Mara Palena (1988) lives and works in Milan. Her research focuses on themes such as memory, recollection, and identity. She works with photography, video, and sound, reworking materials from archives usually in the form of searchable databases and family archives like home movies, and drawing on a personal archive of photographic images that she has been curating for years to document her life. Her work has been exhibited at various international festivals, venues, and galleries, including the Guardian Art Center in Beijing, Galleria Studio G7 in Bologna, Careof, Fondazione Galleria Milano, Marsèll Paradise, Nowhere Gallery, Pananti Atelier, Twenty14 Contemporary and Video Sound Art in Milan, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Madrid, MOPLA in Los Angeles, Artphilein Foundation in Lugano, and Recontemporary in Turin. Between 2021 and 2024, she was a finalist in several art competitions, including the Lucie Foundation, Combat Prize, Premio Fabbri, New Post Photography, and Artphilein Photo Book Contest. In 2022, she was selected by Camera Torino for FUTURES Photography. Her work Oikeiôsis won the 2022 Surprize Award from Sprint and the Marcelo Burlon Foundation. This editorial project was curated and published by Witty Books in 2023 and was included by Photo España among the 100 best books published in 2024. Her work Things that happen inside and outside of me won the De Pietri Artphilein Foundation Photobook Contest in 2024. 
WRITE TO ME: marialiberapalena@gmail.com