The
Artist
Miriam
Lives and Works in
Irish artist, Miriam O’Connor lives and works in Cork. She holds a BA in photography from Dublin Institute of Technology, and completed a Research Masters at the Institute of Art, Design & Technology, Dun Laoghaire in 2011. Drawing inspiration from the language, sights and sounds of the everyday, O’Connor’s practice frequently engages with matters which reflect her everyday surroundings, as well as her day-to-day experiences of being a photographer. Her projects have explored themes around looking and seeing; the relationship between camera and subject; the circulation and consumption of images and the complex nature of photographic representation.Her work has been exhibited and distributed extensively, with features in magazines and publications including; Camera Austria, Source Photographic Review, The New York Times and The Guardian. Recent solo shows include Sternview Gallery, Cork, Galleri Image, Denmark, The Third Space Gallery, Belfast and during ‘THERE THERE’ festival, Cork curated by Stag & Deer. In 2012, she received the Alliance Française Photography Award, which included a residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris. She was the recipient of the Emerging Irish Artist Residency Award [EIARA] in 2015 which included a month-long residency at Burren College of Art, Co. Clare. Publications include, ‘Attention Seekers’ (2012) ‘The Legacy Project’ (2013) and ‘Tomorrow is Sunday’ (2017). She was one of the selected artists for Greetings from Ireland (2015) and New Irish Works I & II (2013, 2016). In conjunction with Galleri Image, Denmark, she recently produced new work for FRESH EYES - International artists rethink Aarhus, which was exhibited during Aarhus Capital of Culture, 2017.
Projects
Tomorrow Is Sunday
Tomorrow is Sunday is a long-term photographic project which explores my return to the family farm following a family bereavement in 2013. Throughout this time, the camera, and other practices of reading, writing and observing have been employed as tools to negotiate this challenging and unanticipated return. Adopting a slow and reflective approach, I began to document aspects and encounters from day-to-day life, gradually producing logbooks and inventories of routine farm tasks and domestic duties, reviewing animals, fields, trees, rocks, farm tools and the prevailing passage of time. This scrupulous approach of logging, compiling and indexing is driven by a desire to comprehend this complex transition and reflects an effort to regain some semblance of order where past and present might begin to reconcile in some way.
Miriam
was nominated by
PhotoIreland
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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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.
Maria Beatriz de Vilhena (b. 1991) is a Lisbon based photographer, with a professional background in architecture. She studied photography at CFP Bauer Milan and holds a master's degree in architecture from the University of Lisbon.
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).
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).
Igor Shiller (1996) is a Serbia-born, Amsterdam-based visual artist who graduated with a degree in photography from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, in 2021. The following year, he was nominated for the FOAM Paul Huf Award. His work has been showcased at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Unfair Amsterdam and the EYE Film Museum, among others. In 2024, he received the Mangelos Award, honoring him as Serbia’s best young visual artist.Schiller’s artistic practice explores the lasting imprint of childhood, drawing inspiration from memories and his Balkan roots. Through photography, film, and set design, he transforms family archive into uncanny dreamscapes saturated with tenderness and warmth. Embracing play as both method and subject, he turns toys, lullabies, and games into historical artifacts that reveal how tradition and upbringing shape and perpetuate rigid systems. As colors grow richer and characters take form, the line between remembering and reinventing begins to blur. What started as a search for fragments of memory became an unfolding tale of identity and belonging.
Ilias Lois pursued his education at the Department of Photography & Audiovisual Arts at the UniWA and furthered his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Venice. His artistic endeavours have garnered international recognition, with his works featured in institutions, festivals, and prominent photography publications. In 2018, he received the title of “Young Greek Photographer” from APhF, and in 2019, he earned the “Lensculture Emerging Talent” award for his series, Aisle Seat. In addition to his artistic pursuits, Lois serves as editor of the photography magazine Velvet Eyes. He is also a regular contributor to the Athens Photo Festival, where he recently curated the exhibition Good Advice & Other Recipes (2022) at the Benaki Museum. He contributes to the field of photography education as a teacher at the Hellenic Centre of Photography and Paper Drop Lab, where he is in charge of project development and curation classes. In the summer of 2024 he graduated with a Master of Photography: Research and Methodology from UniWA. Lois’ work is usually developed in long-term series, in which the interplay of different photographic genres is attempted, mixing staged photography and quasi-documentary strategies. His projects are inspired by the systematic observation of communication between people, the human manipulation of materials and technology and body language. The artist’s approach pays close attention to the practices of transferring a three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface, as well as to the reverse process that follows. He is particularly interested in the sequencing of photographs while researching and practising non-linear forms of narration, both in his personal and curatorial work.
Visvaldas Morkevicius (b. 1990) is a Lithuanian artist s a Lithuanian artist working in the expanded field of the image, who explores photography and its boundaries through personal experiences and reflections on society. His work navigates themes of identity, technology, and power, blending minimalism with layered narratives to examine modern life’s emotional and psychological dimensions.
At this moment, he is pursuing his MA diploma in Photography at EACL, Switzerland (2025).
Visvaldas works reflect a deep engagement with contemporary life's emotional and psychological dimensions, examining how hyperconnectivity, media saturation, and systemic forces shape human perception, memory, and agency. The artist's approach is both critical and reflective. He uses photography and interdisciplinary media to explore themes of loss, disconnection, and resilience, juxtaposing personal experience with broader societal dynamics. His art often reveals the tension between intimacy and detachment, questioning how technology mediates relationships, reframes violence, and commodifies identity. Visvaldas draws from psychoanalysis
and critical theory to investigate the cycles of desire, control, and addiction embedded in modern systems.
He is particularly interested in how these systems exploit human vulnerability, trapping individuals in loops of consumption and obedience. Through his practice, he challenges viewers to confront the fragile balance between autonomy and control, reality and hyperreality.His work combines stark minimalism with layered narratives, creating immersive experiences that invite reflection on contemporary life's emotional and ethical implications. Visvaldas seeks to uncover hidden connections, offering a lens through which to question the forces that shape our lives while exploring the human desire for meaning, connection, and self-expression.
Represented by Galerie Elisabeth & Reinhard Hauff
Tudor Rhys Etchells uses the photograph to challenge fictions created by legal systems. Working within such a bureaucracy in his previous role as a human rights lawyer inspires his closeness to the document and the brutally mundane. For him, the photographic medium, with its own cumbersome structures of viewing and representing, appears the best match for understanding processes that construct the imagined norms of our society. Embracing photography’s performative element, he deconstructs our conceptions of visual knowledge.
He achieved a Distinction in MA Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales during which he was awarded the Reginald Salisbury grant. Recently he was awarded an Arts Council of Wales Research and Development grant to fund a residency and his first solo exhibition at BayArt, Cardiff.
He is a lecturer at the University of Gloucester and regularly gives visiting lectures at institutions, including Ffotogalley.
He is based in Cardiff and an associate artist of BayArt gallery.
Bertrand Cavalier unfolds his artistic thinking across photography, sculpture, drawing, and video, each medium enriching the others. His work shifts from a politics of the gaze to a logic of sensation, where art becomes a bodily experience rather than mere representation. In this way, his work is part of a contemporaneity that echoes the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, offering a reflection on our ability to communicate and share ideas beyond words, through sensations that resonate with our bodies and our spaces. — Olivier Grasser
Bertrand Cavalier has published with Fw:Books (NL, 2020) and Spector Books (DE, 2024). He is the laureate of the Prix Ville de Bruxelles – Centrale for Contemporary Art (BE, 2025) and has exhibited at FOMU Antwerp (BE), Photoforum Pasquart Biel (CH), BIP – Biennale de l’Image Possible, Liège (BE), and FRAC Orléans (FR). He received the Sébastien van der Straten Fund Award (2019) and was a resident at Artwell Amsterdam (NL, 2021) and Cité internationale des arts, Paris (FR, 2023). His work has been published in Artpress, Mouvement (both FR), Camera Austria (AT) and l’art même (BE).
Milena Soporowska is a visual artist based in Poland. Her work explores, among other things, the intertwining of everyday life with magic and the occult, questioning the concept of home as a safe, familiar haven. She is interested in the combination of alternative medicine and psychoanalysis, and the overlap between Christianity, esotericism and folk spirituality.She graduated in Art History, presenting her master's thesis on the influence of spiritualistic and mediumistic photography on art in the light of Freud's category of unheimlich. She also studied photography, museology and psychotronics. Moreover, Milena is a graduate of the Sputnik Photos mentoring programme.Read more
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
works are in collections of Encontros Da Imagem (PT) and National Institute of Architecture and Urbanism (PL). As a sociologist, he researches modern iconographies and visual narratives. Vice- Dean of the Faculty of Design at SWPS University and Head of Communication Design speciality at the School of Form USWPS. Creator of workshop programs, co-founder of Azimuth Press art/ education collective. Member of APP platform. Graduate of Applied Sociology Department of University of Warsaw, and of Institute of Creative Photography of Silesian University in Opava (MA). Part time musician and sound artist under various monikers. DIY / zine culture enthusiast.
Adi Tudose (b. 1987, Bucharest) is an artist-photographer based in Budapest. After completing his studies at The National University of Theatre and Film, he further
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Tudose can transform fleeting, transient moments into cohesive compositions, bringing order and harmony to the everyday. Through this process, he taps into the
subconscious, offering viewers a sense of unity within the chaos. His seamless blending of form and content sets him apart, creating simple yet mysterious representations. His work is characterized by cohesive framing, a rich interplay of diverse elements, and tuned figure-to-ground relationships. Tudose’s work offers an invitation to reflect on what photography can reveal about the human condition. Each frame carries layers of emotional and sociological insight, capturing the essence of his subjects while creating space for the viewer to connect with them on a personal level. Each photograph becomes more than a visual representation; it transforms into a deeply felt emotional experience.
Empathy and vulnerability lie at the core of Tudose’s creative process, enabling him to form deeper connections with his subjects and uncover meaningful relationships that might otherwise remain hidden. His work seeks to evoke genuine emotions, delving into themes of social and gender representation while fostering a sense of belonging. In doing so, he transforms emotional disconnection into moments of peace and truth.
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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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