After finishing her undergraduate studies in 2018, Sophie Gladstone has continued her art practise while working in editorial positions. Her work has been exhibited in both Europe and Asia and was recently shortlisted for the Emergentes International Photography Award and nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award. Currently, Gladstone works as Assistant Photography Editor at Wallpaper*, a luxury design-focused publication. This role feeds back into her photography, informing a critical perspective as she works across the reality and fantasy of contemporary visual culture. Aesthetics of advertising, social media and e-commerce are also inspiration points. Through her practice, she performs the capitalist pressures that undermine positive traits within us, such as the desire to improve ourselves and connect with others.
Ilavenil Vasuky Jayapalan (b. 1991) is a transdisciplinary artist based in Oslo, Norway. Exploring mechanisms of national consciousness; notions of freedom, truth and desire; and speculative futures that draw from the fringes of society, Jayaplan’s works are heavily inspired by worlds of cinema, music and media. A longtime collaborator of artists like M.I.A, Christopher Kulendran Thomas and Annika Kuhlmann, his collaborative works have been shown at a host of international music festivals – from London’s ICA to Berlin’s KW Institute for Contemporary Art. His personal work, meanwhile, has been exhibited in several Norwegian institutions, and at Tokyo’s Sezon Art Gallery.
Her work retraces her personal family history drawing on her Togolaise heritage, and the idea of origins. The theme of family is explored through self-portraits in which she plays her mother and father, narrating their experience of migration from Togo to Italy. Her images are partially informed by the West African studio portrait tradition.
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.
Zane Priede (b.1990) a self-taught still life photographer based in Riga, Latvia, has a background in design and a passion for photography. A graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Priede’s work creates imaginary and surreal scenes with everyday objects, infusing them with fantasy. Her deep fascination for architecture and design can be seen in her visual approach, which involves constructing scenes with small-scale objects. Her interest in science, biology, and psychology are also evident in her visual explorations, contributing a playful approach to storytelling, and discovering the fantastical in the mundane.
Andrey Anro (born 1987 Smarhon, Belarus) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany / Minsk, Belarus. His basic tools are painting, photography, digital collage, and installation. Anro explores topics such as collective memory, historical heritage, politics, dictatorship, religion, disappearance and death. He is author of the photobook "Happy Death Society", 2019.
The artist's works are in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow(MOCAK), Poland, in the ART4 Museum in Moscow, in private collections in Lithuania, Sweden, Canada, Russia, and the USA. In 2007 he graduated from MMT L.B. Krasina (Moscow, Russia), speciality "Advertising".
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
Lee has exhibited individually in Caracas, Madrid, and in international group shows such as the Guangzhou Image Triennial curated by Gerardo Mosquera (2021); Vincent Price Art Museum, California, USA (2018); Arizona State University Art Museum, USA (2017); Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris, France (2013); Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2014); the 9th Bienal do Mercosul (2013), and Biennial of the Americas 2013: Draft Urbanism. She has contributed to many other shows in the US, Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Seoul, and Paris, among others.
Lee’s works are in the collections of MoMA in New York (USA), Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (USA), Cisternos Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) in Miami (USA), Colección Banco Mercantil (Venezuela), Museu de Arte Brasileira da Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (Brazil), and in various private collections in Venezuela, Colombia, USA, Spain, Germany, Costa Rica, Argentina, and Puerto Rico.
Lee studied photography at the Speos Paris Photographic Institute in 2001–2002. In 2006, she took the PHotoEspaña Masterclass with German photographer Axel Hütte and subsequently travelled with him on several photography trips in Latin America, Europe, and Asia from 2006 through 2019. She also studied with Nelson Garrido in his experimental photography workshop in Caracas, Venezuela (2007).
In addition to her career as a visual artist, Lee co-founded and was co-director of the Venezuelan artist-run space Oficina #1 (www.oficina1.com) for more than ten years (2005–2015), helping to launch the careers of emerging artists from Venezuela.
Laura San Segundo (b. 1990) studied Fine Arts at Madrid’s Complutense University, followed by an MA at Efti International School of Photography and Cinema. Her personal projects have since run alongside commissioned work and a series of teaching roles. A recipient of various scholarships and residencies, Segundo’s projects have been exhibited internationally. With a playful but thoughtful methodology, her work makes conceptual connections between different image types, exploring their many layers of meaning – and how their meaning can be altered by visual strategies like cropping, fragmenting and decontextualising.
Dafni Melidou (b. 1990, Greece) is a visual artist whose multidisciplinary practice combines research, photography, writing and multi-media experimentation. Coming from a scientific background her working and research methods are versatile, and she approaches her projects from many angles. She works with her own photographs, found images, tactile materials and smells, often re-appropriated and constructed into new constellations, shapes or forms.
Melidou's experimental works start with her daily encounters of events in the mass media and her personal observations. Her themes center around gender and social injustices, the complexities of representation and our conflicting perception of reality. A common thread in her work is the understanding of materiality and the physical world in a digital age. Her fascination lies with creating non-conclusive and often confusing stories that call for an open interpretation and invite the viewers to re-think dominantmedia narratives.
Melidou holds a B.A. in Chemistry, a M.Sc. in Food Science and she is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Photography & Society at The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK). In 2021 she co-founded cartographydigest.com, an experimental visual platform aiming to stretch the boundaries of photography and map new territories. She is currently based between Rotterdam and Athens.
Rami’s work is visually striking. The objects of his portraits are statuesque, almost sculptural and hold a quiet dignity, these aforementioned fabrics (the Veil, the Durag) are elevated from their utilitarian role into markers of adornment. A hijab becomes a royal veil, a durag transforms into the crown of a young, anonymous king, A portrait becomes a painting.His use of colour elevate the text in a variety of ways. His work brings a dynamic element of emphasis, playing on the themes of alienation, anonymity and the question of belonging. the pops of vivid colours bring a sensation of playfulness, while some images use the richness of deep blues, purples and gold tones that bring forth a sense of mystery, a world where the viewer is not entirely welcomed but granted a glimpse of what the (un)veiling allows. He presents his family, his source of inspiration with deference, honouring them in portraits that beam with a sense of pride. The questions of stigmatisation and alienation starts in ‘Hooyo’, and re-occurs in his ongoing series « Durag », taking a step back in Indaha qurbaha, (In the eyes of the diaspora) by showing his subjects up close and personal as well as in their contextual spaces respectively.
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.
Marin Håskjold is an artist and filmmaker based in Oslo, Norway. She studied moving images at Nordland School of Art and Film in Kabelvåg on the Lofoten islands. Identity is a central theme in Håskjolds work, where she philosophically explores different notions of gender and sex in a queer and feminist perspective. Håskjolds work has been exhibited and screened at a number of art institutions and film festivals, such as Tate Modern, London, Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, Arendal, Coast Contemporary, Oslo, Kyiv International Short Film Festival, Helsinki International Film Festival, the Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad, Trøndelag Center of Contemporary Art, and Vega Scene, Oslo, as a part of Fotogalleriet’s programme. Her short film «What is a Woman?» (2020) has also been awarded with a Norwegian Academy Award in 2021, the Amanda, for Best Short, and Best Script at Beirut International Women Film Festival.