Uzochukwu has previously exhibited at Bozar (BE), Lagos Photo Festival (NG), Off Biennale Dakar (SN), Photo Vogue Festival (IT), and Unseen Amsterdam (NL). He currently studies philosophy in Berlin.
Ana Núñez Rodríguez studied Documentary Photography and Contemporary Creation at IDEP Barcelona, holds a postgraduate degree in Photography from the National University of Colombia and holds a Master degree in Photography and Society from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KABK) in The Hague. She was part of Lighthouse 2020-21, a program for upcoming talents at Fotodok, Utrecht.
In her works she often focuses on issues connected with migration or its destiny. She is mostly interested in the problematic of constructing identity and how people define themselves and the land of their origins. Recently she is involved in collective photographic research about polish migration to South America. It happens that she gets out of the material world and enters other dimensions of perceiving the world, exploring the paranormal events and believes not connected with any religious system. Finds collective creation as the best way for making photography as permanent process of putting individual thoughts in doubts.
She was born in 1990 by the Polish seaside in Gdańsk. Graduated in Photography on Academy of Arts in Poznań. She is also part of Ostrøv publishing collective.
For her photographic adventure I am just a scenic spot, Pauline Niks made two long journeys to China, travelling the entire country to photograph so-called landmarks. Her particular focus was on replicas of iconic tourist attractions from other countries, such as the Eiffel Tower and the White House. The idea behind the undertaking was the manipulative nature of documentary photography: it is often seen as a reliable reproduction of reality when in fact it creates its own reality.
www.paulineniks.com
With his interest in the glorifying and influential nature of photographs and images, Jeroen Bocken investigates the increasingly prominent role of hyper-idealised aesthetics in today’s world. Bocken is fascinated by natural science, human criteria and calculations and the limitations of the camera. He combines a variety of digital processes with natural patterns and algorithms. This experimental and associative process results in illogically constructed images. The photographer alternates these with classic “documentary” images – often iconic and familiar – to create an ambiguous context.
The interplay between real and constructed images requires vigilance. By playing these extreme methods off against each other, Bocken reminds us that an image never really shows the ultimate reality but is only capable of representing it. The image is a documentation, a snapshot and a notion of reality. It has the unequivocal power to steer our interpretation and perception in one direction.
New digital advances, such as 3D renders, mean that hyper-constructed images are being unleashed on the world at a dizzying rate. These immaculate, aesthetic and fabricated renderings are increasingly wrong-footing us and impacting on our perceptions. It is only with effort that we can distinguish the “picture perfect” from reality. Bocken is very intrigued by this ironic and surrealistic fact. By twisting and distorting the technical processing of his own images, and embracing the faults, Bocken explores the boundaries of our sense of reality.
Text by Eléa De Winter
In her work she explores the boundary between truth and fiction. Using reality as a starting point, her image-making anchors the subject matter in her own personal perspective. Depicted themes include technology, internet culture, sexuality and identity. Alongside her practice she has initiated and developed short-films, exhibitions and a film festival. She is the co-founder of the independent film festival Cinema Underexposed - a The Hague based platform aimed for new voices and perspectives.
After graduating from The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, she is now attending the master program at the Norwegian Film Academy in Oslo. In 2020 she attended the Canon Student Development Programme at Visa Pour l’Image. Her work has been shown at Eye filmmuseum and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. San Mei Gallery in London, Grimstad short film festival in Norway, gallery CK13 in Serbia and cultural platform Page Not found in The Hague, among others. She has been published in Morgenbladet, Aftenposten and Zweikommasieben magazine.
Anna Aicher (b. 1993) is a documentary and portrait photographer from Germany. After studying photography in Berlin, she became a team member at Salzburg’s Gallery Fotohof in 2018. She is currently following a Masterclass at Ostkreuzschule, Berlin. Exploring traces of old traditions and rituals in contemporary society, most of Aicher’s projects have an auto-biographical dimension. She travels constantly between the city and the countryside, turning up stories nestled in distinct communities. Besides her personal projects, Aicher regularly works on assignments for various newspapers and magazines.
Website: www.anna-aicher.com
Pleun Gremmen (NL, 1992) is an artist and designer researching ways to create narratives through a variety of media reflecting mainly on internet subculture and politics while pushing the boundaries of her practice.
She graduated in 2018 from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (Master Media Design, Experimental Publishing), and in 2014 from ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem (Bachelor Graphic Design). Since graduating in Arnhem she has been freelancing as an artist, designer and researcher and has been connecting and collaborating with artists and institutions in Rotterdam.
The work “Alt Reality Lexicon” (2018) explores the language neologisms of the Alt-right and Manosphere subcultures, acting as a translator between realms of reality. The performance installation “R.E.S.T”(2017) explores contemporary physical and digital expressions of escapism in a politically turbulent time.
Peters Jurgis (b. 1991) is a new media artist currently based in Riga, Latvia. He holds both a BSc in Digital Media Technology and an MSc in Cyber Security from the University of Birmingham, and an MA in Audiovisual Arts from the Art Academy of Latvia. His work comprises visual explorations into the impact of various phenomena caused by advances in technology. As such, a main focus of his work is Artificial Intelligence (AI) – both as a medium and on a conceptual basis. New developments in AI have sparked a series of heated debates, ranging from whether we can entrust critical tasks to AI, to conversations on the role of the human creator in an age of AI-generated content. With a background in machine learning algorithms, Jurgis believes that the future will bring AI and human co-creation – where algorithms are used to enhance a human artist’s capabilities. In his own practice, Jurgis applies new technologies as tools for visual storytelling, and as a means to speculate on future scenarios.
She has been working for German media outlets since 2014 and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Documentary Photography.
In her personal projects she focuses on taboo topics, feminism and relationships. She likes to combine different media and material such as video, photography, archive images, sound and objects. In 2018 she was chosen as one of the most promising newcomers in German photography, the year after she was nominated for the C/O Berlin Talent Award. Her work ‚IGNOSCENTIA’ has been shown in numerous exhibitions internationally and she regularly gives talks and speeches.
Sina lives and works in Berlin.
Balázs Turós (b. 1990) studied at the Department of Photography at Budapest’s Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. After finishing his BA, Turós moved to England, where he was introduced to FotoNow – a media-based social enterprise in Plymouth, with whom he worked for two years. Having returned to Budapest, he pursued a Master of Photography course at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. Turós was awarded the József Pécsi Fellowship in 2018, 2019 and 2020. In 2021, he participated in the Fellowship of the Robert Capa Photography Grand Prize. The following year, his works featured in the Open Program of Fotofestiwal Lodz, Poland.
Wbsite: balazsturos.com
Instagram: balazs_turos
Younès Klouche is a photographer living and working in Paris and Lausanne. His personal projects pursue new solutions to re-define the documentary genre owing to a conceptual and reflexive approach. ADer graduating with honours from ECAL in Switzerland, Younès Klouche's commercial practice soon expanded to Paris; where he maintains strong connections with clients, producers and art directors. At the occasion of Art Basel 2022 & the Swiss Design Awards, he presents for the first
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.
Guerra’s work has been exhibited individually in institutions and art centres such as The Domus Artium 2002 (DA2) in Salamanca, Centro Niemeyer in Asturias, Sala Amárica in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the PHotoEspaña festival in Madrid, Centro Leonés de Arte (CLA) in León, and several art galleries. He has also exhibited in the Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean (BJCEM) in Ancona, Italy and Thessaloniki, Greece; Talent Latent in Tarragona; Encontros da Imagem in Braga, Portugal; BredaPhoto International Photo Festival, Holland; the Embassy of Spain in Havana, Cuba; and Instituto Cervantes in Madrid. For his work, he has received a MUSAC Artistic Creation Grant, a Pilar Juncosa & Sotheby’s Award from the Miró Mallorca Foundation, a Villalar Foundation grant, a Community of Madrid Visual Art Grant, a VEGAP Grant for Visual Creation, and the Roberto Villagraz grant from EFTI. He has been artist in residence at the Casa de Velázquez Académie de France in Madrid and his work is included in public and private collections.
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.