Although none of Stockburger’s works were actually shot in the United States, the country and its myths are central to his photographic work. By photographing the global outcome of the power projection of the United States Stockburger is mapping the country from the outside.
In his work „Why Quit Our Own To Stand Upon Foreign Ground?“ he is documenting the closure of the U.S. Army Garrison in his German hometown Schweinfurt. Stockburger’s follow-up work アメリカ(Amerika) examines the U.S. influence on post-war Japan.
Currently he is working on a photographic juxtaposition of the development and use of the atomic bomb.
Laura Paloma (*1995) is an artist and writer based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Her practice questions the relationship between image, object, text, language, and play online. She is interested in the détournement and misuse of corporate social media platforms, as well as the negotiations that take place between the user and the platform. She works with DIY, lo-fi, and self-publishing techniques, as well as with found or recycled physical and digital materials. Her projects address ideas of authorship, materiality, and performativity of digital and networked images and texts. Context-based and site-specific, her practice explores various formats, ranging from installations to online and print publications, as well as long-duration social media performances. She has exhibited her work in several off-spaces in Switzerland, made a live desktop performance for Screen Walks (Photographers’ Gallery London & Fotomuseum Winterthur), was nominated for Prix Photoforum 2023, and has published a zine with Edition Taberna Kritika, Bern. In 2024 she was artist-in-residence at hangar.org in Barcelona and house guest at Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.She holds a Master’s in Contemporary Arts Practice in Literary Writing from Bern Academy of the Arts, where she worked as assistant from 2021 to 2023.
His practice explores themes of isolation and identity, the juxtaposition of collective and individual, communication versus segregation. By using small narratives he wants to shed light on ways we affect and are affected by artificial social and physical environments.
He has exhibited in The Netherlands and abroad and his work was included in The New Dutch Talent catalogue of 2017 from GUP magazine, and in the Encontros da Imagem 2017 festival program, while his project Point of View was shortlisted for FotoFilmic18.
More: http://www.vassilistriantis.com
Maria Leonardo Cabrita lives and works in Lisbon, where she is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Fine Arts. She holds an MFA in Multimedia Art from the University of Fine Arts, Lisbon; a Diploma in Photography from the Art Academy of Munich; and a BFA/BA in Sculpture from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon. Cabrita’s practice engages a range of subjects, from history and science to other non-artistic practices. She often seeks to question the nature of photography, inverting the relationship between the referent and the referenced, and between what’s seen and what’s perceived. Her current project questions the interconnectivity between optical mirages, images and the act of seeing. Her works have been exhibited throughout Europe and beyond.
In the last five years he has been working extensively in the valley of Kashmir, India, at first documenting the political conflict between the population and the Indian administration, and later trying to explore a more personal and oneiric approach to the issue. In 2020 Camillo was one of the selected artist for the FOAM Talent.Among the prizes received are Shortlist at PH Museum Grant, Best Rising Talent at Gomma Grant, Alexia Foundation Student Grant, LensCulture B&W, Shortlist Unseen Dummy Award, Fotoleggendo Award.
Camillo’s photographs has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Europe, USA, Asia, Oceania and published in Time, Der Spiegel, Polka, National Geographic, Internazionale, BuzzFeed, Mashable, Vanity Fair and many other international publications.
Peggy van Mosselaar is a documentary and visual storyteller motivated by curiosity and human interest. Van Mosselaar creates photographic and video works based upon the stories and memories of the people she meets. The artist graduated from PhotoAcademy, Amsterdam and Foto Vakschool, Rotterdam. Peggy has exhibited at Loods 6, Amsterdam; Museum Hilversum, Hilversum; and SKVR, Rotterdam. In August-November 2022, she will present her work in FOTODOK’s group exhibition Part of Me… Shaping Mental Spaces.
Lorenzo uses the photography as a way of expression; he refines his technique during a long collaboration in the backstages for several fashion brands, a collaboration that still exists.
The skills acquired will allow Lorenzo to express himself creatively.
Through the use of a camera he captures images that evoke emotions and thoughts; he is not a lover of photographic manipulation through programs, in fact he creates installations to recreate what he thought and felt while visiting those places.
Ksenia Ivanova is a documentary photographer based in Berlin, Germany. Her work focuses on themes of trauma, explored through long-term storytelling. She was a finalist for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award (2024) and the Picture of the Year, Online Storytelling (2021), and won the Lucie Foundation Documentary Award (2023).
Ksenia's projects have been featured in The Washington Post, Courrier International, XXI Revue, and Der Spiegel. She has also contributed to The New York Times, Zeit Online, Le Monde, Libération, and GEO France, among others.
Lisa Bukreyeva (b. 1993) is a photographer based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Since her journey with photography began in 2019, her works have been presented at a range of museums and festivals, including Photo Elysée, Lausanne; Noorderlicht Festival, Groningen; and Deichtorhallen – Internationale Kunst Und Fotographie, Hamburg. Meanwhile, her images have featured in the likes of Der Spiegel, Zeit, The New York Magazine and Blind Magazine. Bukreyeva is a member of the Burn My Eye collective.
Simon Grunert (b. 1990) is a German photographer and graphic designer. He holds a Bachelor's degree in North American Studies and a Masters in Photography from the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Gent. With a focus on photobooks, Grunert utilises a documentary approach to build imaginary realms and topographies. His work has been exhibited in various institutions in Germany and France, and has featured in publications such as Camera Austria International.
Wbsite: simongrunert.com
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
Julia Gaes (b. 1993) lives and works in Hamburg. Her work is primarily focused on ideas of body image and identity. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Photography at the Fachhochschule Bielefeld in 2018, and received a Master of Arts in Photography at the HAW Hamburg in 2022. Gaes has exhibited her work at a range of international festivals, including the Triennial of Photography, Hamburg; Kolga Festival, Tbilisi; and Unseen Photo Fair, Amsterdam.
Wbsite: www.juliagaes.de
Today she lives and works as a photographer in Athens. Her work has been published in magazines from Greece and abroad, and presented in photography group exhibitions.
Ivar Hagren obtained his bachelor's degree from the Gothenburg University of Photography in 2012 and his master's degree in fine art from Konstfack in 2014. Weronika Bela earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in fine art in 2013 and 2015, respectively, also from Konstfack. Their works have been exhibited both in Sweden and internationally, including in Poland, Finland, and Greece. In 2022 they where Iaspis artist in residency grant holders in Stockholm.
They are currently developing a project on the defunct East German manufacturer ORWO, best known for affordable black-and-white photo paper, who held a monopoly over photographic darkroom material in the Eastern bloc market before ceasing operations in connection with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
IG @hagrenbela
Website www.hagrenbela.com
Federico Berardi, a graduate of ECAL (University of Art & Design of Lausanne), is a Swiss-born artist and still life photographer living between Paris and Switzerland. His work explores photography’s potential for creating illusion, while interrogating the technical boundaries of commercial and fine art photography.
Oxiea Villamonte (b. 1995) was born in the USA and raised in the Netherlands. She holds both a BA and MFA in Photography from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Shortly after graduating, her book – Next of Kin – was published by Stockmans Art Books. Through self-portraits and archival material, the project presents the artist’s search for identity in Chicago, where her mother spent her formative years. More recently, Villamonte embarked on a 10-month journey through America by Amtrak, guided by photographs from her parents’ archive. Her work is highly personal, guided by a fascination with identity, and with the legacy of her upbringing in the choices she makes.