
The
Artist
Linda Zhengová
Lives and Works in
Paris
Linda Zhengová is a Czech-Chinese photographer, writer, and curator based in Paris. Her work is rooted in an exploration of human emotions, ranging from vulnerability and trauma to the search for happiness. Through photography and interdisciplinary methods, she strives to capture fleeting emotional states, the intimate connections between strangers, and personal transformation.
Her imagery, evocative of a bygone era, suggests that memory is the space where love most vividly resides. By confronting viewers with moments of vulnerability and intimacy, her work invites a deep reflection on the intensity of human relationships. Through this, Zhengová challenges us to reconsider how we connect with both ourselves and others, offering a delicate balance between discomfort and empathy.
Projects
2026
Maybe, Happiness Is…
For Zhengová, the search began in 2022, when she made the radical decision to leave her studio in The Hague without fully understanding why. She only knew she did not feel happy. She moved to Amsterdam instead, drifting nomadically from place to place. These circumstances allowed her to open herself to new energies and encounters: affective exchanges with strangers, fleeting and pure moments. Since then, she has crossed geographical borders in pursuit of happiness, hovering on the thin line between sanity and madness. In this quest for joy, she presents a contradiction: an intangible idea meant for reflection.
The crux of the project lies in her interactions with strangers, gathering their impressions of happiness through spontaneous conversations. By beginning with the phrase Maybe, Happiness Is…, she invites others to share their views while documenting her own evolving definition. This fluid, collaborative process intertwines her internal dialogue with shared human experience.
The project shifted the focus of her artistic practice toward process rather than outcome. Her research weaves together personal reflections, diaristic entries, and influences from Adlerian psychology and existential philosophy. Together, these elements question whether happiness can be universally defined or whether it remains an elusive, deeply personal construct.
Linda Zhengová
was nominated by
Fotograf Zone
in
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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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Thérèse Anna Rafter (b. 1989, Dublin, Ireland) is an artist and researcher working
across photography and installation. Her practice investigates how the living world
is mediated within Western visual culture, with particular attention to institutional
modes of representation and display. Engaging critically with the legacies of natural
history, museum practices, and photographic visual regimes, Rafter’s work explores
the boundaries through which human–animal–land relations are constructed and
maintained.
Characterised by a measured tension between restraint and sensitivity, her work is
articulated through a rigorous analogue approach to material, form, and production.
By foregrounding processes of framing, preservation, and visibility, Rafter
challenges anthropocentric ways of seeing and considers how knowledge of
nonhuman life is produced and encountered.
Rafter holds a BA in Photography and completed an MA in Visual Arts in 2024. She
is currently undertaking a research Master’s at Sint Lucas School of Arts, Antwerp,
Belgium.



Carlos Trancoso is a Portuguese visual artist that works and lives in Porto. He uses the photographic gaze as a critical tool to understand how the human being relates to technology. His work aims to challenge established patterns of interaction relating to the creation of images in contemporary society. Although he mainly uses fictional approaches, his work incorporates a documental photography language with the expanded practice of creating cameraless images, mixed media and computer generated images. He is a founding member of Barda collective, which utilizes visual arts to foster social cohesion. He has exhibited at festivals such as Photoalicante, Backlight (2020), Photo Open Up, f/est Amarante (2022), Athens Digital Arts Festival (2023), Bienal da Maia (2021/2023) and Bienal de Fotografia do Porto (2025) . His works have also been exhibited in spaces such as Galeria FFAC, Galeria Dentro and MIRA FORUM in Porto, Casa do Capitão and XYZ Books in Lisbon and El Local in Madrid.



Hana Selena Sokolović was born in Vienna in 1999 and grew up in Belgrade. She is a visual artist and researcher working between the Balkans and the Netherlands. Her work has been shown in group exhibitions in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, some of which are As Water Softens Stones (Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, 2025), Push, Pull, Shift (Živi Atelje DK, Zagreb, 2025), 00:05:59 (Paradise, The Hague, 2024), and Fragments in Transit (Beetroot Studio, Thessaloniki, 2024). Alongside her artistic practice, she has worked with children in educational and socially engaged settings, an experience that continues to shape her people-centered and collaborative approach to art. Hana holds a BA in Photography and New Media from FAMU in Prague (2021) and an MA in Photography and Society from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (2025). She currently lives and works between Belgrade and The Hague.



Bo Vloors (she/her b. 1993, Belgium) is a visual artist, writer, photographer and filmmaker living and working between Brussels and Liège. Her artistic work hovers between the complex yet fascinating realms of image and language, exploring human relations in association with and within their surroundings, and the influential power of images.
Drawing analogies between human experiences, natural cycles and symbiotic arrangements, she explores the ambiguity of the human condition, while simultaneously questioning the influence of images on our collective and personal intersection of reality and memory.
For several years now, she has been practicing the artistic pollination between the audiovisual art, photography and writing by maintaining an archive with her own photographs, written texts, audiovisual and field recording. In 2022, she returned more explicitly to photography which eventually led her to a growing interest in the dynamic between image and text, as she started approaching her writings not only as an essayistic, but as material, printed matter, linguistic and lyrical vocal arrangements, all within the broader sense of “image-making”.
The formats she uses may vary from publications, spatial installations, audio-visual to audio-performative. Her work has been exhibited in several cinemas, institutes, galeries, theaters and off spaces, both nationally and internationally. Since 2019, she is an active member of the Paris-based art collective SPASS and co-founder of the revue Voyons Voir.



Laura Van Severen is a photographer interested in landscape representation. She develops her artistic practice in the form of long-term projects that result from traversing, connecting, observing or interacting with a specific place. In doing so, she touches upon a variety of subjects, from global logistics and waste management to local rural realities or sound (hi)stories.
Laura studied Fine Arts and Photography at KASK School of Arts in Ghent, (Belgium) where she obtained her MA in 2015. that same year she was selected as one of ten talents by the FOMU Photography Museum in Antwerp. In 2016, she published the photobook Land (The Eriskay Connection), which was awarded Best Dutch Book Design. In 2021, she became part of Futures Photography after being nominated by the Triennial of Photographie Hamburg. In 2023, she received the Creación Injuve grant from the Spanish government and participated in an exchange residency between Hangar Barcelona and Kunstiftung Baden–Württemberg in Germany.
Under the title Listening–Gathering, she is currently creating a collection of stories in which sound impacts and materialises into concrete realities.
Laura lives in Barcelona (Spain) where she also works as a freelance photographer, teacher and studio manager.


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.



Sasha Velichko (b. 1993, Slonim, Belarus) is a research-based artist whose practice spans photography, installation and new media. Her work investigates propaganda, post-truth, manipulations and trauma. Trained in radiophysics, she integrates scientific logic and analytical methods into her artistic process. After being politically convicted and persecuted in Belarus, she was forced to flee the country(2021) and has lived in political exile in Warsaw. Her projects have been exhibited internationally: Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Circulation(s) Festival, Singapore International Photography Festival. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at Les Boutographies(2025), Photo Essay Award at SEEEU Festival in Tokyo (2025), finalist of the Star Photobook Dummy Award (2025), shortlisted for the Images Vevey Book Award(2025). Sasha is represented by Jednostka Gallery.



Claudia Amatruda (1995, Foggia, IT) is a visual artist living and working in Bologna, IT. Her work focuses on the representation of the body through photography, video performances and installations, addressing social issues such as disability and with particular attention to the creative process, supported by research on scientific and literary texts. In 2019 she published the photographic book "Naiade", presented through lectures in Italian schools and festivals to raise awareness on the topic of invisible diseases. From 2021 to the present her project "When you hear hoofbeats think of horses, not zebras" is exhibited in Italy, Greece, France, Holland and England. In 2022 she won the Special Mention for the Emerging Photography section of the Francesco Fabbri Prize. According to Il Giornale dell'Arte she is among the 30 artists under 30 in 2023 and produced NFT works during a PhotoVogue x Voice.com Art Residency. In 2024 she exhibited her project "Good Use of my Bad Health" at the Fotografia Europea Festival in Reggio Emilia, winning the ‘Nuove Traiettorie’ mention of the Luigi Ghirri Prize: an art residency and solo exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in Stockholm in May 2025. This year she will release her new photography book published by RVM HUB.



Umberto Diecinove (b. 1978) is an artist and author with with a background in literature, philosophy and poetry and a master degree in photography. His projects have been presented in various international galleries, festivals, and cultural institutions, including the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (Budapest, Hungary), the Muséum d’Orléans pour la Biodiversité et l’Environnement (France), and the Glass Box Gallery (Santa Barbara, California, USA), among others.
In 2025, with the project I N S C Ṭ S, he was nominated for both the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award.

Ornella Mari is a Belgian-born, Hungarian-Italian photographer based in Budapest. Her work explores themes of identity, femininity, and self-perception, often delving into the emotional and psychological landscapes of her subjects. Through a nuanced approach to portraiture, she captures the complexities of human experience, from moments of vulnerability to personal transformation.
Mari’s journey with photography began as a means of self-exploration, gradually evolving into a broader investigation of societal expectations and internal struggles. Her images balance intimacy with universality, inviting viewers to reflect on themes of self-acceptance, resilience, and the fluid nature of identity.
Rooted in both conceptual and documentary influences, Mari’s photography serves as a visual dialogue between the external world and inner realities. Whether through staged compositions or candid moments, her work seeks to challenge perceptions and offer new ways of seeing oneself and others.


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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.

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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.

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.

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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