Join us this year as FUTURES brings a full program to Unseen Photography Fair!
Featured Artists:
At our booth, we are proud to present the works of Karolina Wojtas, Alexey Shlyk, and Claudia Fuggetti, three standout artists who were residents at the FUTURES Hub in Amsterdam earlier this year.
Artist Talk:
On Friday, September 20th, at 17:00, don’t miss a special artist talk by Nikhil Vettukattil, the current artist-in-residence from the FUTURES X MPB program. Nikhil will present their project The Institute for Scene Experiments at Meijburg Lounge - Unseen.
UNFOLDING FUTURES Showcase:
FUTURES will also spotlight four talented recent graduates from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK)—Alia Leonardi, Joseph Kennel, Daniel Zduniuk, and Benjamin Morrison. Their projects from the UNFOLDING FUTURES residency will be featured on a dedicated wall at Unseen, offering a glimpse into the innovative approaches of the next generation of photographers.
FUTURES at Unseen Fair
🗓️ Thursday, September 19 – Sunday, September 22
🎤 Artist Talk: Friday, September 20 at 17:00 | Meijburg Lounge, Unseen Amsterdam Photography Fair
📌 Location: Klönneplein 1, 1014 DD Amsterdam
We look forward to seeing you there!
Join us on Saturday August 31st for the collective open studio celebrating the conclusion of the summer residency UNFOLDING FUTURES.
During two months, four emerging photographers have been in residency at FUTURES Hub, exploring contemporary photographic formats and installation displays. Their studios have become a generative space for experimentation and research during their creative processes.
In this final event, the four photographers will share a collective installation at the studio space, including additional works activating the building of FUTURES Photography Hub. The event will include a presentation talk in which we will reflect together with the public on their experiences during the residency, the importance of the creative process and the experimentation with the photographic medium.
It will be accompanied by a display of publications and photobooks by the participating artists including the works of other photographers recently graduated from diverse art academies and universities in the Netherlands.
The collective event of UNFOLDING FUTURES is also willing to bring together emerging photographers from diverse backgrounds, providing a meeting platform for creative exchange.
UNFOLDING FUTURES - Collective Installation and Public Event
Date: August 31st, 2024
Schedule:
18:00 Welcoming
18:30 - 21:00 Collective installation and public event
Location: FUTURES Hub, Isaac Titsinghkade 6, 1018 LL Amsterdam
Daniel Zduniuk, Must Be Eaten
"Must be Eaten", an ongoing project, questions the accessibility of contemporary art institutions to the public via a disruptive element: the silverfish. Because its diet is based mainly on paper, the silverfish is seen as an undesirable creature eager to eat paper: to eat art. Using a game of scale, perspective and composite photography, the project aims to challenge the established codes of the art market and conservation, by proposing a cyclical, organic vision of the art production process.
Opening and Open Studio Daniel Zduniuk
Date: 29 August 2024
Schedule:
- 18:00: Welcoming
- 18:30 - 21.00: Open Studio and Screening
Location: FUTURES Hub, Isaac Titsinghkade 6, 1018 LL Amsterdam
Alia Leonardi, Moi, a girl
“Moi, a girl” showcases the interplay of semantics and imagery on social media, in doing so highlighting the platforms’ transformative power in shaping contemporary gender expressions. This project seeks to explore gender performativity within digital and meme culture. The girls online fight against scrutinisation, can online identity and the aesthetic of the “coquette/silly girls” in fact be seen as as strategy against gender norms and societal expectations? Despite the capitalist nature of social media, there is potential for feminist discourses and resistance to organise on such platforms against patriarchal structures. What if endless doomscrolling was an act of resistance?
Drawing on the “Theory of the Young Girl” by Tiqqun, cyberfeminism and postmodernist frameworks are used to reappropriate an identity constructed by consumerist culture and the male gaze. The girls of the internet act as subversive figures, with the idea that if the space exists, it should be taken over or transformed.
In this subversive exploration, stereotypically feminine craft techniques like embroidery and textiles are employed to emphasise the engagement of the work. The installation manifests as a network of objects, visuals, and texts, all interwoven to reflect the interconnected reality of the girl’s online existence and its impact on the physical world but also as a refusal to be completely perceived by an outsider audience.
this one’s for the girls and the gays <3
Opening and Open Studio Alia Leonardi
Date: 15 August 2024
Schedule:
- 18:00: Welcoming
- 18:30 - 21.00: Open Studio and Screening
Location: FUTURES Hub, Isaac Titsinghkade 6, 1018 LL Amsterdam
Joseph Kennel, I Stood at the Foot of a Mountain
485 million years ago sediments from unnamed volcanic eruptions slowly settled on the hillsides of unnamed mountains. Compressed over millions of years, these sediments combined, forming blueish-gray stones, stones that now constitute slate, a defining feature of the landscape and culture of North Wales. The inactive Dinorwic slate quarry and the peak of Yr Wyddfa, the highest peak in the UK lies only a few kilometers from each other. Both exist today as important sites of tourist attraction, yet they carry distinctive visual archives and human marks that uniquely historicize each space in the present. ‘I Stood at the Foot of a Mountain’ looks at the material histories of slate as a connection point to consider the temporal and spatial realities that exist within both locations. Reconstitutions through time of the slate into culturally mediated forms, operational devices, and a post industrial landscape marks and breaks the stones’ slow lifecycle. Noticing the collision of temporalities held within the materiality of this space, allows us to step out of one temporality into another, to reflect on the projected image of one on another. Through a remediation of space, visually and sonically, the geological becomes an inflection point to consider how an anthropocentric vision of the past is re-inscribed on the present.
Opening and Open Studio Joseph Kennel
Date: 01 August 2024
Schedule:
- 18:00: Welcoming
- 18:30 - 21.00: Open Studio and Screening
Location: FUTURES Hub, Isaac Titsinghkade 6, 1018 LL Amsterdam
Benjamin Morrison, When it Rains
When it Rains is a series of proofs that life has continuity and history. A patchwork diary of disparate narratives woven together. Sketches, ideas and words once said. In a moment of observation, between presence and absence, clarity and failure, this work is a reminder of my own reality.
Opening and Open Studio Benjamin Morrison
Date: 18 July 2024
Schedule:
- 18:00: Welcoming
- 18:30 - 21.00: Open Studio and Screening
Location: FUTURES Hub, Isaac Titsinghkade 6, 1018 LL Amsterdam
More information will follow!
Join us on May 30, 2024, in Amsterdam for a special event hosted at the Futures Hub. With the collaboration of FUTURES member FOTODOK, the event will give you an insider's view into the photobook-making process with artist-in-residence Yana Kononova and book designer João Linneu. Over an intensive period of collaboration and creative exchange – beginning on May 20th – Linneu, Kononova, and FOTODOK’s curator Daria Tuminas will work together on editing and designing Kononova’s first photobook, to be co-published by FOTODOK and XYZ Books.
The publication aims to bring together works from Kononova’s ongoing "Radiations of War" project, which delves into the profound repercussions of warfare in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Plus, enjoy homemade Ukrainian snacks by Amsterdam-based artist Alex Blanco, who will serve a selection of homemade Ukrainian snacks, drawing on her recent photobook "Meat, Fish & Aubergine Caviar." The project, which Blanco will introduce, is an intimate story reflecting on both Ukrainian and Odesan culture through the prism of food and family.
Finally, visitors are invited to discover a selection of photobooks by Ukrainian makers, first brought together for FOTODOK’S "Whispers and Shouts: Voices of Ukrainian Women Photographers" exhibition in 2023.
Book-in-residency
Address: Futures Hub, Isaac Titsinghkade 6, Amsterdam
Timeline:
18:30 - 19:00: Walk-in and welcome
19:00 - 19:45: Alex Blanco book presentation and related snacks
19:45 - 21:00: Conversation between Yana Kononova and João Linneu
This artist residency and event form part of the European programme, Intergalactica: Books for the Culture Without Borders. The programme connects institutions and artists across Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy to create innovative photobooks with a focus on common issues across the European Union.
About the Participants:
Alex Blanco, born in Ukraine currently lives in the Netherlands. She holds a Master’s degree in Film & Photographic Studies from Leiden University and completed a photography semester at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Blanco’s passion lies in creating emotionally charged, cinematic images that resonate with her personal memories. Her Meat, Fish & Aubergine Caviar project was awarded the 2023 Nobuyoshi Araki MA-g Awards for Photography, in the Original Photography Series category.
João Linneu is a Brazilian-born designer based in Reykjavík, Iceland. With over 20 years experience in communication, Linneu has garnered international acclaim for his innovative approach to design. He has held roles of Art Director, Head of Art and Creative Director in São Paulo and London, whilst his work has been honoured by prestigious design awards including D&AD,Cannes Lions, One Show and Clio. A co-founder of Void, an Athens-based independent publishing house focused on photography, Linneu’s portfolio includes over 200 publications. Today, Linneu designs books for publishing houses worldwide through his award-winning studio Kakkalakki, co-founded with his wife Fernanda Fajardo.
Yana Kononova was born on Pirallahi island in the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, her family moved to Ukraine, where she first immersed herself in photography. Graduating from the Photoschool of Viktor Marushchenko, she further honed her skills through a photography course organised by the Image Threads Collective (USA). With a background in social science, Kononova holds a PhD in Sociology. Her artistic talent has been recognised by awards such as the 2019 Bird in Flight Prize in Emerging Photography and the 2022 Hariban Award, whilst her works have featured in both exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad. She was included in FOTODOK’s 2023 exhibition Whispers and Shouts: Voices of Ukrainian Women Photographers, where her work contributed to a collective narrative on the effects of war and displacement.
We are pleased to invite you to the exhibition Metamorphosis by visual artist Claudia Fuggetti which will take place on 16 May at 17:00 at the Futures Hub in Amsterdam.
Metamorphosis reflects the current historical period: a phase of transition and change that has an impact not only on humanity but also on the natural world. Inspired by the ecological philosopher David Abram, this project encourages viewers to re-imagine nature as a living entity. The colour interventions within the photographs symbolise the life that persists in harsh environmental conditions.
The exhibition aims to promote a communal experience of how we perceive nature and climate change through an immersive exhibition and contemplative space. The artist will also present new works created during the FUTURES X MPB residency.
During the exhibition, visitors will be invited to participate in a collective performance by contributing phrases or words related to the concept of nature in a common book.
Opening | Metamorphosis by Claudia Fuggetti
Date: 16 May, 2024
Time: 17:00 - 20:30
Location: Isaac Titsinghkade 6B, Amsterdam
Free entrance!
Don't miss out, we look forward to seeing you there!
About Claudia Fuggetti:
Born in Taranto in 1993, after graduating in Cultural Heritage, Claudia Fuggetti attended the Master's degree in Photography and Visual Design at NABA, Milan. Subsequently, she graduated with honors in Digital Cultures at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. Her works have been exhibited at Les Rencontres de la Photographie Arles (FR), Fotofestival Lenzburg (CH), Copenhagen Photo Festival (DK), Rotterdam Photo Festival (NL), PhMuseum Days (IT), Geste Paris (FR), Giovane Fotografia Italiana (IT) and MIA Fair (IT). She is also one of the 150 emerging talents in Europe for Fresh Eyes by GUP Magazine and British Journal of Photography's Edition 365 winner.
It is the time of the year for FUTURES Conversations! These are a series of professional meetings between FUTURES selected artists and professionals in the photography field. Curators, artists, editors, gallerists, publishers, and writers will be there to discuss what FUTURES artists need to know from them: advice for a project, research suggestions, business orientation, writing skills, grants application advice, etc. The conversations take place every year online and offline during the annual event.