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Eleonora Agostini (b. 1991) works primarily with photography, while also incorporating video, collage, text, and installation within her work.
Her practice explores the ways in which personal identity is constructed and performed within social and cultural frameworks.
She is interested in the tensions that emerge when private and public dimensions intersect, revealing how cultural expectations, power dynamics, and collective structures shape our understanding of identity, labour, intimate relationships, and space.
Agostini lives and works in London, where she graduated from the Royal College of Art.
Agostini's A Study on Waitressing is a multi-layered investigation on waitressing used as a metaphor to explore ideas of gender behaviors, societal expectations, and performing in and for the public. The work scrutinizes the fictionalized image of the ‘waitressing woman’, by exploring the stage, the backstage, and the performative aspects of this role. Agostini looks at mundane gestures and postures, commonplace objects and materials, strategies and visual codes of the service industry context to reflect upon power and gender dynamics, labor, representation, and the gaze. Central to the project is the figure of Agostini’s mother, whose postures, movements, and behaviors serve as a focal point. This figure becomes a vehicle to explore the visible and hidden aspects of identity, emphasizing the social roles performed in daily interactions. The restaurant setting acts as a microcosm where the body mediates between observer and observed, highlighting the theatricality inherent in everyday life. A Study on Waitressing delves into the relationship between labor and personal life, between vulnerability and strength, between the public and private, between the observer and the observed, and between a mother and daughter.
Awards: Aperture - Paris Photo book award 2024 - Winner; Les Rencontres d’Arles Book Awards 2025 - Shortlisted; Lens culture, Best photobook 2024