Just as much a physical experience which disturbs the tranquil surface of the photograph as a workshop narrative with a documentary character, Laetitia Bica’s series Cream, cannot be confined to a single genre. Following two years of collaborations with the CREAHM workshop in Liège (Creativity and Mental handicap), she undertook two months of intense research with the workshop’s artists, the result of which is this corpus of disruptive and vibrant photographs. Collaboration, a creative process which is a daily part of this photographer’s life as she typically works on commission in the areas of fashion, music, and design, in these photographs is transmitted through the body. Gestures, colours and materials become elements of language during their creative exchanges. Thus unfolds a series of figures covered in paint with thick and bold features and accents that are at times wild, at times warlike. A few of the images, placed in a sequence, follow an artist’s movement, rendering the in progress nature of this experiment and indicating Laetitia Bica’s double position on what takes on the appearance of almost ritualistic practices: at the same time actor and master of ceremonies.
She works in particular on the question of exoticism and on the family, using in her aesthetics the form of photographic documentary-fiction.
This year, she is one of the photographers selected for the 35th edition of the Hyères Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories Festival at Villa Noailles.
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".
Nolwenn Brod is a French artist based in Paris. She has studied humanities and social sciences, and trained in photography in London and at the Ecole des Gobelins in Paris. She is a member of the Vu Agency and represented by the eponymous gallery in Paris since 2016.
She develops her projects most often in the context of creative residencies in France and Europe where she mixes photography and video; and responds to commissions for the press and institutions. Her works are regularly exhibited in France and Europe and are included in the collections of the Bnf (French National Library), the Cnap, the Nicéphore Niépce Museum, the Museum of Brittany, the Villa Noailles, the Agnès b. collection, the Neuflize OBC Foundation, art libraries and private collections.
Her first book was published by Poursuite Editions in 2015, the second is in preparation.
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.
The project 'The lost paracosmist' is an animated short film by multimedia artist Josephina van de Water. Using digital photography, printed celluloid film, paint, digital scans, video montage, cardboard and extreme patience, she brings a fictitious world to life in fascinating detail. The film was made in the traditional, time-consuming way that requires particular dedication, with each frame individually handcoloured as was done in the first colour movies.
The imaginary island of Paperland is inhabited by a colourful collection of talking animals. Josephina van de Water wrote and narrated the dialogue, giving each animal its own voice, tone and place in her universe. The chronicle guides us through a logical, yet fictitious, tale, in which we learn about Paperland’s geography, history, language, culture and religion.
As in every good fable, imagination is closely accompanied by reflection. While The lost paracosmist focuses on the irresistible charms of storytelling, it also warns the audience to beware of stories. They have the power to contort our perception of the world and disturb our relationship with reality.
The endearing cardboard animals in their warm, glowing colours, and the gentle, motherly voice of the narrator, are reminiscent of children’s programmes. However, the topics covered in this allegory are anything but childish: territorial disputes, political and religious authority and mechanisms of exclusion and esteem all make an appearance, allowing inequality and frustration to creep into this seemingly safe cosmos.
- Text by Geert Goiris (.tiff)
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.
Lujza Hevesi-Szabó (1997) studied photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, then worked as a photojournalist and is currently a photographer for Telex.hu. Her works mainly deal with social issues and family dynamics. Hungary, especially the Hungarian countryside and the current situation of the people living there, plays a prominent role in her subjects. She uses irony to make his work attention-grabbing and consumable. She mixes classic documentary photography with elements of subjective visual storytelling.
For the past 6 years, Snizhko participated in several group exhibitions, festivals and international fairs in The Netherlands, Japan, Ukraine, Austria and Czech Republic. Her installation “TINI” was awarded the Best Artwork Award and Public's Prize at Smart Illumination 2016, Yokohama, Japan, Honorable Mention and Public's Prize of Steenbergen Stipendium 2016, The Netherlands.
His artistic work is closely related to the technological workshop, experimentation and the search for suitable means of expression to communicate content. He is interested in the interpenetration of the fields of art, where sound, image and space can provoke impulses through which intuition complements logical thinking – where the exposure to a work of art builds the experience of art.
Bartłomiej Talaga is a graduate of and teacher at the Film School in Łódź. In his work, he shares his own experience with students and focuses on the purposefulness and legitimacy of gestures that lead to personal and authentic expression. He is also a co-founder of the TON magazine (ton-mag.pl) and a designer of photography books.
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Kata Geibl (1989, Budapest) is a photographer living and working in The Hague. Her work is mainly focused on global issues, capitalism, the Anthropocene, and the ambiguities of the photographic medium.
She is currently working on her new series titled There is Nothing New Under the Sun. The series deals with the rampant individualism that underpins our contemporary social, political, and economic system, and in particular, the environmental impact that it has. By juxtaposing the melting glaciers of Dachstein, animals under human control, almost Greek god-like athletes a narrative of our new age unfolds through the images.
Her previous work entitled Sisyphus received international attention, was exhibited at UNSEEN Amsterdam which was followed by her first solo show in Budapest. She received the emerging talent Paris Photo Carte Blanche Award for the series and in the same year she was nominated for Palm* Photo Prize.
In 2019, she received the József Pécsi Photography Scholarship and was a talent for Futures Platform nominated by Capa Center Budapest.
In 2020 she is a Grand Prix Finalist at Fotofestiwal Lodz, won the PHmuseum Vogue Italia Prize and is shortlisted for Palm* Photo Prize.
More: www.katageibl.com
Jošt Dolinšek (1997, Ljubljana, SI) is a lens-based visual artist. His practice is predominantly stemming from photographic medium and is expanded into moving imagery, installation and sculpture.Dolinšek mostly works on long-term projects, exploring the existential experience of environment and time and our relationship towards both. His work is centred upon the questions on uncertainty — of perspective, duration and change. Form and materiality pose as one of the crucial elements of his works, and are often strongly related to the process and the inquiry behind them.In 2023, he graduated from a MFA Photography programme at HDK-Valand in Gothenburg (SE) and in 2020, he earned a BA in Psychology at the University of Ljubljana (SI). Among others, he has exhibited his works in Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (DE), Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana (SI) and Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg (SE). He lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden.
'June', Červeňová’s most recent body of work, is an autobiographical response to the EU referendum. The month of June in 2016 signified a rupture where the meaning of home and future plans were suddenly thrown into limbo. Coinciding with the beginning of her MA at the RCA, she spent the following two years documenting daily life. Taken in various locations across Britain and Europe, each image is titled simply by the location and date in which it is made, the significance of which becomes apparent when read on mass. When viewed in retrospect, the work emerges as not only a record of daily events, but also a timeline of significant dates that will, or have already become, marker points in history.
The core of the work became an artist book, in which the work has been translated into 24 booklets (each representing one month) collated together with an opening ring – a metaphor for the easily breakable union, where the beginning and the end can be manipulated and the linearity of historical events shifted. Červeňová’s artist book 'June' was amongst 10 shortlisted titles in MACK First Book Award 2019 and was presented at Photo London 2019. June is now in the permanent collection of TATE Modern and Victoria & Albert Museum.
In 2019, Červeňová was nominated for the prestigious FOAM Paul Huf Award. She is a 2017 Bloomberg New Contemporaries Alumni. She regularly collaborates with The FT Weekend and Telegraph Magazine.
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.
Ieva Raudsepa (b. 1992, Latvia) holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Latvia and a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Her work has been featured in i-D, The Guardian, Wallpaper, It’s Nice That, the Latvian Photography Yearbook, and elsewhere. Her series Cruise was part of the exhibition MIXTAPE at the Riga Photomonth 2016, while the book dummy was shortlisted for the Unseen Dummy Award 2016, Amsterdam, and is now released by Milda Books. In Spring 2018 her work was part of Post-Soviet Visions: image and identity in the new Eastern Europe at the Calvert 22 Foundation, London. Her exhibition It Could Just Swallow You Up at the ISSP Gallery in Riga opened July 2019.
Ania Vouloudi (b. 1987) is a photographer, video artist and poet with a background in civil engineering. She currently lives and works in Thessaloniki, Greece. Chronicling her life in analogue images, Vouloudi’s artistic work presents docufiction stories that address the apparent banality of daily routine. Her approach is both low-fi and unpretentious. Rooted in photography, the installations she creates also feature audio, writing and objects. Zine-making is another important feature of Vouloudi’s practice; she has collaborated with Void since its inception, co-publishing two zines in 2016 and 2017.
Pongo’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA and published in WSJ, The Guardian UK, The Washington Post, National Geographic and several other international publications. He was chosen as one of PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch in 2016 and recipient of the Getty Grant in 2018. His work is also part of institutional and private collections. Pongo was a member of Noor agency from 2017 until 2019.
He is based between Brussels and Kinshasa and shares his photographic career between his long term projects in Congo DR, teaching and assignment work.
Andi Galdi Vinko is an internationally acclaimed artist working in photography. She studied photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest and at Esag Penninghen in Paris, as well as art history and aesthetics at ELTE University in Budapest. Her work draws visual analogies between intensely personal and intimate experiences of motherhood, womanhood, and universal human experiences of coming of age, ageing, loss, and the conflict between western and eastern European ideologies. Using both staged and documentary photography, Andi is a vivid visual storyteller who assembles her snapshots and studio photos into unconventional and unexpected narratives, juxtapositions that are playful and humorous but also elicit pathos and absurdity. Her photographs are both empowering and intimate at the same time and are often published in the form of zines or editorials. She also works as a director and member of Kinopravda.tv. Andi GV has been published and commissioned by M Le Monde, Die Zeit, i-D, Dazed, Vice, The New Yorker, Tate etc, Vogue.it among others. Her personal work has been exhibited internationally in group and solo shows. Recent exhibitions include: “Birth” at TJ Boulting, London; “Variations of Reality, Circulations” at Fetart, MAC, Paris; “Golden Boundaries”, Robert Capa Center, Budapest. Her first book “Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back” will be published by Trolley Books in 2022.
The escalating crisis in her home country of Venezuela has motivated her to produce Trevale’s ongoing recent piece “Venezuelan Youth”, which has been widely exhibited notably at her solo show at ThePrintSpace in London and at Vogue Italia’s Photo Vogue Festival this year. Through the progress in her MA, she has taken a closer look at the women of her family. As her work carries a nostalgic density towards her home and family, she returned to her childhoods memories and recent events. By collaborating with her grandmother Rosa and mother Maria, she explores the past of her great grandmother Cayetana. With the intention to celebrate her bravery as an indigenous woman and her roots. By, observing the Latin essence the women of her life grew up with.
He holds a first-class honours degree in Documentary Photography from Newport, University of South Wales. Venezia has exhibited his work in solo shows at VOID (Greece) and JEST (Italy), while his work was displayed in group exhibitions at Fondazione Fabbri (Italy), Capa Photography Center (Hungary), ISSP Gallery (Latvia) and Gallery Image (Denmark). His project Nekyia is a book published by the Italian independent editor Witty Books in May 2017, the monograph is part of the collection at the National Art Library of Victoria & Albert Museum in London and Colección FOLIO at Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City.
His latest work - Is Life Under The Sun Not Just a Dream - started in 2018 and developed under the European Program Parallel Platform, by which Venezia has been selected as second cycle emerging artists.
Next to his personal projects, Rocco is working as a curator for PHmuseum and he is the co-founder of PHmuseum Lab, a photographic hub based in Bologna.