Matilde Damele was born in Bologna and graduated in English literature from the city university.
In 1998 she moved to New York to learn photography. There she photographed for Community centers and free lanced for the newspapers Il Resto del Carlino and The Christian Science monitor while she developed her street photography project. She also taught photography workshops in colleges and lectured at ICP.She exhibited her work in various collective shows in the city.
In 2014, she obtained a masters' degree in photography from Central Saint Martins University in London and her project Exiles won a Marlborough gallery prize. Shortly after it was exhibited at Photo London in 2019.Now she lives in Rome where she continues her projects and teaches photography at American colleges and institutes.
In 2025 she published her 'New York 1999-2014' book with DCV publishing in Berlin.