His photos combine powerful visuals with compelling stories. He got published by National Geographic, Washington Post, CNN and stern.
Jacopo Valentini (1990) lives between Modena and Milan. In 2017, he graduated in Architecture at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture and obtained an MA in Photography at the IUAV in Venice. In the same year he won the “101st Collective Young Artists” at the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation.
He has been selected for Giovane Fotografia Italiana #07, Fotografia Europea Festival - Reggio Emilia, and he won the Nocivelli Award (2019). In 2020 he is a finalist for the Leica Oskar Barnack Award Newcomer and winner of the Refocus Prize, powered by Triennale and Mufoco in Milan. In the same year Valentini won Cantica21 grant, developing the project Concerning Dante - Autonomus Cell research, published by Humboldt Books.
Valentini work has been exhibited in institutions and private spaces both in Italy and abroad, including: La Triennale di Milano, L. Pecci Center for Contemporary Art, Museo Fattori, Royal Institute British of Architecture, Fabbri Foundation, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Ragghianti Foundation, Civic Gallery of Modena, Italian Cultural Institute of Addis Ababa, Italian Cultural Institute-Moscow.
https://jacopovalentini.it/
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.
Marta Machado is a Portuguese-Cape Verdean artist who lives and works in Braga, Portugal. A graduate of Architecture from the University of Minho, she also holds an MA in Photography from the School of Arts at the Catholic University of Porto. Her photographic work analyses the ambiguities of history and the so-called ‘official’ narratives of the Western world, focusing on themes of colonialism, identity and territory. Machado’s Beyond Solid Ground project was exhibited at Braga’s Encontros da Imagem festival, whilst her Nos Txôn series was presented at Lisbon’s Imago Gallery. Her academic research, meanwhile, has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals.
Luciana M. Vulea is a PhD student in Visual Arts and a university assistant at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Living in a world of images, she draws inspiration from a broad range of imagery and artistic techniques – many of which she integrates into her own practice. As a doctoral student, Vulea’s research examines the insertion of virtuality into the contemporary imaginary. Her role as a university assistant involves teaching 2D and 3D animation to students. Vulea’s work also spans conservation – through the restoration of old photographs – as well as various curatorial activities.
Michal Sita (1985) is a photographer and curator. Graduate of photography at the ITF in Opava and anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he is concluding doctoral research on social uses of the past in contemporary Poland. Interested in social memory and research strategies of photography. Curator of an interdisciplinary analysis of Wiesław Rakowski’s interwar zoological photographs, curator and producer of a series of exhibitions (including Małgorzata Lebda and Rafał Siderski, Mayumi Suzuki, Jan Kurek, Martin Parr and Rimaldas Vikšraitis, Sputnik Photos, among others), and photobook festivals. Co-author of “Củ Chi Tunnels Restoration Report” (Photographic Publication of the Year 2020 – Łódź, PL), a book relating to the activities of the Polish-Vietnamese architectural heritage conservation mission. Author of “History of Poland” vol. 1 and 2 — publications commenting on anthropological research carried out in Murowana Goślina among volunteers staging a large-scale historical pageant. Author of critical texts on photography. Lecturer at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań.
I'm a Norwegian-Vietnamese designer and artist based between Oslo and Berlin. Born in the Bidong refugee camp in Malaysia and raised on Norway's west coast, my background drives my research into migration, diaspora stories, and multicultural identity.Much of Vietnamese refugee history remains clouded in post-war trauma and politically charged narratives. My work seeks to make sense of our position as displaced individuals in the Western world and examines diasporic existence beyond simply digesting the past. I wish to envision what our identity looks like in the future.Through field and archival research interpreted with a poetic lens, I create what I call poetic essays: exhibitions and projects that seamlessly intertwine poetry, photography, sound, video, and installation. My asymmetrical approach allows elements to inspire each other non-hierarchically. The work explores contradictions between perception and reality, truth and staging, filling historical and memory voids by creating plausible simulacra.
His documentary approach uses photography as a link between a habitat and its inhabitants, as well as between the inhabitants themselves. In so doing, he questions notions of territorial, social, architectural and industrial identity.
In 2020, he co-founded La Nombreuse ASBL, a cultural space in Saint-Gilles, Bruxelles dedicated to emerging and contemporary photography. Since 2019, he has been driving a truck transformed into a camera obscura to meet the inhabitants of northern France.
He graduated from the BTS photo de Roubaix (fr) in 2015 and from ESA Le75 in 2018, where he has been teaching since 2023.
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
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.
She is a student of the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (the Czech Republic), winner of the PDN Emerging Photographer, last year's laureate of the Konrad Pustoła's Remembrance Scholarship, winner of the Sputnik Photos Project titled "As you can see". Her works have been published e.g. in The Calvert Journal, Culture.pl, FK magazine.
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Karppanen has received recognition including New Photo Journalist Award and Jouko Lehtola Foundation’s Young Hero Grant in 2017. His first monograph 'Finnish Pastoral' was published in 2018; the same year he participated in We Feed The World, a global photographic exhibition in London, featuring names such as Martin Parr, Susanna Meiselas and Graciela Iturbide.
In 2019 Karppanen had his first museum solo show in the Aine Art Museum. Furthermore his works have been exhibited in Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, KunstHausWien and Mänttä Art Festival among others. His latest exhibition in Gallery Halmetoja in August 2023 received critical acclaim. Karppanen's works can be found in various collections including The Finnish State Art Commission, The Finnish Museum of Photography and Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.Originally from Northern Finland, Karppanen now lives and works in Helsinki, Finland.
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.
Filip Bojović (b.1984) is a Yugoslav-born graphic designer and photographer who lives and works in Novi Sad, Serbia. He studied at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, New Visual Media department. In 2003 Filip founded A3.Format, a Serbian-based self-publishing collective, particularly focused on zines and photo books. He was awarded European Design and Grifon awards for his work in the field of graphic design. Filip published his first photo book “Osijek Snapshots” in 2018, and his second book "We will walk" documenting Belgrade's Euro Pride will be published in February 2023. He's been working on an ongoing collaborative project “Turbo Dioxide” with Mirko Žarković (mirkozarkovic.com) since 2019.
Born in Gran Canaria in 1973, living in Berlin.
Lorena studied fine art photography between 1992 and 1995 in Boston. Sometime later she went to Barcelona to study filmmaking but moved back to the island after one year in film school. Immediately she joined the team of the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, this work got her closer to another one of her passions, films. Being so close to many radical authors and watching their personal films made an impact on her approach to photography.
Mum of 5 children. Since 2008 she has obsessively photographed and filmed her loved ones and their lives together developing over the years a coherent photographic work of a special intensity, building an ongoing project she titled Je reste avec vous. Her images reflects her daily life and focus on her most immediate universe.
She is one of the photographers from collective Temps Zero, an international group of artists working with photographs, films and sound presenting exhibitions and performances around Europe.
She recently published a book with Brazo de Papel/ Fotonoviembre called Himmelskörper, result of the last two years observing her younger children are growing and how their lives unfold fully in the space called Home, reflecting the moment in which we live and what happens outside.
Presently, Lorena diversifies her time between her artist activity and her work as a film programmer and advisor.
She has won the LUX Prize twice for Professional Photography in the Documentary category. She has also participated, since 2008, in various solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia and the United States and at fairs like Paris Photo, ARCO, Estampa o London Art Fair. In October 2016 she published her photobook Vera y Victoria and in 2019 Gabriel, both with the French publisher André Frère Éditions and presented in Paris Photo.
She also published the newspaper DÚO-A Sobre el viaje por carretera con desconocidos (About the road trip with strangers) (edited by Phree), together with the writer Miguel Ángel Hernández. In 2018 her works have been exhibited in Barcelona (Can Basté), Madrid (Feria Estampa y Pilar Serra’s Gallery), Baracaldo (Festival Baffest), Arles (Feria Cosmos), Vitoria (Sala Amárica), Alcobendas' Art Center and Marseille (Galería Retine Argentique), among others, and in 2019-2020, in Tigomigo Gallery (Terrassa, Barcelona), F22 Foto Space (Hong Kong), KLAP Maison pour la Danse (Marsella), the London Art Fair and Desenfocada Gallery (Málaga). As an artist, Sáez is represented by the Pilar Serra Gallery in Madrid, the Fifty Dots Gallery in Barcelona and the Institute Agency in Los Angeles.
Iveta Gabaliņa (1979) is a curator, artist and educator. She has studied photography at the studio of Andrejs Grants, at Bournemouth Art Institute, and in the MA programme at Alto University in Helsinki. Her work has been exhibited in Latvia and internationally, including at C/O (Berlin, Germany), GESTE (Paris), and Williams Tower Gallery (Houston, USA). Gabaliņa has participated in photography festivals in Singapore, Hanover, and elsewhere. Her work is included in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Geste Paris, and the Deutsche Börse Art Collection. Since 2008 she has been part of ISSP team, responsible for numerous educational and curatorial projects. In 2018 she founded ISSP Gallery - an exhibition space dedicated to contemporary photography.
Noémi Napsugár Melegh was born in 1990 in Budapest, Hungary, and is currently a full-time photojournalist for telex.hu, one of the largest independent news portals in Hungary. Although she has been interested in photography since she was in high school, she worked as a health economist for several years after having obtained her BA and MSc in Economics. During the past two years, she has participated in several international training courses: she was a fellow of the VII Academy Level 1 and Level 2 Documentary Photography Seminar, a participant of the Magnum workshop organised by the Robert Capa Center in Budapest, and a fellow of the Canon Student Development programme and of the prestigious Eddie Adams workshop in Jeffersonville, New York. Her true passion lies in creating long-form documentary projects that focus on personal stories and presenting the lives of local, marginalised communities. In 2023, she won 2nd place in the Documentary Photography (Series) category of the Hungarian Press Photo Contest with her work titled as "Gábor and Kálmán", which tells the story of two men living on the margins of the Roma community. In the same year, she was awarded the Hemző-Károly Prize, a prestigious yearly award for a photographer under 35.