ARTIST STATEMENT
I do documentary photography as an act of justice to people whose lives are shaped by capitalism and patriarchy who faced structural violence and social erasure.
I came to photography through journalism, covering political affairs in Rome and reporting from the Italian Parliament. I was giving my best, I was doing what I love and yet I kept feeling a hollow growing. I believe photography carries a moral responsibility: to raise awareness, to confront indifference.
In 2016, while documenting women's living conditions in Lebanese refugee camps with the NGO witnessing the limit of the actual editorial system and media oligarchy.
I made the decision to work slowly, in each project, I try to build a visual dialogue with the reader with an educational purpose. When the Gods Fall Asleep grew from a long collaboration with members of the transgender community in Rome, built over years of conversation and shared authorship. I wanted to tell their stories without my filter, I bend my eye and my heart for each one of them. I wanted to make images where there was nothing but gender euphoria. The project was exhibited at Queer Summer Fest in Rome in 2024, where it received the festival award, and at San Lorenzo Pride in 2025.
I use the camera as a way to communicate with the world.
CV
SELECTED TALK AND LECTURES
2025 Lecturer | Actionaid | Art is Love Made Public
2025 Talk with Emanuele Marchetti | My body tales - My body is
2024 Talk with Lou Ms. Femme | When the Gods Fall Asleep
2021 - ongoing Lecturer | La Sapienza University | Master's Degree Diversity and Photography
2024 Lecture and Magazine launch | WSP Photography
2023 Lecture and Magazine launch | Spazio Mimesis
2021 - ongoing Photography teacher | Monochrome, Italia
PHOTOGRAPHER AND JOURNALIST
2022 Founder and Editor | Monochrome Magazine
2017 Journalist | The British Journal of Photography | England
2016 - 2018 Photographer | Alamy, Getty, Sopa Images
2015 Photographer | Un Ponte Per | Italy Reportage about omen conditions in Lebanese refugee camps
2014 Journalist | Il Fatto Quotidiano Collaboration
2013 Photographer | Wimdu | Germany
2013 Photographer | Liberetà | Italy Reportage in territories seized from the mafia throughout the South and North of Italy commissioned by CGIL
2013 Journalist | Melty Network | France
2012 Photographer | Pubblico I Italy
2009 - 2012 Photographer | Infophoto | Italy
2012 Photographer | Kikapress | Italy
2011 Journalist | Radio Radicale
2009 -12 Journalist | Fuori le Mura | Italy
2011 Video Editor | Uniroma TV | Italy
2011 Radio Speaker | Radio Sapienza | Italy
EDUCATION
2026 - Documentary Practice and Storytelling Scholarship | International Center of Photography
2025 - MAFilling the Gap Scholarship | Fondazione Studio Marangoni | Italy
2016-17 MA Documentary Photography and Photojournalism | Westminster University | England
2011-14 Journalism and Communication | La Sapienza University
Thesis: The condition of women in democratic transition countries: The case of Turkey
2014 Journalism and Communication Scholarship | Yeditepe University | Turkey
2013 Journalism and Visual Communication Scholarship | Santiago de Cali University | Colombia
2008-10 Italian Literature and Communication | Lumsa University | Italy
Thesis: Crisis Communication, L'Aquila 6 April 2009
2006-9 Literature, Music, Entertainment | La Sapienza University | Italy
EXHIBITIONS
2025 | Group Exhibition | San Lorenzo Pride
with “When the Gods Fall Asleep”
2024 | Solo Exhibition | Queer Summer Fest (winner)
with “When the Gods Fall Asleep”
2018 | Group exhibition | “Diaspora”
The photographic project conceived and created in collaboration with the non-profit organization “Un Ponte Per”
SELECTED CLIENTS
Action Aid,Il Corriere della Sera, The Guardian, The British Journal of Photography, La Stampa, L’Agi, L’Espresso, Il Resto del Carlino, and Il Fatto Quotidiano, Un Ponte Per.
BIO
Susanna D’Aliesio (b. 1985) is an Italian photographer, writer, and educator whose practice interrogates identity, gender, and power through long-form documentary work. Trained in journalism and visual communication.
D’Aliesio started to work at 17 as a barista, at 18 moved to Rome to study Italian literature and Arts at La Sapienza University. She began her career as a journalist then she started working for her first photo agency as a photojournalist covering political affairs in Rome and reporting from the Italian Parliament for a photographic agency. In 2009, she completed a degree in Communication with a thesis on crisis communication following the L’Aquila earthquake of 6 April 2009, immediately after the earthquake, she spent eight months in L’Aquila working as a volunteer alongside the Italian Civil Protection.
She study journalism at Yeditepe University in Turkey and Universidad Santiago de Cali in Colombia, In 2013, back in Italy she developed photographic reportage in Italy on territories confiscated from organized crime commissioned by CGIL, published in the magazine Liberetà then settle down in England in 2016.
In 2016, she produced a documentary reportage in Lebanese refugee camps in collaboration with the italian NGO Un Ponte Per, focusing on women’s living conditions and systemic vulnerability. 2017 She holds an MA in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the University of Westminster in London, later on contributing to international platforms including the British Journal of Photography. Her photographic work has been distributed through national and international agencies. In 2018, she taught Italian language courses to individuals living with schizophrenia and autism, developing inclusive educational activities tailored to diverse cognitive and communicative needs.
In 2018, in London, she started working on Lust for Life, a documentary project where she investigated the condition of human loneliness. In 2019 initiated a long-term project on the River Tiber titled Chasing Romulus – The Origin of Rome, a photographic project examining how the city’s identity has been shaped by the interplay of geography, mythology, and historical transformation along the riverbanks. Since 2021, she has been a lecturer also in the Master’s Degree program in Diversity and Photography at Sapienza University of Rome and teaches photography at Monochrome in Italy. In 2022, she founded Monochrome Magazine, an independent publication dedicated to contemporary photography and critical visual discourse. Her invited lectures and talks have been hosted by institutions and cultural spaces including ActionAid and WSP Photography.
During a prolonged illness caused by Covid -19 she initiated a long-term collaborative project with members of Generation Z within the transgender community.Her project When the Gods Fall Asleep has been presented in both solo and group exhibitions in Rome, Queer Summer Fest in Rome and Polisemie. Earlier, she participated in the group exhibition Diaspora (2018), a collaborative project developed with an NGO. In 2025, she was awarded with scholarship at Fondazione Studio Marangoni and in 2026 at the International Center of Photography in NY.