In praise of balance

The Driving Energy Award 2023 – Contemporary Photography invited photographers to interpret one of the key concepts of our culture: balance. This theme is steeped in meaning and connotations and forms the backbone of the mission of Terna, a company that strikes a balance between energy produced and energy consumed every minute of every day.

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The prizes

Two winners, three Terna commendations

1 Senior winner

Cash prize: € 15,000

1 Youth winner

Cash prize: € 5,000

Terna’s Highest Voted Work

Cash prize: € 2,000

To the work that receives the most votes from the people of Terna.

Amateur Award

Cash prize: € 5,000

Reserved for non-professionals partecipants, regardless of age.

Art Academy Special Commendation

Cash prize: € 2,000

Reserved for participants who, in the Young category, are enrolled in a higher education course in the fields relevant to the Prize.

All award-winning works will be present:

  • at the November exhibition at Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Rome);
  • in the photographic volume Driving Energy dedicated to the Prize;
  • in important European exhibitions during 2023 (upon assessment by the Jury and the Curator);

Governance

Comitato di presidenza

Igor De Biasio

Chairman of Terna

Giuseppina Di Foggia

Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Terna

Giurati

Lorenza Bravetta

Chair of the Panel
Photography consultant and curator of Photography, Cinema and New Media at La Triennale di Milano. She was the director of Magnum Photos for Continental Europe for three years, then she founded CAMERA - Centro Italiano per la Fotografia and was Advisor to the Minister of Cultural Heritage and Tourism for the enhancement of the national photographic heritage. Currently curator of Photography, Cinema and New Media at La Triennale di Milano, she is a consultant to Fondazione MAST (Bologna) and Fondazione Querini Stampalia (Venice), as well as an adjunct lecturer at IED in Turin and Vice-President of the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Cinisello Balsamo).

Maria Alicata

Professor and curator.
Art historian and curator, she teaches at the Art History school of specialisation at La Sapienza in Rome. She directed the Art, Architecture and Urban Planning programme for the Adriano Olivetti Foundation. Between 2011 and 2014, she curated the young artists programme and the residencies programme at the MACRO in Rome. She is one of the founders of the Magic Lantern Film Festival, the semi-annual event that investigates the relationship between cinema and the visual arts. She collaborates in the creation of exhibitions with MAXXI and the Baruchello Foundation.

Diane Dufour

Curator and editor.
The former European director of Magnum Photos, in 2010 Diane Dufour created LE BAL, the Parisian art centre for photography, video, cinema and new media. Internationally acclaimed, it is one of main exhibition spaces for photography in Europe. Its excellent worldwide status is reflected in joint productions with museums such as the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2013, Diane Dufour invented Curators’ Day, a project discussion and exchange platform including 30 European museums.

Francesco Zanot

Curator, essayist, and professor.
Curator of Camera, Turin from 2015 to 2017, he is the associate editor at Fantom, the curatorial platform based in Milan. Artistic director of Foto/Industria, the Biennial of Photography on Industry and Work organised by the MAST Foundation in Bologna, he is the director of the Master’s in Photography at NABA, Milan. He has held courses and seminars at many institutions and universities, including Columbia University in New York, ECAL in Lausanne, UPV in Valencia, and IUAV in Venice.

Andrea Purgatori

Journalist and screenwriter.
Professional journalist since 1974, he achieved a Master of Science in Journalism at Columbia University in New York in 1980. Reporter for il Corriere della Sera between 1976 and 2000, he is known for investigative reporting and news reports. Author of many screenplays and TV programmes, he currently collaborates with il Corriere della Sera and Style Magazine.

Massimiliano Paolucci

RExternal Relations, Institutional Affairs and Sustainability Manager at Terna
He is among the most important communication managers in Italy and has been, among other things: Director of External Relations and Communications at Acea, Director of Relations and Institutional Affairs at Condotte, Head of Communications at Aeroporti di Roma, Director of Communications at AISCAT, Director of Communications, Co-Director of External Relations and Head of Communications at all the subsidiaries of Telecom Italia Group, Director of Media Communications at the Pirelli Group.

Curatore

Marco Delogu

Photographer, editor, curator, Chairman of Azienda Speciale Palaexpo
He made his début in the world of avant-garde acting by founding the Argot theatre in 1984, which trained many Italian actors who would later obtain leading roles. He came to photography in the 1990s, first producing national and international advertising campaigns, then embarking on an independent path of aesthetic and thematic research. In the following years, he was a founder of initiatives in the field, a culture manager, an art director, and a curator.

Marco Pisciottani

Head of TernaCult
TernaCult is the Terna department tasked with conceiving, creating and managing cultural promotion activities.

I vincitori

Dione Roach

Martina Zanin

Antonio Vacirca

Beatrice Aiello

Lorenzo Pipi

Scopri tutti i finalisti del premio 2023

Media