Zellei studied Photography at the University of Kaposvár and received her MA in Photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest in 2017. In 2016 she studied as a visiting student at Hochschule für Künste Bremen. Besides Hungary, she was represented in exhibitions in Berlin, London, Vienna, Kanazawa, Breda, and Monopoli. Her works were published in several magazines, for example on the cover of HANT Magazine für Fotografie, in The Guardian, Spiegel Online, IMA Magazine (JP) and C41 Magazine (IT).
In 2020 she earned the 3-year scholarship of Hungarian Academy of Fine Art. In 2018 the artist was a New East Photo Prize finalist, a Prix Pictet nominee, and earned the Pécsi József Photography Grant. She won the third prize of Different Worlds competition in 2017.
Léonie Pondevie's photographic form is composite, arranged by the aggregation of clues: contemporary shots, collected archive images and shared personal documents sit side by side on the wall like evidence of an ongoing investigation into complex and evolving realities. In Un point bleu pâle, Léonie Pondevie contemplates the sky and observes the weather. In the same way that her father would obsessively record rainfall levels and temperatures in small notebooks, she assembles particle images, waiting to be analysed. She subjects these images to a kind of poetic decantation: her father's notebooks and his measurements from another age, archive images of the village where he was born, press cuttings from the 1970s, the clouds in front of us at sea, a hand caressing an antediluvian granite and raindrops on the hood of a relative. The stratospheric and the extremely close, immensity and intimacy, impassive geological time and climatic urgency, it's all there, under the same sky. Placing her observation post at the heart of her family history, Léonie Pondevie eludes the Manichean demonstration: the photographic project, though wide-ranging, does not claim to elucidate anything, but sets itself up as a humble hypothesis. What Un point bleu pâle portrays is the act of human experience; not the thing, the climate, but the ways in which we take it into consideration, from the observer who guesses at its insignificance and modestly records the life of the clouds in little notebooks to the way they are boxed up by geo-engineers, neo-demiurges. From these decanted images, the reflection of a distant land, with which we have lost contact, rises. The simultaneous and paradoxical measure of our insignificance and ourpower to cause harm.
Léonie Pondevie (1996) graduated from the École européenne supérieure d'art de Bretagne in Lorient in 2020. She is a member of the Collectif Nouveau Document and is based in Lorient.
Gulsah Ayla Bayrak (born 1997), is an interdisciplinary artist from Belgium, working on the larger themes of identity and belonging, in a complex world of interactions between her the different fragments that she embodies: Her Turkish roots and her political identity as a citizen of modern Europe, juxtaposed for the ramifications of feminist theory when thinking about the body and the self and the cultural and political consequences of queerness in an era of increasing polarization, but also of multiple polarities. Taking the migration stories in her own family as a starting point, Bayrak draws on personal biographies, to re-narrate events in such a way as to reconstruct the experience of lived time, and not merely chronologies. In her practice, moving seamlessly between Asia and Europe, both physically and emotionally, the polarity of global north versus global south emerges sharply, around the political definition of “East”—a borderland of European modernity, wholly constructed by it. The idea of the fragment resurfaces in Bayrak’s projects as a partial narrative, constitutive of our shared, social experience, and which cannot be dovetailed or manipulated, so that it remains always alive, fresh, fragile, and unfinished. In this inconclusiveness the artist finds paradox, and within paradox, the complexities of modern identities fabricated from torn off bits of different, larger structures. In dealing with objects as markers of memory, and with memories as physical objects Gulsah Ayla Bayrak creates unfinishable threads of historicity, unfolding in simultaneity, searching for a lost, but ultimately unidentifiable, temporal index.
"My work focusses on absence. Absence that we try to fill in with information. My mother found her biological family through a Dutch television show and even though she was reunited with relatives, many questions remain, including why she was given up for adoption. My mother was born in Spain in 1964, when dictator Francisco Franco was ruling. It always felt strange not being able to talk about my mother’s past simply because we don’t know exactly what happened. With my work, I’m there for exploring the process of reconstruction, and the distortion of narrative within memory.
The projects I make are dealing with the relationship between politics, media and citizens. How these three opponents feed each other, need each other, but also exist in a constant power struggle. I examine the reliability of the image in the post-truth era, it forms a grey area where fact and fiction live close to each other. This is the area from where I position myself.
My visual language is based on what I see in the media and comes from the connection I had with the tv show where we discovered my relatives. The show shaped and directed my memory so much and intrigued me a lot. I am therefore also specifically interested in that what has been manipulated.
I use artificial light in order to give a cinematic feeling to the work, which is based on emotions that tries to lure its audience into believing what is created in front of them.
In my work I take on the role of a director that investigates what truth means in modern times."
My name is Þórsteinn Svanhildarson and I am a photographer from Reykjavík, Iceland. I graduated from Photography School Of Iceland class 2018. I run a small gallery/project space down town Reykjavík called Núllið Gallery. (Instagram: @nullidgallery)
Books and zines:Juvenile Bliss. 2018 - GRAZIE PRESS (book)Container Society pt 1. 2018 - GRAZIE PRES (book)Rest in Pain. 2016 (partnership w. Kocane Wayne / Sniper. (zine)Untitled 2009 (zine)
Solo-exhibition:Núllið gallery - Juvenile Bliss book publishing celebration. 2018Gallery Port - Container Society 2018KEX Hostel- The Old Living Art Museum - 2017Lost Horse Gallery Reykjavik - 2007
Joint-exhibitions:Blurring the lines - Paris College of Art, Fotodok, Urbanautica institute, Fotofever - 2018Gallery Port - Christmas Editions 2017Gallery Port - 2016Reykjavík Culture Night Exhibition 2010 - Laugavegur 32Gallery Bosnia Hverfisgötu - 2009 (two exhibitions)Get RVK - O. Johnson & Kaaber 2009thorsteinn.svan@gmail.com
Sasha participated in the 5th Moscow International Biennial for Young Art in MMoMA, previous year took a part of “Somewheres & Anywheres: Young Photography from Eastern Europe” exhibition in Berlin gallery EEP and join BERLIN PHOTO WEEK.
His short film “Swallowed by the Routine” was selected for the Fashion Film Awards 2019 by SHOWstudio X HARRODS and was shown in London last October.
The main themes explored by Sasha now are the struggle with the language, because words controls us and reduces our worldview; queer theory, that means infinite pluralism of identities, meanings without hierarchy, ever-changing flexible self-definition; and criticism/decentration of the concept of truth.
This three ideas are really close to each other like the liberation from automatisms, habits and the aspiration to independent, affective perception and action.
I started off with photography on a late age, because I have a history of pro-basketball player. I decided to go back and study after I quit basketball. After a stop at RITS Drama school in Brussels I started to study photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent where I got my bachelor in Photography.
I have an undeniable curiosity and hunger for both small and large, well-known and less well-known stories. I use my camera as a key to enter a world or to make any contact. It gives me a fly on the wall feeling, with which I can experience a tranche de vie for a while. I always try to approach my subject as objectively as possible and let my eye do the work.
Photography helps me to understand certain facets of life in a better way.
I've always been attracted to uncommon subjects and stories, which aren't mainstream and easy to approach.
Naina Helén Jåma (b. 1991) is a south Sami photographer, vytnesjæjjah and storyteller from Snåase, Norway. With an education in photojournalism – she has worked as both a photojournalist and photo editor for various newspapers and news agencies in Norway and Sweden – documentary approaches characterise much of her work. Among others, her images have featured in VG, Aftonbladet, Aftenposten, The New York Times, The Guardian, Huffpost, and Dagens Industri. Jåma is also a member of the Sami Artist Association.
Varvara Gorbunova is a portrait and documentary photographer based in Prague, Czech Republic. Her work often centres around intimacy and connection exploring themes such as longing, sensuality, family and identity. She is dedicated to representing her subjects with honesty and openness, highlighting their humanity and providing viewers with various ways to connect with their stories. Varvara’s photography invites to experience the raw, unfiltered moments of her subjects' lives, creating powerful narratives that resonate across cultures and backgrounds.
Varvara earned her BA in Photography at the Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) where she continues to study in pursuit of her Master’s degree. Her work has been featured in collective exhibitions across the globe including Prague (CZ), Rome (IT), Toronto (CA) , Amsterdam (NL) and shortlisted for various awards and festivals (Belfast Photo Festival, Fresh Eyes International Talents, Palm Photo Prize).
Anna Ádám (b. in 1983) is a Hungarian interdisciplinary visual artist and performance maker whose work blurs the boundaries between image, object, and choreography. She graduated at ENSAPC Art School in France in 2016, and also studied styling (2010) and makeup (2018). In 2013 she was selected to the 59th Salon de Montrouge, which led her to several solo exhibitions (Budapest, Paris) and residencies (Yerevan and Berlin). In 2014, she co-founded the company Gray Box (grayboxprojects.com) at the intersection of contemporary dance, visual arts, and fashion.
Since 2015, in the frame of her personal practice (www.annaadam.net), Anna Ádám creates hybrid spaces where spectacle and exhibition merge: she "curates theater" and "choreographs exhibitions". She conceptualizes and uses the exhibition space as a theatre and the theater as an exhibition space: the plinth as stage, the installation as setting, the visitor as spectator, and vice versa. Her multidisciplinary and always site-specific projects - including photography, drawing, installation, clothing, performances, and choreographed works - echo the broader socio-political context from a feminist and queer perspective, and challenge the body as both a historically disciplined, shaped archive and a living public/private site, where power is constantly contested and negotiated.
As a photographer, by combining both personal and anonymous photos with different technics (collage, drawing, painting, sewing, embroidery…), she examines the ways vernacular photography influences memory, individual and collective identities, personal and historical narratives, privacy and public life. Her embroidered photographs, photo-objects, and photo-based clothings explore the performative, choreographic, and sculptural potential of photography.
Between 2013 and 2015, Anna Ádám worked as a performance artist in commissioned works (Palais de Tokyo, Musée Georges Pompidou...). Since 2014 she regularly presents her projects in both exhibition spaces and theaters (Museum of Modern Art Yerevan, National Museum of Immigration History Paris, Theater MU Budapest, Théâtre de la Maison d’Europe et d’Orient, Salon de Montrouge, Galérie YGREC, Dorothy’s Gallery…), and holds workshops in universities across Europe (Austria, Hungary, Serbia, France...).
Having worked as a photo editor, curator, and lecturer for many years, Katya picked up acamera after moving from Russia to Portugal. Photography has become a tool forBogachevskaia to express her feelings about forced emigration and the war unleashed byher native country, Russia, in Ukraine. Through her work, she reflects on the intense impactof this devastating war, searches for her own identity, copes with the loss of her home,experiences fear for her children, and navigates the process of integrating into a newenvironment.
Observing her children and the world around her - primarily nature, Katya createsmetaphorical images infused with subtle, hidden meanings.
Katya is the founder of the Academy of Documentary and Art Photography Fotografika, ofthe independent photobook publishing house Fotografika Publishing, and editor ofPhotojournal of Republic Media.
Her work had been exhibited and screened at venues including États Généraux du Film Documentaire (Lussas, FR); KANAL – Centre Pompidou (Brussels, BE); Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival (BR); Kasseler Dok Festival (Kassel, DE); Moscow Biennal (RU); Art Brussels (BE); FIDMarseille (FR) among others. Her first medium-length film 'No blood in my body' received the short film prize at Écrans Documentaires d’Arceuil (FR). Laure Cottin Stefanelli studied literature and cinema at the University of Paris III and graduated in Photo-Video from École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris.
"A strange pleasure emanates from Laure Cottin Stefanelli’s images, a pleasure that stems from the interruption of systems, the suspension of discipline. The characters she portrays often engage in the strictures of self-imposed rigour – marriage, high-level sports, addiction, erotic role play – and her camera emboldens them in their carefully planned choreographies. Not that these choreographies become, as a result, deconstructed or “unmasked”; rather she balances the individuals between desire and ritualised gesture, arresting them in seemingly affective fulfilment. Cottin Stefanelli leaves unsaid what lies outside the frame, where conventions and rules govern the protagonists’ behaviours (...). What remains in the frame, cropped out of context, ends up looking solitary, but also confident – one dares say beautiful. (...)" Antony Hudek on Centauresse
www.laurecottinstefanelli.com
Lucrezia's work focuses on two main themes: individual and collective perception and mnemonic practices in archival research. Materiality, its three-dimensional presence and tactile sensations are essential for the elaboration of her photographic research, which takes shape in the moment of installation and fruition. The initial focus on an inner perception has developed over the years into a reflection on the perception of archival material and the layers of memory, leading to a phenomenological investigation of the photographic act.
Josef Janošík (b. 1995) is a photographer based in the Czech Republic. In his work, he searches for and relives his childhood memories – however corroded and unreliable they may be. Exploring the limits of human perception is important for him in general as well as the elusive uncertainty that lies behind them.
Vic Bakin (b. 1984) is a self-educated Ukrainian photographer. In Kyiv, the artist explores various local groups – queer and fashion scenes, rave and music culture, and even closed communities like student dormitories. In light of new and evolving local circumstances, Bakin’s focus has since shifted to the subject of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His diaristic personal projects use of analogue photography to probe at questions of identity; with Void, Bakin is currently working on his debut photobook.
His work often revolves around territory. In Ramo it was his ancestor’s Calabria, in Jardin the mythical space of the garden, found in the streets and parks of Madrid. In his new project, Massao is working on around the Mediterranean coasts, cradle of many civilisations, using the journey of Ulysses as a loose guideline. The scope of his work is profoundly political, as it is rooted in the need to explore how humans relate to the spaces (both cultural and geographical) they inhabit.
The work Jardin was awarded the BOZAR Nikon Monography Series Award 2016. In 2017, he was nominated and be part of the .TIFF by FOMU Antwerp.
In July 2019 his first book Jardin has been published by Witty Kiwi and L'éditeur du dimanche.
Massao'work is part of the prestigious collection of the Foundation A Stichting. He is currently a fellow of the Fondation A Stichting for a project around the Mediterranean which will be exhibited there in September 2020.
From September 2019 Massao started as teacher in the Brussels Royal Academy of Fine Arts.