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
Show all projects
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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Recent shows include One dark night, Lazarus disappeared (Coruchéus Gallery, Lisbon, 2025), Five Relics, Five Photographers (Museum of São Roque, Lisbon, 2025), and Real Life is Not Black and White (Paris Photo, 2024).
Her photographic work explores the pluralism of human nature through belief and collective identity, as well as issues related to memory and noetic. In recent projects, she has been working on the border between fiction and reality, through myths and tales connected to personal and historical events.
Recent shows include One dark night, Lazarus disappeared (Coruchéus Gallery, Lisbon, 2025), Five Relics, Five Photographers (Museum of São Roque, Lisbon, 2025), and Real Life is Not Black and White (Paris Photo, 2024).
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Rui Costa, Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal, 1989.
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Winner of the Fnac New Talents Award 2023, in the Photography category, with the essay “Uma Azeitona Bordada em Azul".
Sara Perovic’s photography begins with the personal,
drawing from her own experiences and memories, and
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My Father’s Legs (2020) blends personal reflection with
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Her book My Father’s Legs was shortlisted for the
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Aperture/Paris Photo First Book Award. Perovic also
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Matthieu Croizier (b. 1994) is a Franco-Swiss photographer working between Lausanne and Paris. His work focuses on the intimate, queer issues, portraiture and the representation of the human body. Using fragments of reality that he decontextualises, he attempts to create new stories, like parallel realities in which things and bodies are no longer condemned to be as they are defined.
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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.
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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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