Unpublished Photo is an event promoted by MUSEC and the Fondazione culture e musei di Lugano, in collaboration with 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery di Milano.
Since 2018, the project has attracted young photographers under 36 from all over the world. In 2020 the MUSEC wanted to consolidate the initiative by giving it an institutional framework and a medium-long-term development perspective, with the aim of reporting the main international trends of young art photography. The intention of the MUSEC is also to establish in Lugano a real archive of contemporary photography, which will find space next to the nineteenth-century collection and the collection of photography of Esotismo that the museum already possesses. The exhibition, curated by Alessia Borellini and Moira Luraschi, is set up in the renowned Spazio Maraini of Villa Malpensata in Lugano and presents 24 large-format photographic prints.

The protagonists of the temporary exhibition are four young talents selected in July by the international jury of the UP21 prize, chaired by the German photographer Hans Georg Berger.
Artists deal with topical issues such as biodiversity and the erosion of natural ecosystems, war conflicts, the recovery of tradition and the importance of the link between past and present.

At the end of the exhibition, the works on display will become part of the MUSEC collections, thus enriching the photographic collections that today count over 40,000 works from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day.

The ex aequo winners of the 1st prize, consisting of a bag of € 5,000, are the Vietnamese photographer Khanh Bui Phu and the young Syrian photographer Mouneb Taim. The jury also wanted to include in the exhibition the works of Indian photographer Avinash Mishra and Li Zhang (China).