which meticulously traces a visual dialogue between the Bolzano prison and Museion itself.

In 2017, he was identified as one of the seven distinguished winners of the Italian Council competition, a program promoted by the MiBACT (Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism), for his residency project at the Ecole Supérieure d’Art et de Design in Grenoble. In 2017 he was also awarded the Historical Book Award at the Rencontres D'Arles for The Pigeon Photographer, the Italian Photobook Award Bastianelli for Prison Photography and was selected as a FOAM Talent by the Photography Museum Amsterdam. He also undertook a tenure as a publisher in residence at the prestigious Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunste in Amsterdam in 2018. In 2021 his book Prison Museum won the Italian Art Book Award. In 2022, he was awarded the first prize at the Premio Piero Siena 2022 for his work Mare Vostrum, which entered the MAXXI Collection, and most recently, in 2023 his solo show for Galleria Eugenia Delfini won the New Entries Fund at the Artissima Art Fair in Turin.

His books are to be found in numerous private and public libraries, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University and the Library of Harvard University, Tate Modern in London, the Kandinsky Library at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Albertina Museum in Vienna.