Maite Vanhellemont

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).

Maria Siorba (b. 1986) is a visual artist based in Athens, Greece, with an educational background in Fine Arts, Graphic Design & Communication. Her photography, deeply tied to personal experience, explores human connections, the fragility of self-expression and the fluidity of truth. She uses photography as a psychological and existential tool to uncover new layers of meaning and emotional resonance.

Romane Iskaria is a French photographer and artist based in Brussels, Belgium (1997). The photographer highlights the injustices and inequalities of invisible communities with a documentary and fictional approach. Her images, specific to “Care”, tell a story and allow her subjects to become aware of their painful stories. She creates a connection with these subjects that goes beyond the simple link between the photographer and her model. The artist uses photography and the field of video, but also textiles, sound, and sculpture to create immersive installations. She tells stories that take the form of a long-term investigation across several territories. Romane replays specific rituals and stories that also transcend borders, addressing questions around migration and exile. The photographer creates plastic forms allowing her to subvert the codes of documentary. She graduated with a Master's degree in photography from ENSAV La Cambre in 2022 and a DNA (National Diploma in Plastic Arts) from INSEAAM Beaux Arts in Marseille in 2018. She also completed an exchange at the U-LAVAL Visual Arts school in Quebec, Canada. Romane is laureate of TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, by FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerpen and the european platform FUTURES Photography. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions: in the United States (ART-ARK Gallery in San Jose, California; Assyrian Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.), in Brazil (João Pessoa Paraíba Nordeste Art Gallery of the Energisa Institute), in France (Circulation(s) Cent-Quatre Festival in Paris, Lille Art-Up Centre Photographique in Lille, La Grande Vitrine Gallery in Arles, HLM Gallery in Marseille), in Belgium (FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerp, S.M.A.K Museum in Ghent, House of European History Brussels, TAMAT Museum in Tournai, BPS22, Art-Brussels Off, Prix Médiatine, Hangar Art Photo Center, TICK-TACK Gallery, Tiny-Gallery, Fondation Carrefour des Arts), in Armenia (French Consulate in Yerevan), in Italy (L’Asilo in Naples), and in the Netherlands (Flemish Cultural Center). Brakke-grond, Noorderlicht Festival). Romane was selected as part of the call for projects launched by Polka Magazine and Kickstarter for the creation and support of an artist's book, with the self-publishing of her first work, "Assyrians," in a print run of 300 copies in 2022. The book "Assyrians" was also a winner of the Belgian Photo Books selection, presented at the Rencontres d'Arles in July 2022.

Johanna Hullár is a Zurich-based visual artist working with photography, video installations and timebased sculptures. She graduated from the HTW Berlin with a degree in communication design and holds a master’s degree in photography from ECAL, University of Art and Design Lausanne. Hullár’s practice explores themes of connection, materiality, time and perception. She investigates new ways of mixing still and moving images, playing with notions of surreality and reality, and generated objects to reflect on possible futures and the interaction of (wo)man-made and natural materials, presented through a humorous and feminine prism. Hullár’s transdisciplinary approach opens up new visual spaces, offering visitors a sensory experience with sculptural arrangements frozen in ice, constantly in motion and changing state. Laureate of the Swiss Design Awards 2024 and Prix de l’ECAL 2020, and nominee for the Prix Mobilière 2024, Hullár made her institutional debut at Kunsthalle Mannheim in 2021, followed by the solo shows Floral Landscape (2021), Burning Desires (2022) and Material Landscape (2023) held in Zurich. She has exhibited internationally, including at Swiss House Milano (2022), Jungkunst Winterthur (2021), Tokyo Photographic Research (2019), Biennale dell’Immagine Chiasso (2019) and Paris Photo (2018). In 2023, she was resident at La Becque artist residency and in 2025 at Plateforme 10 x Fiminco Fondation in Paris.

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.

My name is Claude. As an interdisciplinary artist, I mainly use the media of photography and sound. I am based in Lichtensteig in Toggenburg, Switzerland. I grew up in the 90‘s in a small village on the Swiss side of Lake Constance and was socialised in the environment of the Catholic Church. Today, after studying analogue photography at Ostkreuzschule in Berlin and living in various house and farm projects, I no longer feel that I belong there.

However, the themes in my artistic practice today are still characterised by a tightly structured childhood, youth and apprenticeship: in my work, I have been exploring the concepts of collectivity and intimacy for several years. I am always looking for liberating and solidary acts in performative moments and arts production. My image- and sound-based practice reveals my great affinity for technology, the exploration of boundaries and needs in dialogue and the creation of trusting connections and learning spaces in my collaborations.

As a child of the working class, I am concerned with my own role as an artist in society and what (political) room for manoeuvre this opens up for me. The problem of self-exploitation, especially - but not only - with a body read as female, is a recurring theme in my artistic practice.

Since 2019, the Salon Vert has been a network of artists, a laboratory for sound research and a place for interdisciplinary dialogue. The Salon Vert has found a new home in my studio in Lichtensteig in 2023. I am also co-founder of the audiovisual Glitch Festival in St.Gallen and music editor at the community radio station Stadtfilter in Winterthur.

Máté Bartha (1987) is a Budapest-based visual artist working in the intersection of photography and theory-fiction. His practice is driven by a mission to reenchant the world through world-building, impersonation and constructing personal and collective mythologies. His work proposes new narratives by blending symbolic and subjective interpretations of his usual field of observation, the metropolis, treating urban spaces as arenas for imaginative transformation. Bartha’s works often combine staged and documentary imagery, archival material, and speculative narrative forms, and have been published and exhibited widely. Bartha holds Master’s degrees in Photography (Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, 2011) and Documentary Filmmaking (University of Theatre and Film Arts, 2016), and is currently a doctoral student at MOME. His first photobook, Common Nature (2014), explored the ambivalence of urban space as a mirror of the unconscious. Kontakt (2018), a coming-of-age portrait of Hungarian military youth camps, was awarded the Louis Roederer Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles (2019). His recent project Anima Mundi, a fictional urban encyclopedia of cosmic order, received the Main Jury Prize at Les Boutographies, Montpellier (2024). His ongoing work, The Dice Man, is a chance-based photographic pilgrimage through grief, memory, and city space.

Izabela Szczutkowska is a Polish visual artist based in West Cork, Ireland. Working with photography, collage, darkroom-based processes, and installation, her practice revolves around the ontological question of photography, drawing on autobiographical themes such as identity and the concept of home. Interested in testing the limits of photographic freedom, her open-ended, process-led research is driven more by inquiry than definitive answers. Alongside her practice, Szczutkowska collaborates with the Irish music scene, producing band portraits, music videos, and album artwork. She holds an MA in Art, Research Collaboration from IADT and a BA (Hons) in Photography from TU Dublin. Earlier studies include Photographic Studies and TV & Film Production at St. John’s College, Cork. Szczutkowska’s work has been exhibited in group shows across Ireland, including the RHA, Dublin, Lavit Gallery, Cork, Photo Museum Ireland, The Lab Gallery, and an upcoming exhibition at Kevin Kavanagh, Dublin.

Bio: Yun Ping Li (Hubei, China, 1998) is a visual artist based in Madrid. His work investigates the intersection between photography and performance, as well as exploring the concept of belonging in relation to the human body, physical spaces, and family ties. He is author of 回家 (huí jiā). The project has been winner of 13th Galicia Contemporary Photography Award, Fotonoviembre photography biennial and FOTODOKS open call 2025 and Getxophoto open call 2026. He has presented it at Paris Internationale and the annual "Plat(t)form" portfolio review event at Fotomuseum Winterthur (Switzerland). He has participated in solo and collective exhibitions in venues such as El Local (Madrid), Photo Elysée (Switzerland), La Panera (Lleida), The National Museum of Anthropology (Madrid) and Sala Arte Joven (Madrid). He has published his work in Sinetheta, Balam, Exit and Esto es un cuerpo magazines. His work is in the collection of Kutxa foundation.

Emilia Martin is a Polish artist and photographer based in The Hague, Netherlands, where in 2022 she graduated from Photography & Society Masters at the Royal Academy of the Art. Working with photography, writing, and sound, she explores how the stories we tell shape the realities we inhabit. She investigates mythologies and tales, and how they fluctuate and shift throughout histories. Through her work, she aims to complicate the binary understandings of fiction and truth and their established aesthetics. Her process is based on careful research and personal, often playful approaches, through which she questions dominant narratives. The belief in storytelling is rooted in her upbringing, where she engaged with both rural mythologies and urban narratives. She grew up between two different realities: a remote farm belonging to her grandmother in rural Eastern Poland and a heavy industry coal mining urban region in the West of the country. The clash between these two realities, the narrative of extractivism against rural mythologies and the proximity of nature, formed a place that continues to ground her artistic practice. Her work is inspired and informed by her rural Polish ancestry and intersectional feminist approaches.