The
Artist
Kaarina-Sirkku
Lives and Works in
Kaarina-Sirkku Kurz (Finnish/ German) is a German-Finnish photographer and visual artist currently based in Berlin. She studied in Bremen, Lahti and Helsinki where she graduated with a Master’s degree from the Department of Photography at Aalto University School of Arts.
Her series Supernature, still in progress, presents in a very conceptual way her concern and fascination for the human body, something that she has already begun to work in her previous award-winning project UNGLEICHGEWICHT. The photobook of the same name won the Nordic Dummy Award in 2015 and was published by Kehrer Verlag. In 2017 the publication was honored with the Finnish Photobook of the Year Award, organized by the Association of Photographic Artists and The Finnish Museum of Photography. Photographer Alec Soth chose the winner.
The coherence of her discourse and career, her way of getting into the subjects she photographs, with a very particular narrative, make Sirkku's work particularly interesting to us. In addition, being in a project which is in progress, we believe that Futures will give her opportunities and opinions to continue or find exhibition opportunities for it.
Projects
Supernature
I am fascinated by the human body, which is substantive and at the same time sensing, thus it is object and subject. I enjoy investigating this phenomenon from different angles and photographically explore ways of how people deal with their bodies. Currently I approach the issue of body modification in the context of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. The body of work is still in progress.
Kaarina-Sirkku
was nominated by
PHotoESPAÑA
in
2018
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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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Georgiana Feidi, currently based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, is a visual artist who
achieved her photo video MA's degree from the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca in 2020. In her artistic approach, she uses both digital and analog tools, including post-processing and the hands-on exploration of darkroom and alternative photography techniques. In her artistic endeavors, Georgiana explores themes inspired by the mysteries of the universe, nature, personal insights and experiences. Her works reflect a journey into unexplored territories, creating visual narratives that transcend conventional boundaries of thought. Over the years, she has presented her work in solo exhibitions nationally, and participated in group shows across Romania and internationally, including cities like Dortmund, Melbourne, New York, and Rome. Her work has also been featured in various online publications both nationally and internationally.
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Since 2014, Benjamin has visited over 1.200 Chinese-Indonesian restaurants across the Netherlands in an endeavour to build an archive of this restaurant. During these visits he has collected menus, pieces of tableware and written memories of his encounters. Importantly, he has also taken photographs of over 250 unique Chinese-Indonesian dishes at these restaurants. Throughout the years Benjamin also traced back and collected many sugar packs, postcards, beer glasses and other objects all linked to (defunct) Chinese-Indonesian restaurants.
Benjamin finds beauty in the Chinese-Indonesian restaurant, but for him it is also a way to come to understand his Chinese roots and family history. Many of his family members, including his parents, have worked in the restaurants as way to survive and integrate into Dutch society. With his work Benjamin tries to honour the restaurant, where others at times mock it. Today he sees the significance of his work in straddling the tension between bringing out the absurdity of certain stereotypes and fostering a reappraisal of the beauty and heritage of the Chinese-Indonesian restaurant.
Paweł Starzec (Ph. D) is a documentalist, photographer, sociologist, academic teacher. Mainly interested in long-term projects focusing on envisioning broader processes through their aftermath and consequences. Recipient of the Young Poland 2024 Ministry of Culture scholarship, PixHouse Talent of the Year Scholar award, Artistic Scholarship of the Mayor of Wrocław 2024, winner of Urbanautica Institute Award, Enconctros da Imagem Discovery Award and Spojrzenia Award, received honorable mentions in Allegro Prize, Lodz Fotofestival Grand Prix, and CDS Documentary Essay Prize, finalist of the Polityka Passports Award and Grand Press Photo. His
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His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Netherlands Fotomuseum, Noorderlicht International Photo Festival, PhMuseum Days, Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles, Encontros da Imagem, and Schwules Museum Berlin. His photobook Tropical Trauma Misery Tour received the 1st Prize at the Kassel Dummy Award ’23 (GER), the Imaginária Festival Dummy Awards ’23 (BR), and a Special Mention at the Hong Kong Photobook Festival ’23.
Portrait of Rafael Roncato by Gita Cooper van Ingen
Inspired by comics, cinema, and Brazilian (post)modernism, his work moves fluidly across formats, from artist books to exhibitions and multimedia projects. He holds a Master’s in Photography and Society from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, where he teaches artist bookmaking and visual storytelling and mentors emerging practitioners.
His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Netherlands Fotomuseum, Noorderlicht International Photo Festival, PhMuseum Days, Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles, Encontros da Imagem, and Schwules Museum Berlin. His photobook Tropical Trauma Misery Tour received the 1st Prize at the Kassel Dummy Award ’23 (GER), the Imaginária Festival Dummy Awards ’23 (BR), and a Special Mention at the Hong Kong Photobook Festival ’23.
Portrait of Rafael Roncato by Gita Cooper van Ingen
The work of Maite Vanhellemont (1990) moves at the intersection of family stories and collective history. In “A Little Memory of The Beginning”, she reflects on her Dutch-Indonesian background using archive material, photography, video, drawings and text. In May 2026 she will present this project in a solo exhibition during Kraków Photo Month (PL). In collaboration with FW:Books (NL), she will present a publication at the end of 2026.
In 2025, she was selected for the FOTODOK Talent Embassy, and in 2024, the project “Zoals mij gewoon is” (As as is common to me) was presented during SPOOR Art Festival (BE), in collaboration with Plan B Arts Platform.
She is also a lecturer at the University of the Arts in Utrecht (NL), a language volunteer for women at Stichting Dynamo in Amsterdam (NL) and is currently enrolled in the part-time master's program “Education in Arts” at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (NL).
In 2025, she was selected for the FOTODOK Talent Embassy, and in 2024, the project “Zoals mij gewoon is” (As as is common to me) was presented during SPOOR Art Festival (BE), in collaboration with Plan B Arts Platform.
She is also a lecturer at the University of the Arts in Utrecht (NL), a language volunteer for women at Stichting Dynamo in Amsterdam (NL) and is currently enrolled in the part-time master's program “Education in Arts” at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (NL).
Nayara Leite (b. 1989) is a Brazilian artist and writer based in Bergen, Norway. She holds an MFA from the Bergen Art Academy and an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. Nayara works across text, performance, film, photography and installation. Through autobiographical narrative, political news, archival material and letters to close friends, she produces a portrayal of the reality in which the LGBTQ+ community lives in Brazil and in Norway. She has exhibited and/or held performances at Bergen Kunsthall, Palmera, Lydgalleriet, Isotop, Bergen Kjøtt and KODE 2 in Bergen; Preus Museum in Horten; Studio 17 in Stavanger; Oslo Negativ, Kunstnerforbundet and Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo; and Momentum Biennale in Moss.
Florine Thiebaud (b. 1992, France) is a photographer based in Marseille.
With a post-documentary practice that combines photography and writing, she places a significant emphasis on publishing. She explores the notions of imprisonment and isolation, the passage of time, loss of control, identity, and her connection to others.
From 2016 to 2019, she developed two projects focused on the consequences of the waiting for papers for exiled people in Greece, placing the relationship with the other at the heart of her practice.The first was the project Exils, which won the Roger de Conynck Prize and was exhibited at the Recylart Gallery in Brussels, followed by Breaking Point. The latter was co-published as a book in May 2022 with Stockmans Art Books, and was exhibited at FOMU in Antwerp and at the Contretype Gallery in Brussels as part of the .TIFF selection and Propositions d’Artistes.
Developing her reflections on notions of imprisonment and isolation and their consequences, she is currently working on a project about families of incarcerated people, Des Ondes (On Waves), based on a personal story. This project has received support from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, and part of it was already exhibited in 2023 at the Delta Cultural Center in Namur as part of a group exhibition.
In parallel, following confrontations with her own physical and mental limits facing depression, she developped a new series of self-portraits: Revenir (Coming back). Using once again repetitive imagery and a consistent aesthetic, she explores the intersection of vulnerability, isolation, and transformation through self-portraiture. Photographing herself during moments of crisis and depression, she seeks to capture the disconnect between her inner world and reality.
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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.
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.
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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