Francesco Cocco was born in Recanati, Italy in 1960. He began working as a photographer in 1989. Keenly interested in social marginalization and the world of children, he immediately started visiting ‘difficult’ countries, especially in Asia.  
In Bangladesh, he photographed the living conditions of street kids and documented child labor practices.  
In Vietnam, just after the borders reopened, he created a photo essay for the exhibition Vietnam Oggi (Modena, Italy, 1993).  
In Cambodia, working with Emergency, he tackled the dramatic story of landmine victims. In the same country, with the support of the NGO New Humanity, he collected images of child prostitution.  
In Brazil, he photographed blind people at the Benjamin Constant Institute in Rio de Janeiro and the exploitation of child labor on the island of Marajoa, in the Amazon basin.

1999
A selection of photos on the theme of children traumatized by war became part of the exhibition Ci Sono Bambini a Zig-Zag (Carpi, Italy).

2000
In Mitrovica, Kosovo, for the Semi di Pace educational project funded by the Italian government’s Missione Arcobaleno initiative, he documented civilian living conditions after the war. In the same period, he began a personal exploration of the world of handicaps and the ‘differently abled’, a work-in-progress entitled Babilonia.

2001
He undertook a project at the pediatric onco-hemotology ward of Sant'Orsola Hospital in Bologna.

2002
He embarked on a long study of men’s and women’s prison conditions in Italy, creating work later shown in the exhibition Prisons (Modena, 55th Festa Provinciale de l’Unità, September 2006; Rome, Sala Santa Rita, March 2007) and published in book format by Logos, with texts by Adriano Sofri and Renata Ferri.

2003
Since 2003, he has been represented by the photojournalism agency Contrasto. His photo essays have appeared in La Repubblica, L’Espresso, Panorama, Marie Claire, Vanity Fair, and Internazionale. In the same year, he began working with Médecins Sans Frontières on a project about immigration in Italy.

2004
With thirteen other photographers, he took part in Eurogeneration, a study of young people and their lifestyles in the 25 countries of the European Union, which culminated in an exhibition at Milan’s Palazzo Reale and a book published by Contrasto.

2005
A selection of pictures from Prisons was presented at Visa pour l’Image, the international photo-journalism festival in Perpignan.

2006
A portfolio of the same photos made the final selection for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and was shown at Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles.

2007
The book Nero, published by Logos in partnership with Médicins Sans Frontières, presented a selection of pictures taken for the NGO, with texts by Gian Antonio Stella and Renata Ferri. The same year, along with other photographers, he took part in a project about mothers in Italian penitentiaries, with an exhibition at the Italian Parliament (Che Ci Faccio Io Qui?, Rome, 2007). He worked with other photographers from Contrasto on a challenging campaign to document life in China, presented in October under the title Beijing In and Out at the Milan Triennale. With Lorenzo Pesce, he depicted the daily struggles of Cambodians to build a future for their country. This project, carried out with the support of the NGO ActionAid, became the book La ruota che gira, published by Contrasto, with texts by Emanuela Zuccalà.

2008
Contrasto also published Solo in Italia, with texts by Antonio Pascale. In December, he visited Afghanistan for the NGO Emergency.

2009
A selection of pictures from Nero was exhibited at New York’s Schomburg Center in the exhibition They Won’t Budge: Africans in Europe. He is currently working on a new long-term project about prostitution in various parts of the world.