Lívia Melzi

Henri Kisielewski is a self-taught French-British photographer based in London. His work addresses the relationship between images to the real world – broadly speaking he makes photographs about photography. Research-led and informed by his studies in human geography, Henri’s work explores themes of memory, photographic representation and the porous boundary between fact and fiction in documentary media. Working primarily with medium format film and allowing room for chance, Henri’s practice is characterised by a documentary approach based on a conceptual framework. Henri is currently working on a new ambitious and multi-faceted project in New York State: a collective portrait of Agloe, a fictional town that came to exist in the real world. Through a variety of visual strategies – photographs, archive images, video interviews – the work probes the ‘documentary’ image in a post-truth era.

Varvara Uhlik (b.1997, Ukraine) is a London-based visual artist who explores themes of Slavic culture and identity, with a focus on the post-Soviet era’s impact on her generation. Working across photography, installation, and video, Varvara often reworks archival materials, bringing them into dialogue with contemporary narratives and newly produced work. Through this process, she examines the tension between past and present, reality and its digital afterlife, foregrounding the impermanence of our surroundings and the fragility of memory. In 2024, the British Journal of Photography recognised Varvara as a Ones to Watch artist. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at The Sunday Painter, London; Photo Élysée Museum, Switzerland; European Photography Month, Tokyo; MIA Milan Photo Fair, Italy; Encontros da Imagem, Portugal; and Liquida Photofestival, Italy. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Guardian, Beaux Arts Magazine, Photoworks, Riga Photography Biennial 2025, Der Greif, and LensCulture, among others.

Irish artist Shane Hynan holds an MFA in Photography (Ulster University, 2019). His practice centres on photography with experimental elements in sound, video, collage, and sculpture. The metaphorical exploration of place, land and architecture is a significant subtext throughout his work. He draws upon conceptual, performative and subjective documentary approaches and works primarily with analogue photography processes as it enhances an emotional and intuitive connection with landscape and topography. He has shown his work extensively in Ireland and received multiple awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Creative Ireland, and Kildare Arts. He has exhibited internationally in China, Germany, and the UK, and was shortlisted for the Royal Photographic Society IPE162, IPE163 and IPE166. In 2024 he undertook residencies at the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris, France), and at the Roscommon Arts Centre (Roscommon, Ireland).

Based in Chisinau, Moldova, Natalia Ciobanu is an internationally recognized photographer specializing in portraits and travel photography. With over 18 years of experience, she masterfully blends color and emotion, crafting images that tell profound human stories. Her work has been exhibited across Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine and has earned prestigious awards, including Gold Winner at the London Photography Awards, Finalist in the Smithsonian Contest, and distinctions from Nikon Photo Contest and Trierenberg Super Circuit. For Natalia, photography is more than just capturing moments; it’s about telling stories, connecting with people, and celebrating the beauty of the world in all its diversity. Each photograph she creates is an exploration of humanity and a tribute to the colors that define our lives.

I am a Danish-American documentary photographer and visual artist dedicated to creating space for Black interiority and complexity. With a BA in photojournalism, I approach photography through storytelling with the awareness of genuine representation. Navigating from this perspective, I aim to capture the spaces where we are closest to our authentic self. As I turn my camera towards the reality of everyday-Black-existence in its simplicity and extraordinary, I want to uplift the voices and stories of afrodiasporic individuals. As I turn the camera on myself, I explore both personal and collective history. Raised between Copenhagen and Hamburg with African American heritage, I work across local and global contexts, using my practice as a language through which I connect with and express Black existence.

Eric Asamoah (*1999) is an Austrian photographer of Ghanaian heritage whose practice positions portraiture as a critical space for examining identity, memory and diasporic experience. His work is characterized by a restrained and contemplative visual language, favoring nuance, stillness and emotional clarity over overt narrative or spectacle. Working predominantly with natural light and deliberate composition, Asamoah creates images that emphasize presence and interiority, allowing subjects to inhabit the frame with quiet authority. His photographs often explore themes of selfhood, masculinity, vulnerability and belonging, informed by transnational perspectives and lived experience within the diaspora. His practice operates through attentiveness and ambiguity, using photography as a mode of inquiry into how individuals are seen and how they choose to be represented. Situated within a new generation of contemporary image-makers, Asamoah’s work contributes to ongoing conversations around authorship, visibility and the evolving language of portraiture within current photographic discourse.

Rosa Lacavalla (b. 1993) is an Italian photographer and visual artist based in Bologna. She holds a BA in Art Graphic and an MA in Photography from the Academy of Fine Arts Bologna, along with one-year studies in the BA in Photography program at Coventry University, UK, and an internship with the collective Cesura. Her work has been featured in several printed and online publications, and exhibited in festivals, collective and solo shows in Italy and abroad. Since 2023 she's been part of the PhMuseum's team as an Editorial, Production and Education Assistant. Lacavalla's visual narratives unfold as transformative journeys – whether it is a personal quest for emotional healing or an exploration of cultural intersections and migrations. Navigating the complexities of the human experience, her works invite viewers to reflect on the intricate paths of healing, transformation, and the blurred boundaries between reality and dream.‍

Mara Palena (1988) lives and works in Milan. Her research focuses on themes such as memory, recollection, and identity. She works with photography, video, and sound, reworking materials from archives, often open and participatory, like home movies, and drawing on a personal archive of photographic images that she has been curating for years to document her life. Her work has been exhibited at various international festivals, venues, and galleries, including the Guardian Art Center in Beijing, Galleria Studio G7 in Bologna, Careof, Marsèll Paradise, Nowhere Gallery, Pananti Atelier, and Video Sound Art in Milan, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Madrid, MOPLA in Los Angeles, Artphilein Foundation in Lugano, and Recontemporary in Turin. Between 2021 and 2024, she was a finalist in several art prizes, including the Lucie Foundation, Combat Prize, Premio Fabbri, New Post Photography, and Artphilein Photo Book Contest. In 2022, she was selected by Camera Torino for FUTURES Photography. Her work Oikeiôsis won the 2022 Surprize Award from Sprint and the Marcelo Burlon Foundation. The editorial project was curated and published by Witty Books in 2023 and was included by Photo España among the 100 best books published in 2024.

Andong Zheng (1992, China) lives and works in Rotterdam, NL. With a hybrid background in engineering and fine art, Zheng was trained to focus on micro details within rigid causal frameworks, yet he often found himself questioning the macro structures they sustain. His work explores how seeing itself becomes a site of epistemological asymmetry. For him, image-making is less about mapping established knowledge systems than about dismantling and reconfiguring them, a way of engaging with the gaps, ambiguities, and contradictions that lie between these systems and the world. Through this practice, he seeks to open up new ways of knowing that traverse rationality.

Zheng was shortlisted for the Jimei x Arles Discovery Award (2024) and musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac Photography Award (2025). His work has also been featured in publications such as The Routledge Companion to Photography, Representation and Social Justice, British Journal of Photography, and Chinese Photography.

Katya Lesiv (b. 1993, Ukraine) is a visual artist and photographer from Ukraine. Currently living and working in Finland. She has graduated with a MA from National Academy of Fine Art and Architecture in Kyiv, 2017. Lesiv works with the topics of cyclicality, physicality, emotional and sensitive experience, and motherhood. Her artistic practice explores the sense of presence through materiality of a variety of disciplines and media, including photography, art book, installation, object, text, graphics and moving image. Performative method, often rooted in routine rituals, is a way to encapsulate and share intimate experiences while safeguarding personal space. In her practice, Lesiv works with the body of the book, which often serves as the final form of her work. Lesiv's works have been exhibited in several solo exhibitions in Ukraine, Finland and Netherlands and in curated group exhibitions worldwide. Her artbook “Lullaby 1” belongs to the top 100 photobooks of “How We See: Photobooks by Women” according to 10×10 Photobooks. Her artbook “I love you” was shortlisted by Aperture PhotoBook Awards in 2022. ‍