Elena Bellantoni (1975) is an artist and professor at ABAQ L’Aquila, ABA Roma, and NABA in Rome. Graduated in Contemporary Art History, she studied in Paris and London, earning an MA in Visual Art from the University Art of London in 2007. In 2007, she co-founded the Platform Translation Group in London, and in 2008, she opened the 91mQ art project space in Berlin. Her artistic research focuses on the concepts of identity and otherness – exploring territories and communities – employing the body and language as means of interaction. The exploratory devices that the artist uses range from video to photography, installations, sculptures, and drawing.

In 2023 she was as chosen and appointed as the Best Italian Artist of the Year by the contemporary art magazine Artribune. Bellantoni opened the Dior spring-summer 2024 fashion show with the NOT HER installation at the Tuileries Gardens in Paris in 2023. Among the awards and residencies she has received, in 2020 she won the ArtTeam Cup Award; in 2018, she won the Nctm and the Arte Studio Legale prize with residencies in Belgrade, Athens, and Istanbul; in 2017, she participated in The Subtle Urgencies at the Pistoletto Foundation and the ArtHouse, Italy/Albania; in 2016, she was selected by Soma Mexico for a residency in Mexico City; in 2009, she participated in As long as I’m walking, a residency with Francis Alÿs and Cuauthémoc Medina, curated by 98weeks, in Beirut. In 2018, she was among the winning artists of the IV edition of the Italian Council of the MIBACT; in 2019, she presented the book of her project at the MAXXI in Rome with a focus on her video production. In 2018, she was selected for the Collateral events of Manifesta12 in Palermo. In 2014, she won the special Repubblica.it Prize at the Talent Prize; in 2012, with In Other Words, the Black Market of Translation – Negotiating Contemporary Cultures, she won the NGBK competition in Berlin with an exhibition at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien. In 2009, she won the Movin’up Worldwide from the GAI (Giovani Artisti Italiani) of the Italian Prime Minister’s Office for a residency in Santiago, Chile; in 2006, she won the Tempelhof-Schöneberg Kunstpreis in Berlin.