Julian Stettler

Olga Bushkova’s practice is rooted in long term, performative engagement with photography as a tool for communication and observation. Her ongoing project “Photo at 12” is based on a daily exchange of photographs between herself and her father, who lives 3000 kilometers away, in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Over time, this simple ritual has generated an extensive archive that documents fragments of two lives unfolding in parallel. Bushkova approaches this material not as a closed collection, but as a living archive, continuously revisited, organised, and reflected upon. Patterns of everyday routines emerge alongside traces of broader social and political contexts, revealing how intimate images are never isolated from the world around them. Her work makes a significant contribution to current debates on digital communication, authorship, and care, and highlights photography’s potential as a shared language across distance. Bushkova’s strong engagement with photobook making further situates her practice within contemporary European discourses on sustained, process based storytelling.

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Julian Stettler’s work explores fundamental questions of identity, perception, and human entanglement within complex systems. His photographic projects investigate how we relate to environments and phenomena that are abstract, immaterial, or conceptually constructed. In “Bis hierher und nicht weiter”, Stettler questions Western notions of nature and the boundaries we draw between human and non human worlds. His ongoing project “Ist das, was ist?” extends this inquiry toward interfaces of knowledge, combining photography with scientific, essayistic, and poetic texts. By integrating multiple media and formats, including photobooks, Stettler positions photography as a space of approximation rather than explanation. His practice contributes to contemporary debates on ecology, responsibility, and the limits of visual knowledge.

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Together, Bushkova and Stettler exemplify contemporary photographic practices that develop over time, shaped by reflection and careful attention to images and their contexts. Their work shows how photography can help us think about relationships, systems, and responsibility.

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Selection committee:

Amelie Schüle, Director & Curator Photoforum Pasquart