Hi there, and thanks for passing by.

My name is Chiara, pronounced with K, although some people call me Clara and Farah.

I was born in Italy and have lived long term in Spain, Syria, Egypt, UK and India. I am currently based in Barcelona.

Even if I was introduced to photography at a very young age by my aunt Daniela, a photographer herself, it was only after exploring other fields that I went back to it.

My passion for languages, literature and humans led me to get a Master of Arts in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies with a focus on cultural and social anthropology from Ca’ Foscari University, Italy. I also studied at Granada University, Damascus University, Cairo University and at the American University in Cairo as an Associate MA Researcher.

Over the years, I have worked as a language and linguistics teacher and cross-cultural communication consultant in various environments, from the corporate world to humanitarian emergencies and at some point I was even a business executive myself. I guess photography was a sort of relief from this phase of my life, a way to build a scenery outside the one I had to deal with everyday. It was then when I embraced the creation of images as one more tool to connect with people.

I kept on educating myself, both through lessons of established photographers and independently. One of my mentors is Patrick Zachmann, whom I have been assisting during international workshops and exhibitions.

From 2015 to 2018 I was an active member of the Venice-based photography research centre ISOLAB. Here, I designed and ran photography workshops in different languages and organised exhibitions, artists’ talks and book presentations. 

Overall, my work entails a search for cultural identities in various social environments and mainly focuses on the female world. I am drawn to stories of migrations, sexuality and solutions within the dramatic chaos of this world.

I am fluent in Arabic, English, French, Italian, Spanish and have basic knowledge of Catalan, Farsi, German, Hindi, Portuguese and Urdu.

I avoid the adjectives “interesting” and “prestigious”.