Barbara Di Maio

Barbara Di Maio is a conference interpreter and translator living in Italy; she has been involved in photography since the early 2000s. She studied fashion and portrait photography at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, then completed her master's degree in Photojournalism and Reportage at the Rome School of Photography and Cinema.

Since 2010, her research has focused on anthropological and social photography, concentrating particularly on folklore, ritual practices, and popular cultures in Southern Italy. Women are at the center of her visual research examining the relationship between identity, tradition, and collective memory.

Her work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions and presented at national and international photography festivals. Her research on ritual culture was selected by the Futuro Arcaico digital archive for the A’ Maschkarata project, dedicated to regional identity and the folklore of historical carnivals.

In 2025, she was selected for the "Talents" section of the International Festival of Photojournalism in Padua, where she presented her "Chianda e Ndrezza" project, documenting a women-led agricultural community in the town of Vatolla, Cilento, as a solo exhibition.

She is currently working on two long-term research projects: "The Mask as a Symbol of Transformation and Mystery," examining the historical carnivals of Campania, and a photographic study of women's presence and roles in religious ceremonies entitled "In the Name of the Mother." The latter project was exhibited at the Museo Palazzo Doebbing in Sutri.

She collaborated on the "Strategia Fotografia 2022 – Legami Intangibili nei Paesaggi Festivi" (Intangible Ties in Festive Landscapes) project, developed with the Central Institute for Intangible Heritage (ICPI) in Rome and supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture (MiC). Six of her photographic reports were exhibited at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere.

Barbara Di Maio is the co-founder of Women in Street Italy, a community that supports women's perspectives and representation in street and documentary photography.