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The artists nominated by

FOTO ARSENAL WIEN
in
2026

FOTO ARSENAL WIEN is Austria’s new center for photography and lens-based media. 

Opened by the City of Vienna in March 2025, the institution presents and promotes contemporary photography in all its forms and applications.

In the inaugural year of its partnership with FUTURES – and marking the first contribution by an Austrian institution overall – FOTO ARSENAL WIEN aims to foreground a broad range of Austrian perspectives within photography and the visual arts.

In collaboration with experts from the Austrian cultural sector, we have curated a selection that highlights the plurality of artistic approaches – from (auto-)biographical studies to cityscapes to glimpses of everyday and past lives.

Naa Teki Martey Lebar (*1989) centers her practice on experiences of living across multiple cultures. Her ongoing series “Family Meetings” (2013–) documents recurring visits to her grandmother in Accra and reflects on questions of identity and belonging. Origin and home are navigated as shifting and negotiated positions.

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Thomas Albdorf (*1982) questions the mechanisms of image-making, perception and meaning. His series “Body Double” (2022-23) explores how the image of the city Los Angeles unfolds through the lens of visual culture – from Google Street View, Hollywood films to vintage photographs.

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Julia Gaisbacher (*1983) examines the relationship between architecture and society through extensive, long-term observations. For her project “Hanne Darboven. Am Burgberg” (2023), she spent several weeks in the untouched studio of the Conceptual artist, creating a sensitive exploration of Darboven’s life and legacy.

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Eric Asamoah (*1999) explores questions of identity, memory and diasporic experience through portraiture. His project “Here, Nowhere Else” (2023) documents intimate encounters with the boxing community of Jamestown, Accra, emphasizing photography as a relational practice.

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Helena Kalleitner (*1996) revisits sites destroyed in Salzburg during World War II and photographs them as they appear today. By juxtaposing past and present, the series “Portrait of a rebuilt City” (2025) explores memory as an ongoing, shifting process rather than a fixed state.

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The 2026 committee consisted of three external jurors from Austria, who supported the curatorial team of FOTO ARSENAL WIEN in the selection process:

Rainer Iglar, Curator & Editor, FOTOHOF, Salzburg

Christina Töpfer, Editor-in-chief, Camera Austria, Graz

Maria Venzl, Curator for Contemporary Art, OK, Linz

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Felix Hoffmann, Artistic Director, FOTO ARSENAL WIEN

Marit Lena Herrmann, Curator, FOTO ARSENAL WIEN

Mona Schubert, Curator, FOTO ARSENAL WIEN

Projects nominations
Artist
/
Photographer
Eric Asamoah
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.
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Artist
/
Photographer
Helena Kalleitner
Helena Kalleitner (*1996) lives and works as a freelance photographer in Salzburg. In 2021, she graduated from the College for Photography and Audiovisual Media at Die Graphische Wien, followed by the Friedl Kubelka School for Artistic Photography, where she graduated in 2022. Beside her personal projects, she works in the fields of editorial, portrait, and documentary photography. She has been part of FOTOHOF Salzburg since 2022. Her approach focuses strongly on immersing herself in different realities through the medium of photography. Starting from a critical but curious basis of observation, she often deals with social issues and phenomena.
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Artist
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Photographer
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Visual Artist
Julia Gaisbacher
Julia Gaisbacher (*1983) lives and works in Vienna (AT). She studied art history at the University of Graz (AT) and sculpture at the Dresden University of Fine Arts (DE), as well as the Sint-Lukas School of Arts in Brussels (BE). At the center of her working method are extensive research and long-term observations that focus on the urban landscape as a human living environment. The starting point is always photography. Her final works manifest in the forms of prints, installations, films and photobooks, with the latter having become an important part of her artistic practice. Her latest book, “Hanne Darboven. Am Burgberg”, was published by Hatje Cantz in 2025.
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Artist
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Photographer
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Visual Artist
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Art Director
Thomas Albdorf
After working for several years as an Art Director, Thomas Albdorf studied Transmedia Art at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, where he graduated in 2013. He was selected as an international “Artists to Watch” by British Journal of Photography in 2014; he won the UNSEEN Amsterdam Talent Award in 2016. He had institutional solo shows at FOAM Amsterdam (NL) and Museum Folkwang (DE), and his work has been exhibited throughout galleries in Europe & the United States. He has been featured in and interviewed for magazines like FOAM Magazine, British Journal of Photography, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Wallstreet Journal, The Guardian and many more. He received the Austrian State Scholarship for Fine Art Photography in 2024.
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Artist
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Visual Artist
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Writer
Naa Teki Martey Lebar
Naa Teki Martey Lebar (*1989) is a visual artist and author. She studied Fine Arts and Photography in Great Britain, Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and Austrian Studies at the University of Vienna. Her work explores themes of belonging and identity shaped by living across multiple cultures, often reflecting on the gaze in and beyond the photographic medium through personal narratives. Working with photography, text, and installation, Lebar creates spaces for reflection, narration, and care where experience becomes both material and method.
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