Matilde Gattoni
Italy
Biography
For over two decades, Matilde Gattoni has produced compelling visual narratives examining the socio-environmental challenges shaping our world. Her work reveals the human cost of climate change, land exploitation, and conflict, often focusing on Indigenous and marginalised communities most impacted by environmental degradation. From East Africa to Southeast Asia and the Middle East, her images delve into the lives of those navigating extreme vulnerability, displacement, and ecological loss — often caused by forces beyond their control.
Matilde has spent the last nine years developing long-form documentary projects centring on the relationship between humanity and nature. Her stories spotlight Indigenous communities’ environmental knowledge and cultural resilience as they respond to the climate crisis through traditional practices and adaptation. Together, they craft narratives that are both deeply personal and globally significant.
Matilde’s visual language blends empathy with advocacy, creating imagery that informs, resonates, and compels. Her work has received numerous international honours, including the IPA, Px3, LensCulture, and Camille Lepage Award 2025. Through powerful storytelling and ethical practice, Matilde continues to push the boundaries of contemporary documentary photography.
Matilde’s work has been shown at institutions, including the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, Noorderlicht Gallery in the Netherlands, and Photoville in New York
Project
“Ocean Rage” by Matilde Gattoni is a long-term documentary photography project that confronts the social and environmental toll of climate change along the West African coastline. Shot primarily in Ghana, Togo and Benin, the series documents how rising sea levels, coastal erosion and shifting fish stocks are erasing entire villages, displacing tens of millions of people and undermining centuries-old ways of life for fishing communities stretched along more than 7 000 km of shoreline.
Through stark, empathetic imagery of flooded settlements, crumbling homes and disrupted livelihoods, Ocean Rage reveals how environmental transformation intersects with culture, identity and survival, urging viewers to consider both the human cost of global warming and the urgent need for sustainable responses to ecological crisis.
