BIO

Antonia Zennaro (b. 1980) is an Italian-German visual artist and photographer born in northern Germany and raised in South Tyrol, Italy. She studied photography at ISFCI and holds a Master’s degree in Visual Storytelling from the Danish School of Journalism in Aarhus. Her early career was in photojournalism, working with the Zeitenspiegel agency and international publications including Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and Libération. Her long-term documentary project Reeperbahn was published by Prestel Verlag in 2013.

In 2013, Zennaro moved to Colombia, where she shifted toward visual arts and slower forms of storytelling. In Barranquilla, she developed a photographic technique using fabric, creating mixed-media works that explore the relationship between image, light, and shadow. Since moving to New Orleans in 2016, she has expanded this practice into kinetic sculptures, immersive installations, and photo tapestries, often collaborating with artisan women.

Zennaro’s work explores the intersecting relation between urbanism and nature exploring issues of  memory, place, history, and personal narratives through floating photographic images, light, and shadow. She is an organizing member of the NOLA Community Printshop and participates in community-based art projects. Her work has been exhibited across Europe and the Americas, including at the Contemporary Arts Center and Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, The Front Gallery, Rabbit Hole Gallery in Brooklyn, City Gallery in Bolzano, and Art Basel Miami.

Artist Statement

Antonia Zennaro is a documentary photographer and social artist whose practice explores the relationship between people and their environments across cultures and continents. Through intimate personal stories, she examines broader social, political, cultural, and existential realities, revealing how individual experiences reflect the complexities of the contemporary world. Her work invites viewers to reconsider their place within it and reflect on the choices that shape our shared existence.

Working at the intersection of documentary photography, textile art, and social engagement, Zennaro uses photography as a visual language to uncover hidden layers of human experience. By inventing a unique technique of printing large-format photographic negatives directly onto fabric, she creates ethereal, floating images that transform with light, casting shifting shadows as the sun moves. These ephemeral installations explore the relationship between presence and absence, reality and representation, while offering a poetic reflection on the world around us. Plants and natural forms become recurring symbolic elements through which she observes contemporary life and its interconnected systems.

Fabric is central to her practice: a universally familiar and tactile material that invites touch, participation, and connection. Through installations, mixed-media works, and community-based collaborations, she seeks to build bridges between seemingly disparate experiences, discovering common ground through storytelling and shared encounters.

At the heart of Zennaro’s work is the belief that art can move beyond representation to create spaces for reflection, empathy, and human connection. Her work offers a tender yet critical exploration of our shared humanity, opening new possibilities for seeing, understanding, and belonging.