They will join the platform’s activities to present their work to international professionals and to network, amongst other opportunities that will be developed for them, including exhibitions, publishing opportunities, portfolio reviews, and more.
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Yujie Zhou (b. 1997, Chengdu, China) is a visual artist working with expanded photography, textile works, moving images, installation, and publishing. Through performativity and a decoded notion of language, their practice seeks to interrogate dominant historical narratives and power structures while reframing collective individuality. Zhou is based in Helsinki, Finland, where they completed their Master’s degree in Arts with a major in Photography and a minor in Textiles-Materials and Structures at Aalto University in 2023. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Photographic Centre Peri, Photographic Gallery Hippolyte(Finland), BFoto Festival (Spain), FORMAT Photography Festival (UK), and alpha nova & galerie futura (Germany) as part of Berlin Art Week 2023.
Joel Karppanen (b. 1993) is a visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, writer, critic and the artistic director of Oulu Music Video Festival. Known for long-term documentary photography series, experimental films and personal essays exploring themes of labor and class, his work has often been described as “historically-aware", "honest" and "sensitive". Karppanen has received recognition including New Photo Journalist Award and Jouko Lehtola Foundation’s Young Hero Grant in 2017. His first monograph 'Finnish Pastoral' was published in 2018; the same year he participated in We Feed The World, a global photographic exhibition in London, featuring names such as Martin Parr, Susanna Meiselas and Graciela Iturbide. In 2019 Karppanen had his first museum solo show in the Aine Art Museum. Furthermore his works have been exhibited in Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, KunstHausWien and Mänttä Art Festival among others. His latest exhibition in Gallery Halmetoja in August 2023 received critical acclaim. Karppanen's works can be found in various collections including The Finnish State Art Commission, The Finnish Museum of Photography and Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.
Sheung Yiu (HK/FI) is a Hong-Kong-born, image-centered artist and researcher, based in Helsinki. His artwork explores the act of seeing through algorithmic image systems and sense-making through networks of images. His research interests concern the increasing complexity of algorithmic image systems in contemporary digital culture. He looks at photography through the lens of new media, scales, and network thinking; He ponders how the posthuman cyborg vision and the technology that produces it transform ways of seeing and knowledge-making. Adopting multi-disciplinary collaboration as a mode of research, his works examine the poetics and politics of algorithmic image systems, such as computer vision, computer graphics, and remote sensing, to understand how to see something where there is nothing, how to digitize light, and how vision becomes predictions. His work takes the form of photography, videos, photo-objects, exhibition installations, and bookmaking.
Nayara Leite (b. 1989) is a Brazilian artist and writer based in Bergen, Norway. She holds an MFA from the Bergen Art Academy and an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. Nayara works across text, performance, analogue photography, film and installation. Through autobiographical narrative, political news, archival material and letters to close friends, she produces a portrayal of the reality in which the LGBTQ+ community lives in Brazil and in Norway. She has exhibited and/or held performances at Bergen Kunsthall, Palmera, Lydgalleriet, Isotop, Bergen Kjøtt and KODE 2 in Bergen; Preus Museum in Horten; Studio 17 in Stavanger; Oslo Negativ, Kunstnerforbundet and Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo; and Momentum Biennale in Moss.
Weronika Bela and Ivar Hagren are an artist duo based in Stockholm. Hagren & Bela's work originates from the history of photography, often through microhistories of photographic materials and techniques. They primarily work with analog black-and-white photography as a medium, employing both traditional and experimental darkroom techniques. In addition to this, they utilize drawing, installation, archival material, video and text. Ivar Hagren obtained his bachelor's degree from the Gothenburg University of Photography in 2012 and his master's degree in fine art from Konstfack in 2014. Weronika Bela earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in fine art in 2013 and 2015, respectively, also from Konstfack. Their works have been exhibited both in Sweden and internationally, including in Poland, Finland, and Greece. In 2022 they where Iaspis artist in residency grant holders in Stockholm. They are currently developing a project on the defunct East German manufacturer ORWO, best known for affordable black-and-white photo paper, who held a monopoly over photographic darkroom material in the Eastern bloc market before ceasing operations in connection with the fall of the Berlin Wall.