Deloitte's Photo Grant 2026 at Triennale Milano

Under the theme Proximities, Deloitte’s Photo Grant returns to Triennale Milano to present the winners of its fourth edition.

Overview

Maria Turchenkova’s project Numb State will be featured in an exhibition at Triennale Milano, which will also host Go Live by Atefe Moeini, the Iranian artist and prize recipient of the 2025 Open Call section. Additionally, a preview of the project AYLLU – Family by Angela Ponce, prize recipient of the 2026 Open Call section, will be presented.

Aimed at stimulating debate on the main economic, social, and political challenges of our time, this year the award explores the theme Proximities. Photographers were invited to investigate the multiple dimensions of proximity – social, economic, and relational – and the forms of divide that characterize our era. In a context marked by growing inequalities, the technological mediation of relationships, and the fragmentation of the social fabric, the concept of proximity takes on complex new configurations. Photography was thus called upon to observe and recount these dynamics, making visible the relationships, connections, and exclusions that shape our daily lives.

Developed starting in 2014, Maria Turchenkova’s Numb State explores the continuity between Soviet-era violence and contemporary Russia, now marked by the war in Ukraine. Built through years of travel across the country, the work investigates how the legacy of repression continues to permeate the Russian landscape and collective consciousness, bringing back to light a memory that was never truly processed. The project takes its cue from the history of the Gulag, the system of forced labor camps that for decades scarred millions of lives, leaving behind a trauma devoid of authentic public recognition: the victims were never collectively commemorated, and responsibilities were never fully acknowledged.

Through a suspended and uneasy visual language, punctuated by recurring images of sleeping passengers on the Trans-Siberian Railway – a metaphor for escaping reality – Numb State traverses landscapes marked by erased histories and the silent normalization of war in daily life. Once a 9,000-kilometer arterial link between western and eastern Russia, the railway now also transports soldiers and military supplies bound for the Ukrainian front, transforming into a powerful symbol of the continuity between past and present. The project thus constructs a psychological landscape in which memory, violence, and adaptation intertwine, revealing how an unresolved historical trauma continues to mark the contemporary experience.

Shifting the focus to South America, Angela Ponce’s AYLLU is rooted in the reality of contemporary Peru, where approximately 120,000 young people migrate from rural areas to urban centers every year. This historical exodus is accelerating drastically today due to inequalities and the impacts of climate change, which threaten Andean agriculture and livestock farming. With AYLLU ("family" in the Quechua language), the photographer explores the transformation of social and relational systems in the high-altitude communities of Phinaya and Qiqo in Cusco. Where connectivity is precarious, electronic devices become true umbilical cords: parents and grandparents venture up into the mountains searching for a signal to video call their children, powering their phones with solar panels in traditional homes.

Thanks to the support of the Deloitte Photo Grant, the work – which the photographer will carry out over the next twelve months – will contrast the departure of younger generations for the urban environment with the remaining elderly population in the mountains. A visual investigation into what disappears and what endures, documenting how the fabric of the Ayllu refuses to fray, finding in digital connection the only contemporary tool to preserve proximity and family affection.

About The Artists

Born in Moscow in 1987, Maria Turchenkova is a documentary photographer whose work explores the effects of war and the relationship between memory and space. She studied visual arts in Russia, France, and through international workshops. She is a Paul Klebnikov Civil Society Program fellow at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. She has developed personal projects and completed assignments for various publications in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and the Middle East. Her work has been published in Le Monde, The New York Times, and TIME Magazine, and has been exhibited internationally. She lives and works in Paris.

Angela Ponce (1994) is a Peruvian photojournalist and documentary photographer who addresses social issues in the Latin American context, with a focus on the narratives of indigenous Peruvian communities, climate change, extractivism, and armed conflict. She frequently collaborates with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Reuters. Her photographs have also been published in The Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, BBC, Die Zeit, The Guardian, NPR, El País, among others.