Paolo Ciregia (b. 1987) is an Italian artist. After experience as a reporter at the forefront of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in the last five years his artistic research has been focused on Ukraine context, manipulating and reworking his personal archive in a new way. Investigating and deconstructing both archives symbols and language, Ciregia aims to reveal the atrocities behind the war, destroying the propaganda patina through installations and sculptures. His work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Among the major prizes are Winner of Talent FOAM Amsterdam 2016, Winner of “LOOP, Giovane Fotografia Italiana”, Festival Fotografia Europea 2017, “Honorable jury Mention” at Premio Francesco Fabbri 2016, TU35 at the Museo Pecci in Prato 2017, Winner of Leica Talent 2012.
http://www.paolociregia.eu/
Kevin Osepa is a photographer born and raised on the island of Curaçao. His work revolves around his identity and the identity of Afro-Caribbean youth in a post-colonial world. The visuals he creates and the stories he tells are highly influenced by his youth. While the themes he explores are autobiographical, his work can also serve as a quasi-anthropological study. Using different experimental techniques, he creates colourful visual stories that explore themes such as religion, African diaspora, and family.
Since graduating his work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including Steenbergen Stipendium, Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst prijs, Unseen photography festival, FOAM Editions - as well as publications such as the Trouw newspaper, Volkskrant Magazine and Unseen Magazine. He was also nominated for multiple awards - in 2018, he became the youngest person ever to be nominated for the prestigious Volkrant fine art prize.
By combining personal photographs with found imagery and hand-made collages with 3d printing processes, Giovanna creates imaginary landscapes inspired by surrealist paintings virtual realities and ancient cultures. Influenced by museum displays and catalogues, Giovanna populates these landscapes with her own collection of surreal artefacts. The received view of ancient objects is deliberately distorted. A recurrent feature of her work is the juxtaposition of futuristic and primordial scenarios and the combination of historical and fictional elements.
Aline Bovard Rudaz is a Swiss photographer based in Geneva. She studied photography at the CEPV (Centre d’enseignement professionnel de Vevey). Through her artistic practice, she sees images as witnesses capable of conveying the concerns of her generation. For her, photography is a sensitive means of tackling the social, intimate and taboo issues of our society. She is particularly interested in forgotten histories, especially those relating to women's lives.
Studied Art History and Film Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. In 2013 graduated from the Academy of Photography in Warsaw. From 2013 to June 2014 participated in the Mentorship Programme by Sputnik Photos. From 2015 to 2019 student of photography at the Institut of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic. Participant of the 2nd cycle of PARALLEL - European Photo based Platform (2018-2019).
Her main projects are "Splinter", a story of people living in continuous disorder, "When Objects Are Always Similar” about visual parallels between pictures and „Firmly Pinch The Skin Together” about tension, pressure and balance in everyday life.
Szilvia studies at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest and at the Athens School of Fine Art, in Greece.
Julia Klewaniec (1996) photographer and culture animator. A graduate of Photography in Film School in Łódź. She is a co-creator of the Picture Doc Foundation with a group of photographers (Duży Pokój Gallery) in Warsaw. Resident in the student section of the "W ramach Sopotu" festival in Poland (2022). Chosen by Fotofestiwal in Łódź for Futures Talents 2022. Talent of the Year 2022 in the Pix.House competition. Her debut project "Silent Racism" was presented among others in Warsaw, Opole, Łódź, Turin, Braga, Bochnia, Copenhagen. At the end of 2022, together with Pix.House and Krzysiek Orłowski, she published the zine "Silent Racism". She is interested in statements about contemporary society, life and relations between people, language and the environment.
http://klewaniec.pl/@klewaniec
The work of Thomas Nolf examines the ways in which national myths are formed, instrumentalised and frequently suppressed. Confounding fiction and documentary, fabled event and scientific enigma, his work looks into how nation-building ideology influences modes of storytelling, and vice versa. Nolf handles his subjects with a close appreciation of narrative and its ambiguous relationship with veracity and considers the ways in which heritage and eroded beliefs can be re-established and repurposed.
For his long-term project Peculiar Artefacts in Bosnia and Herzegovina - an imaginary exhibition, for example, Nolf’s point of departure was the so-called “Bosnian pyramids” and other disputed historical sites and artefacts, including stone spheres and medieval monuments. Juxtaposing his own documentary work with kitschy acrylic paintings of dream-like, bucolic landscapes and an assortment of found photographic footage —including shots of a triangular mountain looming over a scenic village and a shepherd carrying a sheep on his back — Nolf keeps adding elements to our already confused reading of the phenomenon, its emergence and reception. By doing so, he revives the public controversy over the existence of an ancient civilisation in the region.
Drawing on the mythological dimension of the triangle-shaped hills, Nolf proposed an exhibition that would exploit the stories and objects surrounding the “Bosnian pyramids” to the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, in 2012, had temporarily closed its doors due to a lack of state funds. If myths and legends have proven to be valuable assets in branding a particular place as a unique tourist experience, its effectiveness in generating local informal economies might as well be explored.
Even if Nolf’s project-based practice is driven by a pragmatic desire to formulate alternatives to the status quo, he poetically engages with particular sites and times, carefully tending to a range of subjects — from the promise of a desirable ancient past to the current funding realities devastating cultural institutions in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina — while, at the same time commenting on photography's rhetorical qualities and its — at times deceptive — relationship to representation and truth-telling.
Text by Laura Herman
Jéssica Pereira Gaspar is a Portuguese transdisciplinary artist, born in Coimbra in 1996. She began her academic journey in sciences and technologies, which profoundly influenced her methodology, research focus, and creative practice. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Visual Arts from Universidade Lusófona de Lisboa and her Master's degree in Visual Arts from Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha.Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Science and Technology of the Arts at the Catholic University of Porto, where she is developing research on interfaces for interspecies communication and artistic co-creation with different organisms.Her practice centers on interactions with other-than-human entities and their dynamic agency, seeking to unravel the intricate relationships between living organisms and matter. By integrating multiple mediums such as image, video, sound, and organic materials as catalysts for immersive experiences, her work creates a space for reflection on the interconnectedness of all entities. In 2022, she was awarded a scholarship for an art residency at RAMA, where she developed the solo exhibition Spectacular Instability. She also participated in Zonas deTransição (2023), a project by the PLMJ Foundation, showcasing Transmutations II, a piece later included in the foundation's collection. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions such as A Certain Practice of Attention (2023) and the XXII Biennial of Cerveira (2022). In 2024, her work was included in the Portuguese Emerging Art book, the Millennium BCP Young Art Award from which she was awarded the Portuguese Serigraphy Center Award.In 2025, she was one of the five artists to be selected to represent Porto and Ci.clo Platform in Futures Photography Festival of 2025.
Zoe Natale Mannella was born in 1997 in London and raised in the south of Italy. She is a self-taught photographer whose projects investigate questions of intimacy and sexuality, particularly in relation to women. Her work combines elements of reportage with an interest in staged photography.
www.zoenatalemannella.com
@zoenatalemannella
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/
His work has been exhibited in different countries, such as Austria, Poland, China and Denmark. His recent project ¥€$U$ was showed at Hamburg Triannale in 2018.
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.