Her practice emerges from the dialogue among people and develops through collaborations, often proposed as workshops as well as participatory and relational processes involving territories and communities, particularly within complex or socially fragile contexts.
Her work originates at the intersection of visual experimentation and other disciplines, including performance, oral history, and social sciences. The outcomes of her research span a variety of forms: photography, video art, objects, artist’s books, installations, public-space interventions, performances, and collective or festive events.
Ilaria Turba’s work explores themes such as the relationship between memory and the present, collective imaginaries, and desire as a catalyst for imagination, transformation, and change.
The dialogue with private and public archives -particularly photographic ones- is a recurring element in her research. Over the last few years, she has often worked with children and teenagers.
Her first monograph JEST which explores the artist’s family photographic archive from 1870 to the present and intertwines private memory with collective imaginaries, was released at the end of 2016 by the Berlin-based imprint Peperoni Books. It was featured in “How We See: Photobooks by Women”, a book edited by 10×10 Photobooks (NYC,US), launched in October 2018 at The New York Public Library, then at MEP Paris and nominated for the 2019 Photo-Aperture Photobook Awards.
JEST was presented as a solo exhibition in January 2018 at the Espace d’art contemporain Atelier, Nantes (FR) with the support of the City of Nantes and CCNN the National Choreographic Centre of Nantes (FR).
Ilaria Turba has been an associated artist at Le ZEF, Marseille’s national theatre, from 2018 to 2022. Her public and participatory art project, Le désir de regarder loin, which explored the desires of communities in the northern districts of Marseille, was awarded by the Italian Council, selected for MANIFESTA13, and exhibited in a dual solo exhibition at the MUCEM Museum in Marseille in June 2021, included in Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles.
In 2022, The Journey of the Breads of Desire was launched, a nomadic project in which the breads created in Marseille engaged in dialogue with communities across Italy, hosted by institutions including MAXXI L’Aquila, MAD Florence, Mutty (Mantua), the International Museum of the Red Cross, Madre Project in Chiaravalle, Milan, and others. The journey concluded in Villaurbana, Sardinia, where the artist and the community burned the entire collection of the Breads of Desire, supported by ARS a program of Fondazione di Sardegna, and presented at the MAN Museum in Nuoro in autumn 2025.
Centre Pompidou, Paris, (FR); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (I); Brooklyn Children’s Museum, New York (US); Le Cent Quatre Paris (FR), Espace for contemporary art “Atelier” Ville de Nantes (FR); Museo della Triennale, Milan (I); Museo Archeologico, Naples (I); Munaf Museo Fotografia Contemporanea, Milan (I); PAC-Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan (I); Museo Diffuso della Resistenza, Turin (I); Museo d’arte di Mendrisio, Mendrisio (CH); Casa Testori, Milan (I).
Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles, (FR); Festival Trajectoires, Nantes (FRA); Festival Videoformes, Clermont-Ferrand (FR); Théâtre Louis Aragon – Tremblay-en-France, Paris (FR); Deux Scènes – Scène Nationale de Besançon (FR); Festival Filosofia di Modena, Modena (I); Festival Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia (I); Css Friuli Venezia Giulia (I); Festival Orestiadi, Gibellina (I); Festival Castellinaria, Bellinzona (CH); Festival Animac, Catalunya (ES); Festival In Teatro, Ancona (I); Giffoni Film Festival (I).
Amnesty International (EU); Micamera (I); Kessels Krammer (NL); Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes (F); Fondazione Vico Magistretti (I); Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli (I); RSI (swiss broadcasting network-CH); Fondazione Pro- helvetia (CH); Fondazione Dalmine / Tenaris; UNASAM (I).
2020 Italian Council MiBACT (Italian Ministry of Culture) – 2018-21 associated artist at Le ZEF Scène Nationale de Marseille – 2019 I-portunus, Creative Europe (UE), 2011 prize Fondation Varenne, Festival Videoformes; 2010 prize MOVIN UP – Gai MiBAC (Italian Ministry of Culture); 2007 prize Cinema d’autore, DECS ( Swiss-Italian Department of Culture).
2016- JEST- Peperoni Books. Berlin, Germany
2021- Le désir de regarder loin – Édition du Mucem, Graphic design: Paper Tiger. Marseille, France.
2023- Le simmetrie dei desideri- (the Symmetries of Desires) Postmedia Books, Milan Italy
2026- (Upcoming) Les pains du désir – Nazraeli press, USA-UK