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Danaé Panchaud is a Swiss exhibition curator, museologist and lecturer specialising in photography. She has been the director of the Centre de la photographie Genève since 2022, after serving from 2018 to 2021 as director and curator of the Photoforum Pasquart in Biel, Switzerland. She trained in photography at the Vevey School of Photography before completing a bachelor’s degree in visual arts with a specialisation in curatorial practices at Geneva University of Art and Design. She later studied museology at Birkbeck, University of London, earning a master’s degree in 2017. She has held positions in several Swiss institutions in the fields of contemporary art, design and science, including the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, where she was a research associate from 2007 to 2012, the Gallery SAKS in Geneva in 2012-2013, the Fondation Verdan in Lausanne as scientific collaborator, and the mudac in Lausanne, where she was in charge of the public relations from 2012 to 2017. As a free-lance curator, she has curated exhibitions for several Swiss and international museums, independent spaces and galleries since 2012. She regularly writes texts for monographs of contemporary artists, exhibition catalogues, and thematic publications such as Flora Photographica, co-authored with William Ewing and published by Thames & Hudson in 2022. She was a lecturer at the Vevey School of Photography from 2014 to 2018, and regularly lectures at art and photography schools in Switzerland. In 2023, she joined the teaching faculty of the CAS in Theory and History of Photography at University of Zurich.
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Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.
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Bo Vloors (she/her) is a visual artist, writer, photographer and filmmaker based in Brussels. Using image and text, her work revolves around human relations, within and with their surroundings, and the influential power of images.
The Image stands central in her practice. Inspired by natural cycles and symbiotic arrangements, her work finds its origins in the repeated consultation of an ever-expanding archive built up over the past decade. Exploring her role as an image-maker (both in images and words), she defines her writings as The Missing Image, serving a complementary, affirmative or rhetorical purpose in relation to the actual image. Striving to balance aesthetics and content, the formats she uses may vary from publications, spatial installations, audio-visual to audio-performative. Still, The Image remains rooted in the core of her artistic practice, both as subject and material.
Her work has been exhibited at Beursschouwburg (BE), Z33 (BE), Argos (BE), Art au Centre (BE), Decoratelier (BE), SB34 (BE), De Studio (BE), Het Bos (BE), OFFoff cinema (BE), CinemaTEK (BE), Bizet Bizar (BE), Radio Panik (BE), RAVI (BE), Folle Béton film festival (FR), Lateral film Festival (IT), San Sebastian film Festival (ES), Cashmere Radio (DE) and Dublin Digital Radio (IE).
Michal Sita (1985) is a photographer and curator. Graduate of photography at the ITF in Opava and anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he is concluding doctoral research on social uses of the past in contemporary Poland. Interested in social memory and research strategies of photography. Curator of an interdisciplinary analysis of Wiesław Rakowski’s interwar zoological photographs, curator and producer of a series of exhibitions (including Małgorzata Lebda and Rafał Siderski, Mayumi Suzuki, Jan Kurek, Martin Parr and Rimaldas Vikšraitis, Sputnik Photos, among others), and photobook festivals. Co-author of “Củ Chi Tunnels Restoration Report” (Photographic Publication of the Year 2020 – Łódź, PL), a book relating to the activities of the Polish-Vietnamese architectural heritage conservation mission. Author of “History of Poland” vol. 1 and 2 — publications commenting on anthropological research carried out in Murowana Goślina among volunteers staging a large-scale historical pageant. Author of critical texts on photography. Lecturer at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań.
Angeniet Berkers (1985) is a documentary photographer and educator based in Rotterdam. She holds a BA Degree in Social Work and Photography (KABK The Hague). She previously worked as a sociotherapist, counseling veterans and refugees with complex PTSD. Her background in mental health care is evident in her choice of subjects, approach, and working methods.
Her long-term projects explore the intersections of history, trauma, and family, revealing how personal and collective memories shape and influence our present. Through extensive research and a blend of visual languages, archival materials, text, and sound, she translates complex stories into an accessible and empathetic whole.
Her project Lebensborn was shortlisted for the Aperture Paris Photo First Book Award and the Historical Book Award at Luma Rencontres d'Arles. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Katalog Journal, de Volkskrant, and NRC.
Nuno Alexandre Serrão is a Portuguese photographer and director whose work explores the relationship between natural landscapes and human-made structures, combining cinematic formalism and raw storytelling. Led by curiosity, he often creates or documents non-linear narratives about uncomfortable and ambiguous topics that challenge comfort zones and encourage reflection, ultimately provoking questions about what is fundamental or emergent.
His work has gained international attention, and is published in established media outlets like HuffPost, Público, Expresso, L’Hémcycle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and GQ. It has also been exhibited in cultural institutions such as Fotogalerie Friedrichshain in Berlin, ImageNation in Milan, ArtIcon in Paris, and the National Museum of Finland. His short films and commercial projects have been recognized at festivals like Aesthetica, Caminhos do Cinema Português, FUSO, and Inshadow Festival.
Critics describe Serrão’s work as ‘pursuing the beauty that emerges at the intersection of nature and humanity’ (Ana Marques Maia, Público, 2024). Claire Ducresson-Boët describes his landscapes as ‘places of passage and transition where time seems to stand still, offering a moment of quietness before life resumes.’
Emilia Martin is a Polish artist and photographer based in The Hague, Netherlands, where in 2022 she graduated from Photography & Society Masters at the Royal Academy of the Art. Working with photography, writing, and sound, she explores how the stories we tell shape the realities we inhabit. She investigates mythologies and tales, and how they fluctuate and shift throughout histories. Through her work, she aims to complicate the binary understandings of fiction and truth and their established aesthetics. Her process is based on careful research and personal, often playful approaches, through which she questions dominant narratives.
The belief in storytelling is rooted in her upbringing, where she engaged with both rural mythologies and urban narratives. She grew up between two different realities: a remote farm belonging to her grandmother in rural Eastern Poland and a heavy industry coal mining urban region in the West of the country. The clash between these two realities, the narrative of extractivism against rural mythologies and the proximity of nature, formed a place that continues to ground her artistic practice. Her work is inspired and informed by her rural Polish ancestry and intersectional feminist approaches.
Zoe is a photographer from Co. Antrim, now living in Edinburgh.
Zoe is interested in the relationship between humans and the environment, as well as the systems of classification that we use to make sense of the world around us. She works on long term photographic projects, drawing on scientific and historic research as well as lived experience to tell a story about a place or subject. Her background research has been informed by photography’s history as a tool of imperialism and this is something that she works to recognise and subvert within her photographic practice.
She currently teaches on the Stills School, an alternative education programme for young people and is a visiting lecturer at Queen Margaret University. She has received funding from Edinburgh City Council and the Richard & Siobhan Coward Foundation and was recently included in Fantasy Island, a publication documenting the last 50 years of photography in Ireland.
Zoe participated in PhotoIreland's New Irish Works III between 2019 and 2021.
Teresa Freitas (b. 1990) is a Portuguese photographer and colourist. Her work navigates the genres of fine art, documentary and street photography, often exploring the impact of colour in composition, place, mood, and in the viewer's aesthetic response.
Initially drawn to black and white film, Teresa followed her influences from Painting and Cinema to apply a knowledge of colour theory and harmony to develop a signature style which has earned her praise in many publications. She shares this knowledge through international workshops and online courses.
After several years working in commercial photography—with collaborations including Leica, Adobe, and Dior—she is now focused on short and long-term documentary projects. Her current work examines cultural and symbolic relationships to nature, particularly through flowers.
Milena Soporowska is a visual artist based in Poland. Her work explores, among other things, the intertwining of everyday life with magic and the occult, questioning the concept of home as a safe, familiar haven. She is interested in the combination of alternative medicine and psychoanalysis, and the overlap between Christianity, esotericism and folk spirituality.She graduated in Art History, presenting her master's thesis on the influence of spiritualistic and mediumistic photography on art in the light of Freud's category of unheimlich. She also studied photography, museology and psychotronics. Moreover, Milena is a graduate of the Sputnik Photos mentoring programme.Read more
Karol Szymkowiak (b. 1983) is a photographer, photobook artist, curator and educator based in Poznań, Poland. Self-taught photographer, specializing in documentary photography and photo collages - work with archives. His work revolves around themes such as environmental problems, military and civil defence, physical and mental immobilisation. He is constantly fascinated by finding surrealism in faithfully recording reality using photography. As a photographer, he has participated in over a dozen group exhibitions. Since 2015 he is art curator of a long-term photography documentary project The Września Collection (Kolekcja Wrzesińska) whose patron is the Mayor of the City and Municipality of Września. As part of his work on this project, he is collaborating with leading Polish photographers to create photobooks and exhibitions about his home town of Września. Karol is a member of The Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF) and a scholarship recipient of the Marshal of the Wielkopolska Region in the field of culture. He is also a lecturer in photography at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.
Olga Kocsi (1987) is a multimedia artist based in Budapest and Freiburg, creating multi-sensory experiences that explore topics at the intersection of various scientific fields. Her work investigates the relationship between reality and virtual reality, as well as its potential evolution in the future, while pushing and mapping the boundaries between private and public spheres.
Kocsi is known for her complex installations that envelop the viewer, employing a wide range of media including photography, video, animation, and VR. A key aspect of her practice is providing guided experiences that encourage audiences to engage with socially complex messages through self-reflection.
Her main areas of focus include human stories, the mapping of time and reality, and simulation. As an experimental thinker, Kocsi boldly plays with spaces, surfaces, and materials, crafting unconventional situations that actively involve the viewer.
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Emese Bíborka Szakács studied at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at Pázmány Péter Catholic University. She is currently pursuing a degree in Art History at the University of Pécs.
Her interests focus on the past and present of experimental photography, as well as the cultural role of new media. As a staff member of the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, she is involved in organizing international exhibitions and professional programs. She also works as a curator and writer within the frameworks of the Studio of Young Photographers (FFS) and the Studio of Young Artists’ Association (FKSE), contributing to the professional development and realization of several exhibitions in recent years.
Salvatore Vitale (b. 1986, Palermo, Italy) is a Swiss-based artist, director, and professor whose work explores the complexity of contemporary societies. Using expanded and speculative storytelling through mixed media techniques, he focuses on the politics of systems that regulate modernity and the impact of technological transformations.
Vitale is the Artistic Director of EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival and FUTURES Photography, both international platforms dedicated to contemporary photography. He also serves as a Professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, where he leads the Transmedia Storytelling Programme. Previously, he was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of YET magazine, an international photography publication.
Vitale’s work has received international awards. It is featured in several public and private collections and has been widely exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide.
Emese Mucsi is a Hungarian-born curator, and art critic. Emese curates exhibitions where photography is interpreted in the context of contemporary art and works with artists who have an expanded idea of photography and produce photo-based works. Her projects bring together artists and photographers with photojournalists, writers, editors, and other thinkers to experiment with new approaches to photography. She graduated from the Faculty of Contemporary Art Theory and Curatorial Studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2013, and from the Faculty of Hungarian Literature and Linguistics at the University of Szeged in 2017. She is a member of the curators’ collective BÜRO imaginaire since 2012. Since 2013, she ran projects as a freelance curator. From 2014 to 2018, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Artmagazin Online. Emese is a curator of the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest since 2018. She is the member of Global Photographies Network since 2020. She founded DOXA exhibition space and editorial den in 2022. She is doing her PhD in the Film, Media, and Contemporary Culture PhD program at Eötvös Loránd University. Emese is a guest lecturer at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (2023) and the University of Szeged (2024).
Ángel Luis González Fernández is a designer, artist, and curator supporting engaging visual arts practices, winner of Business to Arts David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Awards 2011.
His work manifests through PhotoIreland, which he founded in 2010 to stimulate a critical dialogue on Photography. He devises curatorial projects placing conversations in the public realm around visual culture, critical thinking. These include events (PhotoIreland Festival, Halftone Print Fair, arts residency How to Flatten a Mountain, and New Irish Works), a cultural hub (The Library Project: Ireland’s Art bookshop, host to a unique resource library of photobooks and a productive arts programme), publishing projects that distribute inexpensive access to local practices, research projects (Critical Academy: examining contemporary art practices). He works collaboratively with a growing network of organisations, noticeably through ambitious Creative Europe partnerships.
During the Summer 2020 lockdown he launched the critical publication OVER Journal, now distributed globally. He received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary to deepen research on the broad historical and specific artistic context of Photography in Ireland, to curate an ambitious survey exhibition in PhotoIreland Festival 2022 and to publish a series of publications on the matter. He regularly contributes to publications such as the forthcoming The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies, edited by Lucy Soutter, Duncan Wooldridge.
See some of his Graphic and Web Design work in the 100 Design Archive.
Julia Gelezova is a Cultural Producer and Curator, specialising in contemporary lens-based practices. She is General and Project Manager for PhotoIreland, producing events throughout the year like the annual PhotoIreland Festival and Critical Academy, while collaborating on ambitious projects like Creative Europe Photography Platforms—Parallel and Futures. Julia is co-editor of OVER Journal: The Critical Journal of Photography and Visual Culture for the 21st Century. In 2024, she has founded vicinities.network - a peer network for Visual Arts curators and professionals based in Ireland.
She has ample experience in producing exhibitions and events, including curatorial work and project management, has vast and successful experience in personal and collective application writing for bodies like the Arts Council of Ireland and local councils. She has participated in portfolio reviews, acted as visiting lecturer, and also worked in an editorial capacity and translation for artists and other arts professionals, including work for The Routledge Guide to Photography and Visual Culture. Most recently, she curated the 2021 edition of PhotoIreland Festival and was the Centre Culturel Irlandais cultural producer resident 2022. She is a member of the AICA International Association of Art Critics.
Iveta Gabaliņa (1979) is a curator, artist and educator. She has studied photography at the studio of Andrejs Grants, at Bournemouth Art Institute, and in the MA programme at Alto University in Helsinki. Her work has been exhibited in Latvia and internationally, including at C/O (Berlin, Germany), GESTE (Paris), and Williams Tower Gallery (Houston, USA). Gabaliņa has participated in photography festivals in Singapore, Hanover, and elsewhere. Her work is included in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Geste Paris, and the Deutsche Börse Art Collection.
Since 2008 she has been part of ISSP team, responsible for numerous educational and curatorial projects. In 2018 she founded ISSP Gallery - an exhibition space dedicated to contemporary photography.
I’ve always loved photography, even if it sounds like a cliche. The first photos I took, I did without knowing how to do that, without paying any attention to framing, subject or composition. After a while, I began to understand what is happening in the space between me as a photographer and the subject I was photographing. And many years later, I also understood why I love to photograph. To communicate. A message, a concept, an emotion.
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