The current project Systems of Order examines the hidden relationship between fear and joy - something that is deeply embedded within the Russian condition. The first part of the project focuses on the drag community in Novosibirsk, Russia. In joy, there is a darker reality and often the truth must be hidden in this world and “joy” can only be expressed through beauty - one has to place him/herself within the system.This, in a lot of cases, is based on oppression and boundaries. The theme of oppression vs. exhibition is constantly present in those systems of order. Joy becomes a form of repression in itself, there are moments of freedom in the constructed safe space, but they can only be obtained and permitted behind the masks of beauty and entertainment.
Beauty within a Russian context allows for certain freedoms from the norm. You must fit in the central mass of these systems unless you have power, money or beauty. In this way, beauty can become your safety net. In the country, unsure of its own reality and fearful to discover the boundaries, many struggle to be themselves in the current dystopian hybrid.
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.
Nadine Isabelle Henrich is a curator and researcher in the history of art, focusing on photography, media art, and synthetic media, based in Berlin. She has been a curatorial fellow at Museum Folkwang, Fotomuseum Winterthur and The Getty Research Institute. Currently she is the Curator of The House of Photography at Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Her curatorial work examines the politics of visibility and imagination, focusing on photography, archives and visual practices online. She is a Ph.D. researcher in Art History at Freie Universität Berlin and holds a MA in History of Images and Art from Humboldt University (Berlin), a BA from Freie Universität Berlin, and studied Curatorial Studies (Städelschule Frankfurt). She is interested in expanded curatorial practices including community- and coalition-building, and commoning.
Over twenty years ago, Jaakko Kahilaniemi, who was barely eight at that time, inherited 100 hectares of forest. The abstraction which this represents for a child, is followed by an indifference which it evokes for an adolescent. After all, this is hardly very exotic for a Finn: forest covers more than 70% of the country, totalling 26 million hectares. Fairly recently, this photographer decided to return to this heritage in order to explore its twists and turns. This series, called 100 Hectares of Understanding retraces his journey towards an appropriation of this land which is too big for a single – young – man. Photography thus becomes the location where the experience of the landscape can be filtered as it is travelled through, physically, mentally, and sentimentally. These explorations blend physical crossings and digital incursions, photographed panoramas and painted landscapes. The photographer combines these vast misty lands with a still life of a small wooden log resting upon a scale, or simple twigs upon a black background: from the infinitely big to the infinitesimal, each photograph constitutes a piece of an important memory game whose perimeter, one might imagine, increases as the photographer walks and the man grows up.
Marysia Myanovska (b. 1990) is a Ukrainian photographer, currently based between Kyiv and Hamburg. A graduate of the Victor Marushchenko School of Modern Photography, her work explores connections between particular territories and the people who inhabit them. She is especially interested in stories of young Ukrainians in deprived city districts. In 2022, Myanovska was a finalist of the Hamburg Portfolio Review and the winner of the Nikon Noor Workshop for Photojournalists. Her images have been published by the likes of Vice, The Calvert Journal and Bird in Flight.
In addition to her art and research, she works on commission for architects and public institutions. She is regularly published in architectural magazines (including Casabella, Domus, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’Hui, Le Moniteur). She gives tertiary lectures (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Florida International University, Polytechnic University of Milan, University of Genoa, Italian Institute of Culture - Addis Ababa) and leads workshops at a university level.
Her projects have been exhibited internationally, in art galleries and public institutions, such as La Triennale, Milan, Venice Architectural Biennale, Cornell University, Ithaca, MAO Ljubljana, and Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art, Genoa.
Anna is based in Genoa, Italy.
Sebastian Koudijzer (b. 1993) studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, the Netherlands. Growing up as a child of different races – and surrounded by a large extended family on his Javanese side – he is interested in how identities are created. Using various techniques, he creates intimate stories that address themes of family, faith, identity, and their representations. Collaboration plays an important role in his projects; Koudijzer likes to give those he photographs space for their own voice. His work is an attempt to bring disappearing traditions, values and spirituality back into his own reality, with the camera becoming an exploratory tool.
Kristof Thomas’ (b. 1995, Belgium) work is radical and ruthless. Harsh colors, crisp images, manipulated to the unrecognizable. The visitor steps into montages of food and electrical wires, in unnaturally bright colors, chemically screaming, often digitally smeared and strongly edited. All indexical references are chopped and deconstructed, the work is much less about consumption than it is about the process. Not a traditional process, such as the analogue, which possesses the magical power of unpredictability. On the contrary, Thomas is in full control, he lets the beast sweat till it is down. He is not into magic but into sorcery. He creates artificial images, with no interest in reality as it manifests itself. His work is a confrontation with loops, errors and distortions that do not cause the system to fail but make it more flexible. He experiments, doubts his surroundings and tries out all his devices. He releases his work on paper, cardboard, sloppy, framed, sculptural, flat, on the floor, on the wall. Pushes out his uncertainty with cheeky confidence and leaves us guessing. Until we surrender and spin around the room.
Kristof Thomas received in 2019 a Bachelor’s degree in Photography from KASK The Royal academy of Fine arts Ghent, followed by a Visual Arts Master’s degree in 2022.
During Photo London in 2018, They were my landscape (MACK) was launched.
Kiely was nominated for the Paul Huf Award, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award and selected to be in the British Journal of Photography Ones to Watch, Talent issue (2018).
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.
Marcin Kruk (b. 1982) lives and works in Rzeszow, Poland. With a background in Archival and Historical Studies, he currently studies Photography at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava, Czech Republic. A Fujifilm Poland ambassador, Kruk is also a member of the Archive of Public Protest (A-P-P). His practice revolves around a series of long-term documentary projects.
His pictures appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, British Journal of Photography, Internazionale, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times Weekend, Vogue and Vice.
He participated in several exhibitions, including at United Nations (Geneva, Switzerland, 2013) at Venice Biennale of Architecture (Venice, Italy, 2016) and Head On Photo Festival (Sidney, Australia, 2020).
In 2019 he published “Era Mare”, a book about the high water in Venice, whose proceeds went totally to the shopkeepers who needed help.
For his work about Covid-19 Matteo won the REFOCUS award by Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (Italy) and according to ARTRIBUNE he’s the Best Italian young photographer of 2020.
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.
His work has been recognized through a variety of prestigious professional awards and achievements: In 2014 he was awarded the Grand Prize of the 32nd Hungarian Press Photo Competition for a photo series about the civil war in Syria. In 2015 he covered the conflict in eastern Ukraine and the impact of the refugee crisis across Europe. In the same year he was selected to participate in the Joop Swart Masterclass organized by the World Press Photo Organization. In 2017 he took part in the workshop of Magnum Photos as a recipient of the Robert Capa Centre’s scholarship. In 2018 he was the recipient of the Károly Hemző prize, one of the leading Hungarian photography awards, in recognition of his photo series which drew on a sophisticated form language to capture social phenomena in a way that reflects the photographer’s deep social sensitivity. In the same year, he was also selected to join the Nikon-NOOR Academy Masterclass.
He was awarded the Pécsi József Photography Grant in 2015, 2018 and 2019 for his project entitled The Last Storytellers. In his work thus far, he has tended to focus on the presentation of contemporary societal problems and conflicts, as well as their ramifications. But presenting the victims of long-gone repressive regimes, his The Last Storytellers diverges from this focus. Pursuing a similar theme, his The Darkest Hour series shows that in the same way that the wounds carried by the survivors of labor camps continue to mark the victims to this very day, the underlying experiences have also left an enduring imprint on the physical landscape and the collective memory of humanity.
Her work was exhibited internationally in personal and collective shows and since 2019 she teaches at the Master IUAV in Photography.
In 2018 she was awarded with the Giovane Fotografia Italiana Award at Fotografia Europea (Reggio Emilia) and Lesley A. Martin awarded her dummy ‘Are They Rocks or Clouds?’ with the Cortona On The Move Dummy Award. Thanks to these awards and the collaboration with Hans Gremmen and Taco Hidde Bakker in 2019 the photobook was published by Fw:Books. The photobook was awarded with the 2020 Bastianelli Award for the best italian photobook.
In 2019 she was commissioned by MUFOCO and the Italian Ministry of Culture of a project about italian architectural heritage and later, by the National Mountain Museum, of a new project based on their archives.
Caneve’s work is now part of private and public collections.
She is co-founder of CALAMITA/À, a multidisciplinary platform exploring the attractive nature of catastrophes in society and in the environment.