Fabio Barile (b. 1980, Barletta) lives and works in Rome. His research concerns natural processes and the forms they produce over time, and proceeds from the premise that evolution does not repeat the past but builds with what it leaves available. His instrument is the large-format camera.
He graduated in photography from Fondazione Studio Marangoni, Florence, in 2007, and was among the fifteen finalists of the Atlante Italiano 007 award, shown at MAXXI, Rome. That same year he began Among, a survey of the erosion affecting some 1,500 km of the Italian coastline, later included in Visions and Documents, published by Documentary Platform. In 2009 he held his first solo exhibition, Diary n°0, things that do not happen, within Fotografia — Festival Internazionale di Roma, which led to his first book, curated and produced by 3/3.
Between 2013 and 2018 he developed An Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution and Restoration of Land, structured around James Hutton’s theory of the Earth. Following solo exhibitions at Matèria in 2015 and 2017, the work was shown that same year at the ICCD in Rome, curated by Benedetta Cestelli Guidi, in dialogue with the institute’s historical archive.
In 2019, with Domingo Milella, he presented Le Forme del Tempo, curated by Alessandro Dandini de Sylva, at Centro Arti Visive Pescheria, Pesaro, and in 2022 a new installation of the project at the Terme di Diocleziano, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome. Between 2019 and 2020 his work was included in On Earth — Imaging, Technology and the Natural World, at the 50th Rencontres d’Arles, Foam in Amsterdam and Le Lieu Unique in Nantes. In 2020 he was one of five photographers selected by UNESCO to work on the most recently inscribed Italian World Heritage sites.
More recent exhibitions include The Secret of the Deep Time, Verwey Museum, Haarlem (2024); On the Edge of the Eyelid, Nivola Museum, Orani (2025); No Place Like Home — Italian Photography since the 1980s, Kunsthalle Darmstadt (2025) and SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen (2026); and Peninsula, curated by Renata Ferri, at Cortona On The Move (2026).
A portfolio from Works for a Cosmic Feeling appeared in Foam Magazine #57, In Limbo (2020); the book was a finalist for the MACK First Book Award in 2021 and published by Witty Books in 2024. Two further books follow in 2026: ASHES (Aniene) and AMONG — When the Sea Moves In (Witty Books). His work is held in the collections of Fondazione MAST, ICCD, MAXXI and Foam. He is represented by Matèria, Rome.
2026
Peninsula (Group exhibition)
Cortona On The Move, Cortona (AR), Italy
No Place Like Home — Italian Photography since the 1980s (Group exhibition)
SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen, Germany
2025
No Place Like Home — Italian Photography since the 1980s (Group exhibition)
Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
On the Edge of the Eyelid (Group exhibition)
Nivola Museum, Orani (NU), Italy
2024
The Secret of the Deep Time (Group exhibition)
Verwey Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands
2022
Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella — Le Forme del Tempo
Terme di Diocleziano, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome, Italy
Di Roccia, fuochi e avventure sotterranee (Group exhibition)
MAXXI, L'Aquila, Italy
2021
Di Roccia, fuochi e avventure sotterranee (Group exhibition)
MAXXI, Rome, Italy
Works for a Cosmic Feeling (Solo exhibition)
Matèria, Rome, Italy
2020
On Earth — Imaging, technology and the natural world (Group exhibition)
Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, France
On Earth — Imaging, technology and the natural world (Group exhibition)
Foam Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2019
On Earth — Imaging, technology and the natural world (Group exhibition)
50th edition of the Rencontres d’Arles, Arles, France
Fabio Barile & Domingo Milella — Le Forme del Tempo
Centro Arti visive Pescheria, Pesaro, Italy
2017
An Investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land (Solo exhibition)
Matèria, Rome, Italy
Osservare la terra — a dialogue between contemporary photography
and the historical archive of ICCD (Solo exhibition)
ICCD — Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome, Italy
2015
Homage to James Hutton (Solo exhibition)
Matèria, Rome, Italy