Valentin Valette

Thalles Piaget (*1996) is a human being - not an artificial intelligence - born in Brazil and living in Biel/Bienne - CH. Essentially vagabond, Thalles is inspired by readings, walks, and reflections. Capturing a moment that doesn’t truly exist, trying to transform the ordinary into a dreamlike experience. Its artistic approach is at the border of dreams, science, and absurdity. Wandering, guided by the moment, playing with its non-existence. “In my work, I aim to open a window to a dreamlike digital universe composed of surfaces, reflections, and light, free from its commercial intent yet infused with a poetic perspective on the machinery’s materials. In my photographs and installations, I want to explore and question the possibilities of our digital images and their inflationary use in our daily lives. While using the medium of photography, my aim is not to document specific scenes or compositions, but rather to seek what is between the subject and the camera and to capture the moments in between. Photography serves as a fundamental tool in my creative work, yet paradoxically, it is the medium with which I maintain the most critical relationship.”‍

Marija Mandić (b. 1990, Novi Sad, Serbia) is an artist whose practice spans photography, text, drawing, and found footage. Her work delves into the themes of identity, memory and the past, often within a familial context, blending personal narratives with broader social issues. In 2023, Mandić was a finalist for the Mangelos Award, part of the Young Visual Artists Awards network. She won the Fotograf Magazine (CZ) open call in 2022 and received the VID Foundation for Photography grant in 2021 for her project White Bee. Her accolades also include the Dositeja scholarship, a grant from the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic, and the Mali Princ Foundation award. Mandić holds a PhD in Visual Communication from the Faculty of Art and Design in Ústí nad Labem, where she lectured from 2015 to 2019.

Triin Kerge is an artist based in Estonia and Italy. She works primarily with photography, embroidery, and archival materials. Her practice explores memory, home, and identity through her own photography, found photographs, and family archives, focusing on how images shift over time through material-based processes. By combining photographic processes with slow, material-based techniques, she examines how images change over time and how meaning shifts through repetition, material transformation, and physical engagement with images. Kerge is interested in the material instability of photographs and in how images function as carriers of personal and cultural memory. Her work is research-driven and often developed as long-term projects that bring together archival research, material experimentation, and image-making across different contexts and locations.

Rui Costa, Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal, 1989. He began his studies at the Portuguese Institute of Photography in Lisbon in 2020, wherehe became interested in developing documentary and authorial projects. In 2022 heattended the Masterclass Narrativa with the photographer Mário Cruz. Since 2023, he has been a teacher at the Portuguese Institute of Photography in Lisbon. Winner of the Fnac New Talents Award 2023, in the Photography category, with the essay “Uma Azeitona Bordada em Azul". ‍

Florian Gatzweiler (*1998) is a German artist whose work deals with identity, violence and images of masculinity. His projects are characterized by an empathetic examination of personal and social issues, which he often explores in a photographic context. He combines documentary approaches with staged elements to create multi-layered and complex narratives in which he attempts to do justice to the themes and problems of his work. During his studies at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie, which he completed in 2024 under the direction of Irina Ruppert, he exhibited several times, including at EMOP Berlin and Paris Photo. His awards include a scholarship from the Socio-Culture Fund and the Paris Photo Young Talent 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.

Pavle Nikolić (b. 2001, Niš, Serbia) works with photography and video, examining fundamental human tensions — authority and powerlessness, dominance and submission, aggression and passivity. He investigates how these opposing forces interact, using the constructive and transformative capacities of his chosen mediums to find the threshold at which they begin to turn into one another. Pavle studied applied photography at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and fine art at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. He now lives and works in Paris.

Tony Dočekal (1992, Amsterdam) is a photographer and visual artist whose work focuses on identity, belonging, and the shared human condition. Her practice is shaped by encounters with individuals and communities on the road, with a particular interest in the resilience and adaptability of people living on society’s margins. Her first monograph, The Color of Money and Trees, explores the tension between material success and deeper fulfillment, asking if true prosperity lies in community and self-awareness rather than wealth and possessions. The series includes Chad on Skid Row, which won the Zilveren Camera Portrait Award in 2021, and Lyric at El Pais, a portrait of a young girl living off the grid in Arizona. The work navigates the balance between societal expectations and individual freedom. Tony’s debut short film, Pearls on Credit, reflects on how personal identity is shaped by broader economic systems and societal expectations. Shown alongside an installation of The Color of Money and Trees at Biennale Images Vevey, it deepens Tony’s exploration of the pressures individuals face in navigating these structures. Tony holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from ArtEZ University of the Arts and has received recognition, including the Olympus Young Talent Award and De Burgemeester de Bruinprijs.

Focusing on the role of humans within society and their direct interaction with their environment, Maxime Guedaly has been building a documentary photographic archive for the past ten years. A self-taught photographer with an engineering background, he constructs his projects from the archives he has created. Selected, organized, and related according to their purpose, these images find their place in public spaces and in venues accessible to all audiences. The formal association of several regimes of images serves as a starting point for reflection on the physical and political movements of communities engaged in society, whether they come from a cultural background linked to live performance or the associative world. Through video, the photographer establishes a dialogue between the movement of urban and human respiration, creating a common vocabulary between two entities emerging from their inertia. Evolving towards the fields of performance and collaborative art, the role of the artist becomes porous, straddling participation and documentation. While the question of the reception of the work remains unchanged, the artistic process is completely reexamined. Maxime Guedaly was born in Toulouse in 1987. He is trained as an engineer and is a self-taught photographer. He trained in authorial projects at the ENSP in Arles in 2018.

Mari Mäntynen (b.1997) is a Finnish visual artist born and raised in Kerava’s prison area. The works are participatory and Mäntynen also appears in them herself. Her artistic work focuses on the question: How could we understand each other better? She addresses everyday tensions and difficult social challenges through collaboration and absurdity. She challenges her audience to confront others and their own prejudices. Mäntynen studies social situations and problems by organizing them, participating in them, photographing them, and finally watching them with the participants. For Mäntynen, the performative method of taking pictures is very important. At its deepest, her intention is to create friction and tension that somehow changes reality. In each of her works, she strives to challenge herself and always move on the edges of social norms and her comfort zone. Mäntynen’s working is subtle and exploratory, taking into account the power relations of photography. Mäntynen completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki in 2025. She has a Bachelor of Photography degree from Lab University of Applied Sciences, Lahti Finland and completed exchange studies in photography at FH-Bielefeld in Germany. Mäntynen's first solo exhibitions was on display in Peri Photography Center and Nykyaika Photography Center. Mäntynen’s works are in the collections Museum of Visual Arts Malva, as well as in private collections.