One often looks at the work of Arnaud De Wolf with a sense of disbelief. Is that image of a gigantic ice cube really floating in mid-air? Is that colourful picture of an ancient forest a realistic depiction or is it a digital fabrication, a fanciful re-creation? What are we meant to discern in his cyanotype prints: random blue lines surrounding white voids of various shapes and sizes or the contours of a mountainous landscape? By means of an unconventional presentation of the photographic image, simply turning it on its side or projecting it into a corner or using outdated techniques, such as the cyanotype, De Wolf presents us with works that hover between the clarity of description and the artificiality of invention. A projected bundle of light suddenly transforms into a three-dimensional object; abstract lines coagulate into a legible form; colours become deceitfully (un)real. In each of his experiments, De Wolf is testing the boundaries of the photographic system, looking for that breaking point where the photograph loses its readability and easy accessibility. His thorough investigation of colour is particularly revealing: Fading forest makes abundantly clear that colour in photography is always artificial. The colours that we see in a photograph are technologically and culturally coded; they are made in the chemist’s lab or produced by a programmer’s algorithm. Colour is here revealed as the manipulative garb in which the photographic skeleton is dressed.
Text by Steven Humblet
Tashiya de Mel is a photographer, environmental advocate, and communications specialist from Colombo, Sri Lanka who uses visual storytelling to create narratives that drive social change.
Her practice explores the nature and possibilities of documentary image-making and deals with themes such as colonial histories, representation, heritage, family, landscapes, and the climate crisis.
Tashiya is driven by a curiosity to forge connections with diverse disciplines such as art, history, academia and the environment. And find ways of bridging these disciplines through different forms of image-based media.
She was the recipient of the Visura grants for freelance visual journalists in 2023 for her project ‘Great Sandy River’ and received the Stroom talent award in 2024. Tashiya is a recent graduate of the ‘Photography and Society’ masters programme at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague (NL). She is based between Colombo and the Hague.
Born, raised and live in Kozani, Greece. Studied IT and Computer Engineer at Patras University and he is married with three children. A self-taught photographer whose work deals with documentary and fine-art photography. Street photography is present and obvious in many aspects as well. Attended photography seminars by Jacob Aue Sobol, Platon Rivellis and Paris Petridis.
Exhibitions:2022 Where The River Runs Mute, Photometria Festival, Ioannina/GR 2021 One World, 1st International Photo Festival, Drama/GR 2021 TOLERANCE(S), Lens-based media exhibition in the framework of Art + Culture vs Xenophobia Project, curated by Eleni Mouzakiti, Kostas Ioannidis, Athens-Norway 2016 HOME, Delmar Gallery curated by Aue Sobol and Sun Hee Engelstoft during Head On Festival, Sydney/Australia 2016 Cultural Landscapes, Group Expo, Athens/GR 2015 Family, Group exhibition at Benaki Museum, Athens/GR 2014 On-Off, Personal exhibition (home printing and framing), Kozani-Kastoria/GR
Awards and shortlists2022 Parallel Voices 2022, Photometria Festival, Ioannina/GR 2021 Urban Photo Awards Finalist (People’s category), Trieste/Italy 2017-2021 Honor Mentioned and Finalist at quite a few International Street Photo Festivals
@sakisdazanihttps://sakisdazanis.weebly.com/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/dazanis https://www.facebook.com/Sakis.Da
Hiep Duong Chi (b. 1996), who holds a BA from the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, was born in Děčín, Czechia. Photography formed part of his life from the very beginning; his grandfather ran a photography studio in Vinh, Vietnam, where his mother took photographs before she moved to the Czech Republic in the 1990s. His own work began along the lines of classic documentary photography, exploring notions of family, the Vietnamese community, or following events that caught his attention. During the pandemic, the artist instead began arranging, staging and creating still-lifes and portraits. In this new work, he touches on the realities of life as a second-generation Vietnamese immigrant – That time I wished I was a white butterfly combines references to traditional customs with his own inner feelings.
Lucija Bogunović has been studying New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Zagreb since 2019. As a photographer she collaborated with Mostar Street Art Festival, Zagreb Film Festival and Gallery Karas. In her artistic practice she explores the conceptual relation between photographic medium and time in depicting fragments of life and repetitive events.
@adeyata
My research that for formality can be described as photographic due to the medium used, even if the dimension that belongs to me is more related to the image, to what it communicates to us and how it is perceived. Like the graphic design my photographs tend to a clear reading, which privileges functionality to pure aesthetic beauty, to finalize the reading to a deeper stage of cognitive perception. I have two different aspects: the construction of the image by the sculpture, and the archiving of the photos that I collect in certain carefully chosen environments. It’s very important to me to return many times to the settings that I selected. Both approaches are always formalized and captured through photography.
In 2019 I was finalist of the FFF Fondazione Francesco Fabbri award. My work has been featured in many national and international exhibitions: Audi Studio by Nevven Gallery, Stockholm; Villa Vertua Masolo, Milano; Spaziosiena, Siena; LOFT, Lecce; Las Palmas, Lisbon; Galleria Giuseppe Pero, Milano; BASIS, Frankfurt; Spaziobuonasera, Torino.
Pablo Lerma is a Spanish research-based artist, educator and publisher based in Amsterdam (The Netherlands).His work has been exhibited at Photoforum Pasquart (CH), Copeland Gallery (UK), IHLIA Heritage (NL), Deli Gallery (US), FOTODOK (NL), PhotoEspaña (ES), The Finnish Museum of Photography (FI), Flowers Gallery (US), Konstanet (EE), Centro Huarte (ES), New York University (US), Fotoweek D.C. (US), SCAN International Festival of Photography (ES), La Fábrica (ES), and Fundació Foto Colectania (ES) among others. His publications are in collections including the Guggenheim Museum (US), Museum of Modern Art – MoMA (US), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMoMA (US), Aeromoto (MX), Centro de la Imagen (MX), School of the Art Institute of Chicago (US), and the International Center of Photography in New York (US), among others. He has been awarded with the Cherryhurst House Fellowship MFA Houston (US), Grand Prize of Curators Award PDN (US), Fundació Guasch-Coranty (ES) and Sala d’Art Jove (ES). He has been selected for Pla(t)form FotoMuseum Winterthur (CH) and nominated for the First Book Award MACK Editions (UK), Critical Mass (US), and PDN 30’s (US). His work has been featured on Trigger FOMU (BE), Lens Culture (US), Photomonitor (UK), Unseen Platform (NL), British Journal for Photography (UK), Ain’t Bad Magazine (US), New York Foundation for the Arts (US), PDN Online (US) and PhotoInter China (CH).
Julie Hrnčířová is a photographer based in Oslo. Her long-term interest lies in her sensitivity to the details of the urban environment and the periphery. Observing these neglected places, non-places, urban coincidences and structures reveals the author's interest in a broader social context.
She graduated at Ecole Nationale Supérieure of Photographie (ENSP), Master degree, Arles, France in 2018. She participated in exhibitions as Les Rencontres de la Photographie festival in Arles, the GapGap Gallery in Leipzig, Gallery Fotogalleriet, Oslo , Industria Art, Brno.
https://juliehrncirova.xhbtr.com/everyday_sculpture
Her interest is focused on the assembled image and its classification. Thereby she works with collage techniques and illustration to explore the process between individual and collective viewpoints. The work reflects on visuals sourced online from social media accounts or search engine results. The artist collects the images based on commonality in depiction and repeating patterns in gesture and choice of surrounding. Through digital techniques and physical interventions, single fragments get extracted and multiplied into an overall picture. Thereby each element in the picture contains a collection of different moments in time.
Alina Maria Frieske was also nominated for Futures by Hyères Festival.
Kinga Wrona (b. 1983) is a Polish documentary photographer currently living in Krakow. She is a student at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic. In her latest projects, Wrona explores the relationship between humans and nature in relation to climate change, natural disasters and environmental degradation. Her images have been published by FOTO Magazine, The Calvert Journal, National Geographic and New York Post, whilst her projects have been exhibited internationally. Her recent 85 project will soon be exhibited at Circulation(s) Festival in Paris, France.
Olga Cafiero (*1982) is a Swiss and Italian photographer based in Lausanne. After a BA in photography and an MA in art direction at ECAL, she studied art history at University of Lausanne. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in Switzerland and internationally since 2008, and regularly published in international magazines since 2009. Her awards include Foam Talent (selection), Hyères Festival de Mode et de Photographie, BFF-Förderpreis (laureate), a Swiss Design Award (laureate) and L’enquête photographique Neuchâteloise (laureate).
Dorota Franková is a Czech photographer finishing her studies of photography at the Libuše Jarcovjáková’s studio at the Faculty of Design and Art Ladislav Sutnar in Pilsen. She is engaged in various professions such as social worker in nursing home. In 2022, she devoted a photographic series in a hospice, where she encountered the passing of people to the other side. Here she interviewed dying people and documented their last moments. She has also been working on a documentary about her ailing grandmother for several years. She enjoys fashion photography and loves collaborating with musicians on their album booklets. A core part of her work is self-reflection and understanding emotional states and their reflection in photography.
Since starting to work in photography in 2009 Shlyk has had solo exhibitions in Belarus (Museum of Modern Fine Art, Minsk), Russia (Russian Museum of Decorative and Applied Art, Moscow and Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, Saint-Petersburg), Belgium (Extra City, Antwerp), China (Duloun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai) and participated in several international photo festivals (Breda Photo 2016 in Netherlands, Format 2017 in Derby, Belfast Photo Festival the UK, Photo Phnom Penh 2018). Since 2016 he is collaborating on multiple projects with Ben Van den Berghe. In 2017 his work was shortlisted for Prix Levallois, Shlyk became a laureate of Carte Blanche at Paris Photo and won ArtContest (Belgium). In 2018 he won Prijs Roger De Conynck and became the Public Prize Winner of ING Unseen Talent Award.
Tengbeh Kamara is a Dutch-Liberian photographer (1996) based in Amsterdam. Their portrait and documentary work explores intimacy, memory, and identity.Tengbeh’s artistic practice balances between documentary, autobiographical and political fields. Being a black and queer photographer, Tengbeh often documents those experiences. However, Their curiosity also draws them to explore more identities and social issues than just their own.Tengbeh is part of a new generation of photographers characterized by their inclusive, daring and critical eyes. Tengbeh makes visible what has systematically been ignored, resulting in beautiful, powerful and colorful photographs.Portrait of Tengbeh Kamara by Sophie Engels
Veronika Čechmánková is a Czech photographer and mixed-media artist based in Prague. She focuses primarily on the transformation of symbols and traditions over time, and their possible meanings in the present. Taking pieces of visual and cultural history, she examines their validity and possibilities in a contemporary context. Čechmánková studied at the Studio of Photography and New Media at FAMU – Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czechia. Her work has been exhibited in a range of institutions, including the Center for Contemporary Art FUTURA, Prague; Karlín Studios, Prague; Studio Vortex, Arles; and the BF Artist Film Festival, London.