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.
In 2015, he began his solo career with focus in “landscape and associated behavior”. His projects evolved from painting to more conceptual processes, expanding his language to photography, video and actions in the landscape.
As center of his concerns are the humankind relationships with territory, studying aspects such as: the gradual reduction of space for wildlife, “The Naked Trace“, the overpopulation, "Genesis 1.28", the artificial character of the borders "Minimal Republics", the liquid nature of the concept of nation: "Iceberg Nations" or the dichotomy between industrial agriculture and natural agriculture: "The garden of Fukuoka".
He has presence in important collections, specially within Spain, and is beginning to exhibit abroad like the two solo shows that will take place in late 2019: one at Lianzhou Museum of Photography, China, and the other at Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal, as winner of 2018 “Emergentes” award.
Joana Dionisio (b. 1993) is a Portuguese photographer based in Porto, where she works as a freelancer on various commissioned and personal projects. Having first studied Audiovisual Communication Technologies, she completed an MA in Artistic Photography in 2021. Dionisio has exhibited her work in a range of solo and group exhibitions, whilst she was recently selected for FRESH EYES – a publication showcasing emerging European Photography Talent by GUP Magazine.
Visual artist, performer, author of installations and video art. PhD fellow at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Resident at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York City in 2023. MFA graduate of the Studio of Spatial Activities of prof. Mirosław Bałka at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2020). Also studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (2010-11) in Amsterdam and during an internship at the Studio of Performance at FaVU VUT in Brno led by Julie Béna and Jakub Jansa (2021). Received the Europe Beyond Access award granted by Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw and British Council in 2021 and the Grand Prix at the 10th Biennale of Young Art Rybie Oko (Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art in Słupsk, 2022). Presented her works and performances at, among others, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2023), Kunsthalle Bratislava (2022), Galeria Miejska Arsenał in Poznań (2022), Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (2021), Sto Lat Gallery in New York (2021).
She obtained a master’s degree in Photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in 2016. In 2013, she spent a semester in Brussels with Erasmus, later, she completed her mandatory internship in Paris with Erasmus+.
In 2013 she was selected to the top 100 of Google Photography Prize. In 2014 she won a grant to organise her first solo exhibition titled Bleu, which took place at Gallery Várfok Project Room, Budapest. In 2015 her series Animalia Variabilis was shortlisted at the 5th World Biennal of Student Photography, Novi Sad.
In recent years, her photos gained exposure in various places including the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art Budapest, the Mai Manó House, the Vienna Photobook Festival, the Berlin Photobook Festival, the Mark Grosset Prize, Vendôme, the Kiscell Museum , and the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center and der Grief magazine.
She is a member since 2012, and a board member since 2020, of the Studio of Young Photographers. She lives and works in Budapest, Hungary.
Hajdu Tamás (b. 1976) was born in Transylvania. Today, he works as both a veterinarian and a photographer in Baia Mare, Romania. His work has been recognised by a series of prizes, including the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards, and the 2015 LensCulture Exposure Awards. Tamás’ photographs have been exhibited in multiple exhibitions including the Spotlight Romania Show at GEMAK in The Hague, the Netherlands. His work has featured in a number of international publications, including Punctum, Practical Photography, Vice, Lenscratch, Feature Shoot, The Independent, La Repubblica, National Geographic and The Guardian.
Katerina Tsakiri was born in Athens in 1991 and she is based in Gothenburg, Sweden. She studied Photography and Audiovisual Arts in Athens and has an MFA in Photography from the University of Gothenburg. Since 2015 she has been working part-time as a visual artist and part-time as a commercial photographer. From 2019 she has been devoting her time to her artistic practice. She works with self-portraiture and her subjects are mainly autobiographical. The theme of her work is the female identity in Western culture with a focus on the female body. Her practice expands from staged photography to video performances and sculptures. In her latest project, she uses documentary photography to share the journey of her breast cancer treatment. She unravels through the photographic medium her body’s fragility and the impact of the illness on her female identity.
In 2020 Erien Withouck’s fascination for overlooked figures and myths led her to the Shetland Isles. Several islanders told her of the mythical “Selkie”, a hybrid creature which has the ability to remove its seal skin and take on human form. On Midsummer’s eve, a female Selkie emerges from a foaming sea and sheds her seal skin. A man sees her on the shore: he carelessly steals her skin and makes her his wife. Always longing for the ocean, the Selkie prefers the freedom as a seal to her expected role as a good mother and housewife, she eventually reclaims her skin and returns to her former home.
This myth is the sort of transient tale that chimes with Withouck’s aesthetic and sensibility. The antagonism between the fleeting nature of oral history and the desire to capture things permanently on film raises an important question: what do we wish to remember, and what would we rather forget? A literal reconstruction of the past is neither useful nor appropriate. The camera offers the chance to play, to intersect the paths of history and imagination.
Her photographs illuminate the traces of these unknown figures and mythical creatures which escaped the pages of history books, subtly capturing the unwritten habits, routines and cultures that still slumber on in remote communities. In scenes that beautifully evoke the fisherman’s world of pounding waves and craggy cliffs, the sea – with its continuous ebb and flow between eternity and fluidity – is clearly the protagonist. This ambiguity is exposed in the imagery of Erien Withouck.
- Text by Dagmar Dirkx (.tiff)
Yana Kononova (b. 1977) has an academic background in social sciences, and holds a PhD in sociology. She was born on Pirallahi island in the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan – now an important site of oil extraction. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, her family emigrated to Ukraine. Having later relocated to the countryside of the Trachtemiriv peninsula, Kononova turned to photography. She graduated from the Photoschool of Viktor Marushchenko before following a photography course organised by the Image Threads Collective (USA). In 2019, Kononova won the Bird in Flight Prize in emerging Photography, and in 2022 was the recipient of the Hariban Award, presented by Benrido. Her works have been exhibited in Ukraine and abroad.
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
Angelina Vernetti (* 1993 in Lüneburg, DE) lives and works as a freelance photographer in Berlin. Her focus is on portraiture, fashion and art. She works e.g. in editorial for magazines like Der SPIEGEL and GEO Magazine, photographs commissioned art for architectural firms or teaches fashion photography at the Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle. For documentary long term projects Angelina researches and photographs socially relevant but underrepresented topics.
For example, her works tell of the socio-cultural effects of the birth control pill (SMILE EFFEKT, 2020) and of beauty ideals and their consequences (EVERY BODY, 2022). In 2020 she graduated with a bachelor's degree in documentary photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover.