«Where is metamorphosis taking place today, around you or further afield, where are you observing it, where are you imagining it? What metamorphic stories would you like to share? Besides the more general approaches, what are the transformational processes that characterise photography as a medium (from the development of analogue photography to the use and impact of artificial intelligence)?» - the Curatorial Team
Metamorphosis, the ancient poet told us, and today the contemporary philosopher Emanuele Coccia reminds us, is not just a matter of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly; it is consubstantial with being-in-the-world. This year’s theme invites us to work together and find narratives for our metamorphic times.
Claudia Amatruda, Máté Bartha, Benedetta Casagrande, Marcus Gustafsson, Vitalii Halanzha, Zoe Hamill, Ksenia Ivanova, Emilia Martin, Anna Orłowska, Constantin Schlachter, Balázs Turós, Viktoriia Tymonova, Yana Wernicke and Ada Zielińska have been selected from a pool of around 150 FUTURES talents who applied to the Open Call from all across Europe.
“The selection process highlighted the artists' different interpretations of the theme of metamorphosis. The curatorial team was keen to select artists whose subjects and aesthetics corresponded to the theme as set out in the curatorial statement, as much as it was surprised by the sometimes unexpected approaches. (...) With a view to providing the fullest possible overview of the different faces of metamorphosis as seen through the eyes of young European photographers, and to make a generous selection, the curatorial team decided to select 14 artists.“ - The Curatorial Team
The selected projects will participate in the 2025 FUTURES Annual Event in Prague, curated by Fotograf Zone; then the Metamorphosis exhibition will travel to Centre photographique Rouen Normandie (Rouen), the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (Budapest) and Camera (Torino), and internationally via a special issue of OVER Journal (Dublin).
The selected projects explore the notion of metamorphosis, a concept intertwined with the subjects addressed and/or the creative processes developed.
Claudia Amatruda, Hypersea
Hypersea interweaves the cyborg body, the movement, the search for balance in the instability of being in the world, with technology and the many forms of life in the ocean, which are themselves examples of regeneration, community life, care and survival strategies. Through a reflection on the Edge as a space of resistance - understood, in Bell Hooks’ vision, as a place capable of offering us a radical perspective from which to look, create, imagine alternatives and new worlds - the project moves on the speculative possibilities of human evolution by exploring the infinite space of creation that can arise from feeling limited and trapped in one’s own body.
Máté Bartha, The Dice Man
"I want to return to the long-abandoned family home, to stand one last time before the vast windows overlooking the Danube, watching the golden reflection of sunlight." This longing is at the heart of The Dice Man, a photographic pilgrimage shaped by memory and chance. Bartha Máté’s project is a deeply personal reckoning with the loss of his parents at a young age. Through the remnants they left behind—photographs, drawings, diary entries, and notes of recurring dreams—he embarks on a journey across every district of his hometown, using these fragments as a guide in an attempt to construct a personal mythology standing at the boundary of past and present.
Marcus Gustafsson, Filling in the Gaps
In Filling in the Gaps, Marcus Gustafsson explores a deeply personal and complex narrative of his father’s alcoholism and its impact on himself, his family, and his father. This project is an attempt to reconcile fragmented memories—his own and those of others—to better understand the circumstances that have shaped his life and relationships. The work is also an effort toward healing, as Marcus seeks to restore a connection with his fractured family.
Benedetta Casagrande, All things laid dormant
All things laid dormant questions our relationship to non-human others in times of extinctions knowing, as we must, that we live among the ruination of others. Whilst living beings are bound in ecological communities of life and death, in which life constantly makes and and unmakes itself in cycles of renewal, the man-made mass destruction at play in the environmental catastrophe not only attacks the generative qualities of death in the renewal of life, but carries the implication that the death of animals, peoples and environments is morally irrelevant.
Vitalii Halanzha, Underfoot
Focusing on the lasting imprint of war on the natural world and on life under constant threat, Vitalii Halanzha exposes the frequent danger that persists as Russian weapons continue daily attacks across Ukraine. Nature here serves as a mise-en-scene for the remnants of hostile metal, as a space where humans, animals, and plant life alike are subjected to violence, poisoning, and collapse. Underfoot lingers in uncertainty, reflecting a reality where danger remains buried, sometimes literally beneath the surface.
Zoe Hamill, Primary Succession
Primary Succession is a series exploring what we can learn from the landscape as a collaborator rather than subject, challenging colonial traditions of exploitation by seeking a new way of relating to a place as a living entity. The shale bings of West Lothian were created by Scotland’s oil industry in the 19th Century, towering man-made heaps of spent oil-shale dotted across the landscape. Once seen as eyesores, they are now recognised as unique habitats that harbour endangered species.
Ksenia Ivanova, Between The Trees of The South Caucasus
This project explores metamorphosis as a slow, often invisible process of geopolitical transformation — where borders shift not on official maps, but through fences erected in backyards. In Georgia, the aftermath of unresolved conflict continues to reshape landscapes, identities, and daily life.
For those living along these lines, crossing may mean arrest, while staying often means erasure. Through images and video (2019–2024), the artist traces how trauma becomes embedded in landscapes, how memory resists disappearance, and how transformation takes place under pressure — imposed rather than chosen.
Emilia Martin, I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears
I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears explores the cosmic rock as a carrier of stories: a migratory body filled with human projections and dreams, blurring the line between the ordinary and the sacred, the mythical and factual.
It is a story on how some truths can only live subversively, woven into tales passed carefully through generations, away from the dominant narratives.
Anna Orłowska, Otherworlds
Anna Orłowska’s Otherworlds is an excursion deep into her personal history, as well as a field report from a beguiling journey. The worlds of past and present exist in parallel, beyond the structures of time and intertwine in the place that connects them: the old Silesian village of Sandowitz, present-day Żędowice, Poland, around which multiple generations of the artist’s family orbit. At the center of this micro-galaxy stands a nineteenth-century mill, once powered by the waters of the Mała Panew river, and the bygone community of the village. Orłowska summons the mythical childhood setting of the mill, which has been in the family’s possession for 120 years.
Constantin Schlachter, Shadows of our Constellations
In Shadows of our Constellations, Constantin Schlachter places bacteria at the heart of the creative process. This approach is facilitated by the creation of his own working tool, a 3D-printed ‘film holder- petri dish’. In the darkroom, this device enables colour silver prints of microorganisms to be made from a ‘bio-negative’, without the use of a camera.
By inviting microorganisms to participate in the creation of a work, the artist questions the notions of self-effacement and giving in the creative process. He gives us a glimpse of those otherworldly forms. This work invites us to rethink our relationship with otherness.
Balázs Turós, The Nature of Things
Humans are the only living beings who are aware of the finite nature of life. What does existing authentically mean in a world where transience is unavoidable? Can resigned acceptance be found in the idea of death? And if so, where can we find it?
Balázs Turós is seeking the answers by sensitively surveying the boundaries of life, the intersection of mortality and birth. His images ultimately remind us of what is incomprehensible, what we cannot grasp, yet still constitutes the basis of our understanding vis-à-vis existence.
Ada Zielińska, Post Tourism
Post Tourism explores the most irreversible form of metamorphosis: destruction. This long-term project documents landscapes transformed by natural disasters — wildfires, floods, earthquakes — where nature no longer appears as life-giving, but as something wounded, silent, and stripped bare. It is not about change as growth, but about what happens after collapse.
Metamorphosis, here, is not hopeful. It is elemental. It’s the forest turned to ash, the car become artifact, the landscape rendered unfamiliar. It is the emotional shift in the viewer when faced with nature that can no longer comfort — only confront.
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Viktoriia Tymonova, We want to know the truth (about the balls)
It is true that at least once in your lifetime you have heard about ball lightning. But can you be sure that it exists? No, because it has never been proven.
Conspiracies are an attempt to understand, to explain the complex and incomprehensible. In her project, Viktoriia Tymonova combines different aspects of conspiracy theories to find ideas that manipulate basic human fears. Absolutely everything in my project is fictional. In this way, she explores her personal attitude towards conspiracy theories and even her childhood. Also, her project is a commentary on the future that awaits us. In times of uncertainty, conspiracy theories will go on and on.
Yana Wernicke, Die Verwandlung
In this work, Yana Wernicke photographed the transformation of the male body through nature costuming in rural Germany, where folklore, ritual, and the environment turn men into living sculptures. During Carnival and Pentecost, these men work together on costumes made of leaves, straw, and branches, becoming figures like the Straw Bear or Leaf Man. Today, the practice strengthens community ties and affirms local identity, while also raising deeper questions. The work examines how costuming reshapes male bodies and behavior, fusing human and natural elements into one expressive form. In this metamorphosis, the forest seems to come alive through the body, while the man becomes part-beast, part-symbol. The transformation reveals both beauty and menace, power and vulnerability. It also allows space for tenderness and intimacy among men, briefly challenging traditional masculine norms.
The curatorial team consisted of Emese Mucsi (Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest, Hungary); Raphaëlle Stopin (Centre photographique Rouen Normandie, France), Světlana Malina (Fotograf Zone, Czech Republic). The theme was developed in close conversation with Nestan Nijaradze (artistic director and co-founder of Tbilisi Photo Festival) and Angel Luis Gonzalez and Julia Gelezova (PhotoIreland / OVER Journal).
Images © Claudia Amatruda, Máté Bartha, Benedetta Casagrande, Marcus Gustafsson, Vitalii Halanzha, Zoe Hamill, Ksenia Ivanova, Emilia Martin, Anna Orłowska, Constantin Schlachter, Balázs Turós, Viktoriia Tymonova, Yana Wernicke, Ada Zielińska
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