10/3 4PM- Eleonora Agostini | Artist Talk Seeing and Being Seen: How We Relate to One Another
© Eleonora Agostini / More Ideal, More Clean: On Constructed Bonds
A conversation on the residency project
More Ideal, More Clean: On Constructed Bonds
Reminders Photography Stronghold presents an artist talk with Eleonora Agostini, currently in residence at RPS. In conversation with RPS curator Yumi Goto, Agostini will introduce the ideas that underpin her practice, share work in progress, and discuss her research in Tokyo.
Working primarily with photography, alongside performance, moving image and text, the London-based artist explores how identity takes shape and is performed within social and cultural frameworks. Central to her practice is the relationship between looking and being looked at: how we come to understand ourselves, our bodies and our behaviour through the gaze of others.
Where do our ideas of how we should look, behave and relate to others come from? The images we encounter in everyday life help establish these ideals. In seeking recognition and acceptance, we absorb them, act them out and reproduce them in turn.
The talk will draw on self-portraits, photographs taken by Agostini and by her family, and her reinterpretations of screenshots from Disney animations. Through these materials, she will explore the interplay between seeing and being seen, and the roles individuals are expected to play within a group.
These questions also inform her current research into how relationships are constructed and mediated across different social and cultural contexts. In More Ideal, More Clean: On Constructed Bonds, the project she is developing during her residency at RPS, Agostini turns her attention to family rental services in Tokyo. Her research considers what happens when roles such as those of family members are performed, and relationships become a form of professional work.
What does authenticity mean in a relationship built around a performed role? How do we understand care, emotional labour and belonging when personal feelings meet social expectations? Join us for a conversation about Agostini’s ongoing research and creative process, and the questions they raise about the relationships in our own lives.
”Eleonora Agostini | Artist Talk
Seeing and Being Seen: How We Relate to One Another”
Venue | Reminders Photography Stronghold
2-38-5 Higashimukojima, Sumida-ku, Tokyo
Date & time | Saturday, 3 October 2026, 16:00–18:00
Speakers | Eleonora Agostini and Yumi Goto (curator, Reminders Photography Stronghold)
Language | English, with Japanese interpretation
Admission | Free
Enquiries | event@reminders-project.org
Instagram | @remindersphotographystronghold / @eleonoraagostini
© Eleonora Agostini / More Ideal, More Clean: On Constructed Bonds
© Eleonora Agostini / More Ideal, More Clean: On Constructed Bonds
© Eleonora Agostini / More Ideal, More Clean: On Constructed Bonds
About | Eleonora Agostini
Eleonora Agostini is an Italian artist based in London, where she received her MA from the Royal College of Art in 2018.
Agostini works mainly with photography, while also incorporating performance, moving image and text within her work. Her practice looks at how identity is constructed and performed within social and cultural frameworks, and is interested in the gaze as a force that produces what it observes.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions at galleries and museums including the Quadriennale di Roma, FOAM Amsterdam, Deutsche Börse Foundation, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, ICC Stockholm, MAR Ravenna, the National Museum of Gdańsk, Almanac Turin, L21 Gallery, South London Gallery, Borough Road Gallery, and Leeds Art Gallery. Her work has also been presented at festivals including Fotofestiwal Łódź, Peckham 24, Fotografia Europea, Getxophoto, FORMAT, and Circulation(s).
In 2025, Agostini won the Aperture First Book Award at Paris Photo with her photobook A Study on Waitressing. The same year, she was longlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize. In 2024, she was selected for FOAM Talent and shortlisted for the Paul Huf Award. She is the recipient of the Nuove Traiettorie 2023 award, supported by the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm and Giovane Fotografia Italiana. She was selected as a Futures Photography Talent by CAMERA Torino in 2021 and was a Bloomberg New Contemporaries artist in 2019.
Her practice has been supported by Arts Council England (2023) and the Italian Council (2024 and 2025). Her work is held in public and private collections including the UK Government Art Collection, the Donata Pizzi Collection (Rome), the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, and FOAM Amsterdam.