She is the author of many self-published photographic zines such as "Utopia", "Published" and "Underground". Creating zines gives her the opportunity to reinterpret existing material and create a new full-fledged work with its own meaning. She has presented her work in Belgrade, Budapest, Tel Aviv, Zagreb and Paris. In 2020, she won first place at Slovak Press Photo and the Young Talent of the Year award for her documentary series about the community called Utopia. In 2023, she placed first in the Rovinj Photo Days festival with her series of photographs about the Bratislava community. She received her bachelor's degree from the Department of Photography and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava in the studio of Olja Triaška Stefanović and Jana Hojstričová. She spent a semester in Finland at the Department of Documentary Photography in Lahti. She is a recent graduate of the Master's degree at FAMU in Prague.
If Hélène Bellenger's work could be associated with a single tool, it would not be a camera, but one of those fine, precise instruments of the forensic scientist, so diligent is the artist in dissecting the workings of an imagery of perfect beauty and its artificial paradises. Preferring the act of collecting and transforming to that of shooting, she approaches images that are inert and out of use. For the Dazzled project, she collected a series of faces on the internet that had been obliterated by a flash of light - the now famous form of the selfie with the flash in the mirror - forming a kind of digital sun that contaminates the image and prevents the portrait. Another collection is that of advertisements for anxiolytics and antidepressants taken from specialist magazines, which she assembles into a frieze to display the litany of tense faces and slogans in the form of injunctions to happiness. Earlier, in Right color, she diverted a collection of magazines, posters and photograms from reels of films featuring actresses from the 1920s to the 1950s, reviving the make-up that was applied to them to reconstruct their faces and modify their plasticity for the black-and-white screen of the time. With her recent Bianco ordinario, her torsos of Apollo and busts of Venus, she continues her archaeology of the canons of beauty. Through a play of superimposed forms and supports, she links the geological time of the Carrara marble quarries, its extraction in Antiquity for sculpture, and today's massive extraction of marble powder to whiten the packaging of our cosmetics and cleaning products. The ensemble consists of a collection of unfolded packaging cartons on which the artist prints images of antique busts and quarry landscapes. In turn, the images themselves will be extracted from their support by the acidity of the marble powder contained in the cardboard, washing them ‘whiter than white’. The history and fortunes of the Western concept of whiteness are at the heart of the work the artist is currently developing in the Mediterranean basin.Hélène Bellenger (1989) lives and works between Marseille and Paris. After studying law and art history, she specialised in photography and graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d'Arles in 2016. Bianco Ordinario was supported by Aide à la Création 2021 from the Drac PACA and produced at the Centre Photographique Ile-de-France as part of the 2022-2023 research and post-production residency.The artist would like to thank Isabelle Carta, Roland Carta, Centre Photographique d'Ile-de-France, Nathalie Giraudeau, galerie Marguerite Milin and Francesco Bi
Over twenty years ago, Jaakko Kahilaniemi, who was barely eight at that time, inherited 100 hectares of forest. The abstraction which this represents for a child, is followed by an indifference which it evokes for an adolescent. After all, this is hardly very exotic for a Finn: forest covers more than 70% of the country, totalling 26 million hectares. Fairly recently, this photographer decided to return to this heritage in order to explore its twists and turns. This series, called 100 Hectares of Understanding retraces his journey towards an appropriation of this land which is too big for a single – young – man. Photography thus becomes the location where the experience of the landscape can be filtered as it is travelled through, physically, mentally, and sentimentally. These explorations blend physical crossings and digital incursions, photographed panoramas and painted landscapes. The photographer combines these vast misty lands with a still life of a small wooden log resting upon a scale, or simple twigs upon a black background: from the infinitely big to the infinitesimal, each photograph constitutes a piece of an important memory game whose perimeter, one might imagine, increases as the photographer walks and the man grows up.
In 2015, she received her Bachelor's degree from the Department of Photography-Videography at the Art and Design College, West University of Timisoara and, in 2017, her Master's degree in Publicity Graphics. In December 2015, she had her first personal photography exhibition in Timisoara, followed in the next few years by several personal and group exhibitions. In 2016, Oana was selected for the Professional shortlist in the Staged category of the Sony World Photography Awards.
He grew up in a small post industrial town of Belgium where his grandparents as well as many other south Italian families emigrated to work in the coal mines.
He received his first camera from his father at 9 years old while visiting his family in Cameroon. From there, he starts documenting life around him, finding inspiration in the richness and texture of the communities that made him.
He wishes for his photography to be a modest look at his own experience of life.
Coline Jourdan, born in 1993, lives and works in Rouen, Normandy. She graduated from the National School of Art in Dijon in 2017. Her work has been shown in group and personal exhibitions (Nicéphore Niepce Museum as part of the Ateliers Vortex Photographic Print Prize in 2019 ; La Gacilly Festival, Baden, Austria, 2021; Artefacts, (Residence 1+2), Chapelle des Cordeliers, Toulouse, 2020; Les noirceurs du fleuve rouge, Full B1 Gallery, Rouen, 2019). In 2021, she received she received the Support for contemporary documentary photography from the CNAP, as well as individual aid for creation from the Normandy Region. The same year, she won the 50CC Air de Normandie artist grant.
Mónica Egido (b. 1994) has a background in physiotherapy. She is currently a student of the PHotoESPAÑA Master in Photographic Projects, led by Semíramis González. As well as several solo shows, she has exhibited her work in group presentations at Sara Caso Gallery, Madrid; Abartium Gallery, Barcelona; The Holy Art Gallery, London; and El Brocense Art Gallery, Cáceres. Her images have been published by the likes of Vogue Italia and FLAMANTES.
Kata Geibl (1989, Budapest) is a photographer living and working in The Hague. Her work is mainly focused on global issues, capitalism, the Anthropocene, and the ambiguities of the photographic medium.
She is currently working on her new series titled There is Nothing New Under the Sun. The series deals with the rampant individualism that underpins our contemporary social, political, and economic system, and in particular, the environmental impact that it has. By juxtaposing the melting glaciers of Dachstein, animals under human control, almost Greek god-like athletes a narrative of our new age unfolds through the images.
Her previous work entitled Sisyphus received international attention, was exhibited at UNSEEN Amsterdam which was followed by her first solo show in Budapest. She received the emerging talent Paris Photo Carte Blanche Award for the series and in the same year she was nominated for Palm* Photo Prize.
In 2019, she received the József Pécsi Photography Scholarship and was a talent for Futures Platform nominated by Capa Center Budapest.
In 2020 she is a Grand Prix Finalist at Fotofestiwal Lodz, won the PHmuseum Vogue Italia Prize and is shortlisted for Palm* Photo Prize.
More: www.katageibl.com
Sheng-Wen Lo (b. 1987) was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and lives and works in Leiden, the Netherlands. Lo's works investigate the relationships between non-humans and contemporary society through a range of media, including images, installations, and games. He is an alumnus of the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, and received an MSc in Computer Science from National Taiwan University. His works have been shown at Foam and World Press Photo in the Netherlands; The International Center of Photography in the USA; MMCA in South Korea; The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia; and the Taiwan Biennial, Taiwan. He was selected as a Foam Talent in 2021, and has received fellowships from De Nederlandsche Bank and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds/Prince Claus Fund. Lo is represented by Avocado Art Lab, Taipei.
In 2016 her book "The Modern Spirit Is Vivisective” won the ViennaPhotoBookAward. Her work has been presented and exhibited internationally, including Plat(t)form 2017, Fotomuseum Winterthur; Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia; Benaki Museum, Athens; Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen; Emerging Talents, MACRO Factory, Rome; Festival Circulations, CENTQUATRE-PARIS, Paris; and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome.
Her latest work Petrus, published by Kehrer Verlag, reflects on a certain rhetoric of masculinity in Western culture. Through a cynical, tender and arbitrary analysis of what probably cannot be sliced and diced Francesca Catastini plays with archetypes and images considering the way they sculpt ourselves and shape our views. Looking for subtle discrepancies her images go beyond their figurative meaning in order to activate new analogies and connotations.
http://francescacatastini.it/
Kristof Thomas’ (b. 1995, Belgium) work is radical and ruthless. Harsh colors, crisp images, manipulated to the unrecognizable. The visitor steps into montages of food and electrical wires, in unnaturally bright colors, chemically screaming, often digitally smeared and strongly edited. All indexical references are chopped and deconstructed, the work is much less about consumption than it is about the process. Not a traditional process, such as the analogue, which possesses the magical power of unpredictability. On the contrary, Thomas is in full control, he lets the beast sweat till it is down. He is not into magic but into sorcery. He creates artificial images, with no interest in reality as it manifests itself. His work is a confrontation with loops, errors and distortions that do not cause the system to fail but make it more flexible. He experiments, doubts his surroundings and tries out all his devices. He releases his work on paper, cardboard, sloppy, framed, sculptural, flat, on the floor, on the wall. Pushes out his uncertainty with cheeky confidence and leaves us guessing. Until we surrender and spin around the room.
Kristof Thomas received in 2019 a Bachelor’s degree in Photography from KASK The Royal academy of Fine arts Ghent, followed by a Visual Arts Master’s degree in 2022.
Daria is a lens-based artist currently living and working between Kyiv and Paris. Originally from Odesa, Ukraine, Daria came to France to pursue an M.A. in Photography & Video at École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, graduating in 2023.In her artistic practice, Daria explores the connections between past and present, focusing primarily on the youth and cultural, social and political contexts in which young people live.Her work was exhibited across Europe and the U.S., including La Villette (Paris), Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), Hangar (Brussels), Mystetskiy Arsenal (Kyiv), The Gallery at Dobbin Mews (New York). Daria is a finalist of the 39th Hyères festival (2024), Palm* Phot Prize (2022) and a recipient of Beyond the silence grant by Magnum Photos & Odesa Photo Days (2024), as well as a grant for contemporary documentary photography from CNAP.
Kwabena Sekyi Appiah-nti (b. 1994) is a Belgian-Ghanaian photographer based in Amsterdam. Straddling the boundaries of documentary and fashion photography, his projects reveal a fascination for people who face societal prejudice, aspiring to cut through the clichés of stereotyped representation. Delving into his subjects’ worlds and observing their behaviours, Appiah-Nti documents their true essence; he describes ‘boyhood’ as the overarching theme in his work.
Emese Mucsi is a Hungarian-born curator, and art critic. Emese curates exhibitions where photography is interpreted in the context of contemporary art and works with artists who have an expanded idea of photography and produce photo-based works. Her projects bring together artists and photographers with photojournalists, writers, editors, and other thinkers to experiment with new approaches to photography. She graduated from the Faculty of Contemporary Art Theory and Curatorial Studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2013, and from the Faculty of Hungarian Literature and Linguistics at the University of Szeged in 2017. She is a member of the curators’ collective BÜRO imaginaire since 2012. Since 2013, she ran projects as a freelance curator. From 2014 to 2018, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Artmagazin Online. Emese is a curator of the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest since 2018. She is the member of Global Photographies Network since 2020. She founded DOXA exhibition space and editorial den in 2022. She is doing her PhD in the Film, Media, and Contemporary Culture PhD program at Eötvös Loránd University. Emese is a guest lecturer at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (2023) and the University of Szeged (2024).
The daughter of Chinese emigrants living in Canada, Teresa Eng had an imaginary and fantastical vision of China, until she decided to visit the country. The degree of difference between the Chinese dream that she had constructed and the reality of a country undergoing a frantic development, might have resulted in a documentary which would not have spared us the excessive nature of contemporary China. On the contrary, Teresa Eng, chose to avoid the obviousness of a documentary and the stylistic clarity this entails. Her China seems to evolve beneath a hazy veil. The here and now are erased, the signs of urban frenzy – abundantly illustrated in contemporary photography – are eluded, potentially treated as asides. An infinite head of hair confronts audaciously the curves of a modern architecture: Teresa Eng treads softly, turning her back on the injunctions of a modern China. Which, out of a rock standing in its ceramic pot, or a concrete pillar erected in the water, merits our attention? Teresa Eng’s China seems to navigate between the riverbanks of a capitalist progressionism (China Dream, the title of the series, is also a popular slogan for president Xi Jiping, which in turn refers to the American Dream) and that of an orientalist romantic nostalgia.
Catalin Anghel (b. 1984) is an artist based in Timisoara, Romania, who works in the fields of photography and mixed media art. He obtained his Photography degree in Dublin at Institute of Photography in 2011. He moved back to Romania in 2014 and in the same year he organized his first event ‘Fotocultura – Timisoara European Cultural Capital’ | photography contest and exhibition. In 2017, he started 'Wedtrotter' - a documentary series which follows the best wedding photographers in the world. His latest project is 'Imagine Timisoara Festival' (2019) – an event who got together over 200 photographers in 2 days of conference, workshops, photography contests and exhibitions.
Zane Priede (b.1990) a self-taught still life photographer based in Riga, Latvia, has a background in design and a passion for photography. A graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Priede’s work creates imaginary and surreal scenes with everyday objects, infusing them with fantasy. Her deep fascination for architecture and design can be seen in her visual approach, which involves constructing scenes with small-scale objects. Her interest in science, biology, and psychology are also evident in her visual explorations, contributing a playful approach to storytelling, and discovering the fantastical in the mundane.
Time at work, this time which rushes, always too short, it is this which Csilla Klenyànszki addresses in her performative and photographic games. Of course, this artistic approach is accepted, being defined by a sum of constraints which might be resumed here as follows: the daily siesta of a child, the domestic setting imposed by this siesta, or thirty minutes for creation. Pillars of Home is a series of variations upon a single theme that is as dizzying as it is absurd. In thirty minutes flat, within this confined frame and with no more than plants, plastic beakers, a vacuum cleaner, table, chair, teapot and other utensils (with the inclusion of her own body, an object which she does not hesitate to contribute and contort), this artist provides ninety-six answers held in a fragile balance between the floor and the ceiling of her apartment. We are amused by one, stunned by another. Yet none of them impose a superiority as, more than just the form, it is the process and the accumulation of experiences which the photographer wishes to highlight: not the beauty of the sculpture nor the skill of its assembly, but the action of an artist who wishes to oppose time with a mischievous and vital fantasy. Ephemeral, yes, but certainly not trivial.
Eva Bevec (b. 1998) is a designer, visual artist, and photographer based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She completed her undergraduate studies in visual communications (with a focus in graphic design) with honors at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 2020. She continued her design studies abroad, at the Master Department of Information Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, where she graduated with honors in 2023.
She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Slovenia as well as internationally, showcasing her works at the prominent Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, at the Brumen Design Biennial in Ljubljana, and at Layerjeva hiša in Kranj, among others. In 2020, she held her first solo exhibition titled “Madeleines and Linden Tea” at DobraVaga Gallery in Ljubljana. She has received various awards for her work, such as the student Prešeren Award of the University of Ljubljana and the Brumen recognition for excellent Slovenian design. She also participated in the international pharmaceutical conference Health Services Research & Pharmacy Practice in the United Kingdom with her graduate thesis project, Developing a user-focused standardised design system for prescription medicine packaging in Slovenia.
In her artistic and design practice, Eva explores various media and topics, always connected by a genuine interest in the ordinary and the banal aspects of her surroundings. Through curious and critical investigation and documentation of the seemgly mundane, she reveals deeper and broader social, political, as well as aesthetic questions, patterns and implications. The prosaic becomes the extraordinary and the extraordinary becomes the poetic.