About

As a nonprofit arts organization, we explore the new trajectories of, and in between, photography, sound and the visual arts. We started our activities in 2009, under the initiative of Selva Barni, with a group that included Didier Falzone, Massimo Torrigiani and Francesco Zanot, publishing a photographic quarterly and a series of photobooks. In 2012, we discontinued the publication of the magazine, were joined by Ilaria Speri, and evolved into a collective that conceives and produces exhibitions, performances and publishing projects.
We have worked in collaboration, or under commission, with museums, institutions and galleries. Among them: Triennale Milano, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the French Institute, Fondazione Nuovi Mecenati, Arte Fiera Bologna, Manifesta Biennial, Marsèlleria, and Viasaterna Arte Contemporanea.
Along the years, we have collaborated with artists and musicians Batia Suter, Brice Dellsperger, Caterina Barbieri and Ruben Spini, Charlotte Dumas, Francesco Cavaliere, Guido Guidi, Kensuke Karasawa, Lele Saveri, Lorenzo Vitturi, Mario Milizia, Matthew Herbert, Maurizio Anzeri, Nicola Ratti, Raed Yassin, Ruth van Beek, Shilpa Gupta, Soundwalk Collective, Taisuke Koyama, Takashi Homma, Theo Drebbel, Yang Fudong, and Zhou Siwei. Among others.
Our activities are led by Selva Barni, Bruno Biasiucci, Didier Falzone, Rocco Lanzavecchia, Benedetta Pomini, Ilaria Speri, Massimo Torrigiani and Francesco Zanot. Our research assistant is Clara Scola.

FANTOM – Associazione ETS
Registered office: Via F. De Sanctis 74, 20141 Milan
Operational office: Via Cesare Correnti 12, 20123 Milan
P. IVA/VAT 10498130961

Enquiries: office@fantomprojects.org

Selva Barni is Fantom’s founder and director. Besides her activities as a curator, she works as editorial and photography consultant for companies and publishing houses, and teaches Photography Editing and Publishing at the Master in Photography and Visual Design of the New Academy of Fine Arts (NABA) in Milan. Since January 2018 she is the visual editor of Domus magazine, under the direction of architect Michele De Lucchi.

Massimo Torrigiani is associated with Fantom and Boiler, an editorial and communication agency with offices in Milan, Barcelona and Naples. Over the years he has conceived and edited art and fashion magazines, curated exhibitions, books and record projects, organized concerts and performances in theaters and independent spaces, written for international magazines, worked with companies, universities and cultural institutions, both public and private, direct trade fairs. In 2018 he published Salento Moderno – An Inventory of Private Houses in Southern Puglia (Humboldt Books). Between 1987 and 1989, with Enzo Mansueto, poet, and Pino Pipoli, artist, he gave life to Rubbia, a magazine and collective. He sits on the Artistic Committee of the Triennale Teatro Milano.

Founding curator at Camera (the Italian Centre for Photography, Turin) from 2015-18, Francesco Zanot has worked on exhibitions and publications with many Italian and international photographers, such as Boris Mikhailov, Domingo Milella, Erik Kessels, Guido Guidi, Linda Fregni Nagler, Mark Cohen and Takashi Homma. His essays have been published in books on the work of Carlo Mollino, Ettore Sottsass and Luigi Ghirri, and, together with Alec Soth, he is the author of the book Ping Pong Conversations. Director of the Master in Photography and Visual Design organised by NABA in Milan, he curated the exhibitions Give Me Yesterday and Stefano Graziani: Questioning Pictures, at Fondazione Prada Osservatorio, Milan. He’s currently artistic director of the Foto/Industria Biennale at MAST, Bologna.

Under the name of BureauBureau, Didier Falzone has worked in magazine design and art direction on a broad range of lifestyle and fashion titles, such as Rodeo, Intersection Italia, Urban and Playboy Italia. Besides his editorial activities, he works as a fashion illustrator and has been focusing on researching and collecting hard-to-find and forgotten publications on fashion, art and design.

A curator and producer of exhibitions and publications, Ilaria Speri has worked with Fantom since 2013. A correspondent at Il Giornale dell’Arte, she writes for books and magazines, and has collaborated with publishers such as Mack, Humboldt Books, Skinnerboox and Skira. A lecturer on the History of Photography at the Academy of Fine arts in Bologna from 2014-17, in 2016-18 she worked as curatorial coordinator of the visual arts festival Fotopub (Novo Mesto, Slovenia). She collaborates with the creative agency Boiler (Milan and Barcelona) in the development and management of exhibitions and research projects.