Stay tuned! We will be launching our new publication with an online event on March 18th.

Do our current definitions of photography still hold up, or are we overdue for a questioning of the medium?

Tune in on Thursday, March 18th for the publication launch of RESET: Questioning the Image, the Market, and the Role of Representation by Futures Photography. The event will be premiered at 6PM (GMT) on our social media and BJP's website. The evening will be spent in conversation with Goldsmith's professor of new media Joanna Zylinska, artists and editor of RESET Salvatore Vitale, and Futures artist Ana Zibelnik.

Taking Zylinska's contributing essay 'Does Photography Have a Future (Does Anything Else)?' as our starting point, the discussion will posit this question while touching upon our machine mediated reality of nonhuman photography, the evolving relationship between photography and extinction and what redefining the medium reveals about modern society and the artist's role in it.

This event is graciously hosted by The British Journal of Photography and introduced by Zoe Harrison.

About the publication:

RESET: Questioning the Image, the Market, and the Role of Representation pushes past the dimensions of a yearly round-up or catalogue – to engage in debate on our splintered representations of reality and their revealing architectures of influence.

The exponential rise of nonhuman photography; our ambivalent relationship with memes, emojis and digital communication at large; and how the forces of representation continue to shape our racial condition are just some of the topics explored by a host of cross-disciplinary contributors. Including Mariama Attah, Joanna Zylinska, Geert Lovink, Sandrine Colard, Olav Velthuis, Lewis Bush, Rafal Milach, Ola Lanko, Salvatore Vitale and more.

The structure of RESET – in a play on the world turned upside-down – is developed in two parts that must be flipped to read. One side delves into how photography plays into our collective situation and the implications that can be traced in its social future; housing essays, visual interventions and discussions that took place during Futures Digital Festival 2020. While the reverse proudly features the work of 57 image-based artists and collectives, annually nominated by Futures’ network of institutions across Europe for their exceptional practice and urgent stories they tell.

About the speakers:

Joanna Zylinska is Professor of New Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London. The author of numerous books – including AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams (Open Humanities Press, 2020) and Nonhuman Photography (MIT Press, 2017), she combines her philosophical writings with image-based art practice, experimental publishing projects and curatorial work. She is currently working on a new book provisionally titled Does Photography Have a Future?

Salvatore Vitale (b. 1986, Palermo, Italy) is a Swiss-based visual artist, editor and educator. In his layered artistic practice and research, Vitale’s work focuses on the functioning of modern societies and power structures, visual politics and technological development, whilst making use of different media and multiple levels of visual narratives. His work has been awarded internationally, and has been exhibited widely in museums and photo festivals. Vitale is a lecturer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). He is also the co-founder and editor-in-chief of YET Magazine and the current guest curator of Futures Photography.

Ana Zibelnik (b. 1995, Ljubljana) is a photographer currently based in the Netherlands. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 2018 and recently completed her MA degree in film and photographic theory at Leiden University. Through long term projects she explores the topics of death, immortality as well as the relationship between photography and extinction. She is part of PARALLEL - European Photo Based Platform, Haute Photographie Talents, British Journal of Photography Ones To Watch 2020 and was selected as the GUP New Talent of the year.

Are you in Belgium? Don't miss out the exhibition 'Primordial Earth: Inhabiting the Landscape' by the artist Léonard Pongo, who joined our platform in 2019. You can visit the show until March 21st at BOZAR in Brussels.

By exploring the diversity of landscapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Léonard Pongo offers an allegorical imagery of the country. Imbued with a sense of magical beauty and mystical power, the landscape seen through his eyes becomes a setting to rebuild the self, and the earth becomes the source of an awareness from which tradition, philosophy and conceptions of the universe emerge. For Léonard Pongo, exploring the environment, as well as sensory experience, are pathways to an emerging vision of the world – it is by becoming one with the landscape that it becomes possible to engage with life.

Drawing inspiration from Congolese traditions and Kasaian cultures, Primordial Earth: Inhabiting the Landscape presents the landscape as a character with its own will and power, like an open book that tells the story of humanity and the planet, with Congo at its centre.

More information: https://www.bozar.be/en/activities/171089-leonard-pongo-primordial-earth

The Studio Visit programme is an online activity organized by Futures and curated by Marina Paulenka (Co-Founder of Organ Vida and former Artistic Director of Unseen). On Fridays, she presents a virtual online tour of our talents' studios, talking about their inspirations, creative process, and ongoing projects. This activity is mainly exclusive to VIPs and guests.

Unlike previous tours, the studio visit on October 23rd and on the 30th will be open to the public from 4PM CET via Zoom and Facebook live-stream:

On October 23, Paulenka visits the artists Shia Conlon, Giovanna Petrocchi, Masha Svyatogor, Jon Gorospe.

On October 30, you're invited to meet Charlotte Schmitz, Karolina Wojtas and Ulla Deventer.

Register online here: https://forms.gle/jPZRdVdMGH5DdWbx9

During The Assembly, our Futures members organize a series of talks with art professionals in topics related to the main theme RESET. The assemblies take place online every Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 4pm. They are organized via Zoom and streamed on our social media channels.
Below, you can find more details about them:

ASSEMBLY #1 - Launch of the Exhibition RESET with Salvatore Vitale, Garry Loughlin, Dávid Biró, Ana Zibelnik and Julie Poly
Organized by Futures Photography
Oct. 6 (Tuesday), 4pm
The curator Salvatore Vitale invites the artists for a talk about the online exhibition RESET. In partnership with Fotomat, the show investigates our main theme with projects by seven artists from our platform: Julie Poly, Ela Polkowska, Eva O'Leary, Garry Loughlin, Sanne De Wilde, Dávid Biró, and Ana Zibelnik.
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #2 - On Adaptation and Production (with Lewis Bush and Aisling Murray)
Organized by PhotoIreland Festival
Oct. 8 (Thursday), 4pm
In his article ‘What protective measures can you think of so we don’t go back to the pre-crisis production model?’ (published in Versopolis on 24th April, 2020), Bruno Latour proposes 6 key questions that are useful for individuals, artists, cultural producers, and institutions to ask of themselves. PhotoIreland invites Lewis Bush (artist, educator) and Aisling Murray (Exhibitions Manager, Science Gallery Dublin) to take inspiration from these questions in order to review our shared inventory of our positions as we emerge into a post-pandemic world. What can we learn from the pandemic? What can we dispose of? What can we gain? How can we evolve so our work and our institutions don’t become obsolete? Should we interrupt our current modes of production?
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #3 - Reset Modernity: talk with Sylvain Gouraud
Organized by Hyères Festival
Oct. 10 (Saturday), 4pm
In this talk, Hyères Festival digs into the exhibition and book 'Reset Modernity', by Bruno Latour, to understand the challenges of today. In order to do that, they invited the artist Sylvain Gouraud to talk about his participation in the exhibition and about his work.
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #4 - Talk with Igiaba Scego and Nicola Lo Calzo
Organized by CAMERA
Oct. 13 (Tuesday), 4pm
Starting from their related research and experiences, the writer Igiaba Scego (Rome, 1974) and the artist Nicola Lo Calzo (Turin, 1976) will discuss crucial topics like decolonization, representation and power in the contemporary cultural scenario. Commonly grounded in the fields of post-colonial and critical studies, their researches appear as textual and visual attempts of re-reading the African diaspora, not only in the historical colonial contexts but also from the perspective of its heritage in the Western countries and cultures. Based in Rome, Scego is an Italian writer, journalist, and activist of Somalian origin who published books and international articles related to the above mentioned topics mixed with autobiographical dynamics. Nicola Lo Calzo is an Italian photographer based in Paris. He is developing Cham, a long period visual research about the colonial slavery and its consequences in ordinary life.
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #5 - Talk with Tanya Kapitonova, Rafal Milach and Yulia Krivich
Organized by The Calvert Journal
Oct. 15 (Thursday), 4pm
Responding to the festival's theme of RESET, Liza Premiyak, Managing Editor of The Calvert Journal, will moderate a conversation with the photographers Tanya Kapitonova (Belarus), Rafal Milach (Poland) and Yulia Krivich (Ukraine) — whose past projects have tackled protest imagery and activism in their respective homes. With the rise of so-called “performative activism”, we believe this will be a timely debate that will encourage artists to think beyond what we know protest imagery to be.
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #6 - Survival Artists! How artists are dealing with Coronavirus
Organized by Triennial of Photography Hamburg
Oct. 17 (Saturday), 4pm
What motivates this year's Futures Talents Manuela Braunmüller, Lukas Kreibig, Maximilian Mann, Sina Niemeyer and Arne Piepke at the moment? What is behind their committed photographic concepts? The five photographers take us into their world with their presentations and together we discuss how Corona affects their artistic projects. They take us with them on their photographic journeys, which they will hopefully be able to undertake in real time in the near future. This talk is oderated by Stephanie Bunk (freelance curator for photography, lecturer and author) and Anja Kneller (photo editor and coach for photographers).
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #7 - Resistances in solidarity: Talk with Pía Ogea, Sandra Maunac and Nicolás Combarro
Organized by PhotoEspaña
Oct. 20 (Tuesday), 4pm
A triple perspective focusing on how the different image agents are facing this new situation caused by COVID-19. Pía, Nicolás and Sandra will offer a hopeful dissertation about the need to establish new strategies and new solidarities from a triple dimension: artistic practice, community (museums, curators...) and government support. In this context, we would like to highlight the importance of alliances and particularly the need of more platforms and joint work.
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #8 - RESET your mindset and adapt in the world of photography
Organized by Photo Romania Festival
Oct. 22 (Thursday), 4pm
Join us for a challenging talk with the photojournalist and Photon Festival director, Tania Castro, about the skills and competencies needed by photographers in the current worldwide situation. The talk will be moderated by Sebastian Vaida, who is the artistic director of Photo Romania Festival, and also a photographer and psychologist. The result will be a change in your mindset, so that you can adapt easier to the ever-changing world of photography.
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #9 - Resetting The Cow – Artists reflecting on mankind tailoring nature to its own needs
Organized by Capa Center
Oct. 24 (Saturday), 5pm
Online round table discussion accompanied by a slideshow showcasing the work of three contemporary artists dealing with the topic of intensive animal farming, cattle breeding in particular. The three authors are using cow as a metaphor to people’s desire for domination of natural phenomena which often result in weird situations and unnatural processes within industrial livestock production. Two emerging artists from the younger generation, Hungarian artist Dániel Szalai (Futures talent of the Capa Center) and German photographer Manuela Barunmüller (Futures talent of the Triennial of Photography Hamburg) will be joined by renowned Dutch photographer Hans van der Meer, who also published a book titled Time to Change on this topic. The conversation is mediated by the curator István Virágvölgyi.
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #10 - Resetting photography: Can Photography be a tool of changes? Workshop by Karolina Gembara (Sputnik Photos)
Organized by Fotofestiwal Lodz
Oct. 27 (Tuesday), 4pm
Photography is many things. In my lecture I propose to reset our thinking and consider its very basic quality - its toolness. What does it do? What do I do with it? How can I utilise it? Can I make any change using my camera? Can this change be good? Going over several examples of the so-called activist photography, engaged projects, participatory programmes and her own practise, Karolina Gembara would like to discuss how the medium we use could become an extension of democratic and inclusive processes. She will also try to reflect on the anthropological burdens and privilege traps photographers should pay attention to while working with ‘sensitive’ topics. During the meeting, we will have an opportunity to bounce off some ideas and questions with an invited guest - an expert working with excluded communities.
*This event has a longer duration of around 2 hours
Register online here

ASSEMBLY #11 - Sandrine Colard in conversation with Léonard Pongo
Organized by FOMU
Oct. 29 (Thursday), 4pm
Within Africa and its worldwide diasporas, the photographic medium has a long history of violence and abuse. Images of slavery, lynching, ethnographic “curiosities,” colonialism, apartheid and land exploitations, have contributed to subjugate the pictured subject, but also, to awaken viewers to the represented injustices. 2020 has symbolized the epitome of that power of indignation, with the video of George Floyd’s murder igniting a worldwide outrage demanding racial justice. Yet, the place of beauty in photographs of black lives, their homes and environments, have less readily been perceived and circulated as a legitimate and powerful means of resistance, or has sometimes been suspected of aestheticizing tragedy or suffering. This roundtable invites an artist who make a resolute use of beauty in his practice as an amendment for the underrepresentation in black everydayness, milieu, or history.
Register online here

In The Expos, we present our talents' work in two online exhibitions. The shows will be hosted by Fotomat, available from the 5th to the 31st of October.

RESET

Hosted by  and curated by Salvatore Vitale, the expo RESET investigates our main theme with projects by seven artists from our platform: Julie Poly, Ela Polkowska, Eva O'Leary, Garry Loughlin, Sanne De Wilde, Dávid Biró, and Ana Zibelnik.

2020 will likely be remembered as one of the most tumultuous years in modernity. The process it started is still ongoing and may be a catalyst for general changes that were already underway. This takes the connotation of a reset which is leading human beings to re-think the basis of their positions in the world through a process able to place creativity and free-thinking as cornerstones to foster pragmatic processes. Taking these processes as a starting point, we ask ourselves how contemporary artists and thinkers have impacted and reacted to social tensions through their often personal visions, strategies of isolation, and forms of self-organisation, regrouping, and dispersion. ⁠
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The exhibition RESET features the work of seven artists who, in- and within their differentiated and multi-layered practices, offer plural methods and visions to address some key issues and stories concerning modernity.

You can access the exhibition here.

FUTURES TALENTS 2020

The programme of exhibitions also presents the showcase Futures Talents 2020, which introduces our 59 emerging artists of this year. The online show has been curated by trying to answer the question ‘What are emerging artists in Europe talking about today?’. Identities, territories, spirituality, physicality and memory are some of the topics that have arisen from the talents' works.

You can access the exhibition here.

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If you want to be updated about our programme, subscribe to our newsletter (form in the end of this page).

The Open Mic is a private activity, when our talents can present their ongoing projects in an online space with artists and other professionals from the industry.

On Mondays throughout the month, we offer this year’s artists the opportunity to digitally present their ongoing and unfinished projects to an exclusive audience of fellow artists and relevant industry professionals. The artists selected for these private sessions are Ana Zibelnik, András Ladocsi, Brave Boy Studio, Hanna Jarzabek, Jon Gorospe, Mar Sáez, Ruth Montel Arias, Sebastian Steveniers and Vera Ryklova.

In October, we invite you to join our talents online with the Futures Digital Festival: RESET. Every year, our platform organizes a main event with our artists and members. For 2020, this will take the form of a virtual festival with talks, exhibitions and other online activities.

So far, 2020 has presented many challenges and will likely be remembered as one of the most tumultuous years in modernity. But how will this year shift the way we produce and experience art? How are the artists dealing with this time of change?

Co-funded by Creative Europe and designed by Vandejong Creative Agency, the Futures Digital Festival brings together our 12 members and all the artists who have joined our platform since 2018. ⁠Under the theme RESET, the programme focuses on discussing these changes we are facing nowadays and how art is responding to them.

From the 5th to the 31st of October, the festival unfolds into five main programmes: The Expos, The Assembly, The Conversations, The Open Mic, and The Studio Visit.

For The Expos, we present our talents in two online exhibitions. Powered by Fotomat and curated by Salvatore Vitale, the expo RESET investigates our main theme with the projects by seven artists from our platform: Julie Poly, Ela Polkowska, Eva O'Leary, Garry Loughlin, Sanne De Wilde, Dávid Biró, and Ana Zibelnik.

The programme of expos also presents the showcase Futures Talents 2020, which introduces our 59 emerging artists of this year. The online show has been curated by trying to answer the question ‘What are emerging artists in Europe talking about today?’. Identities, territories, spirituality, physicality and memory are some of the topics that have arisen from the talents' works.

During The Assembly, our Futures members organize a series of talks with art professionals in topics related to the main theme RESET. The assemblies take place online, via Zoom and streamed on our social media channels. The full programme of talks will be released in the upcoming weeks.

The Conversations is a private event in which we invite a group of professionals and our talents for a series of portfolio review and coaching sessions.

The Open Mic is also a private activity, when our talents can present their ongoing projects in an online space with artists and other professionals from the industry.

Finally, The Studio Visit programme is an online activity organized by Futures and curated by Marina Paulenka. Once a week, the curator presents a virtual online tour of our talents' studios, talking about their inspirations, creative process, and ongoing projects. This activity is mainly exclusive to VIPs and guests.

The Conversations is an event in which we invite a group of professionals and our talents for a series of portfolio review and coaching sessions. These meetings will take place once a week during the month of October, in a private and online environment.

From different countries, the list of professionals includes artists, curators, photo-editors, gallerists, publishers, etc. They are:

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Angel Luis Gonzales – Director and Founder of the PhotoIreland Festival

Raphaelle Stopin - Curator at International Festival of Fashion, Photography and Fashion Accessories of Hyères

Giangavino Pazzola - Curator at Camera-Italian Center for Photography in Turin

Lyza Premiak - Editor at The Calvert Journal

Fotofestiwal Lodz

Ingrid Leonard and Rein Desle - FOMU

Sebastian Vaida – Founder of the Photo Romania Festival

Istvan Virágvölgyi - Curator, photo editor and secretary of the Robert Capa Photography Grand Prize Hungary

Ana Berruguete – curator at PHotoESPAÑA

Clara Chalou - Artistic committee of the association Fetart and organizers of festival Circulation(s) in Paris

Elias Redstone - Founder and Artistic Director of PHOTO 2021 International Festival of Photography in Melbourne (AU)

Federica Chiocchetti - Writer, curator, editor and lecturer. Founder of Photocaptionist

Daria Tuminas - Curator at FOTODOK in Utrecht and former Head of Book Market at Unseen Amsterdam

Cale Garrido and Anja Kneller - Curators for Triennial of Photography Hamburg

Isabelle van Hemert - Photo Editor at De Correspondent

Alessia Glaviano - Senior photo editor for Vogue Itália and L’Uomo Vogue

Donald Weber – Photographer, teacher and founder of the Master Photography & Society program at the KABK

Jason Fullford - Photographer and co-founder of J&L Books. He i salso a Guggenheim Fellow

Bruno Ceschel - Director and founder of Self Publish, Be Happy. Lecturer at ECAL and UAL and writer/curator/consultant on contemporary photography

Valerie Cazin - Director of Galerie Binome in Paris

Azu Nwagbogu - Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF); Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, in Nigeria

Bindi Vora - Artist, curator, and curatorial project manager at Autograph in London

Elena Vaninetti - Curator, educator, and editor (YET magazine)

Narda van 't Veer – Founder of the Ravestjin Gallery

Janice McLaren - Head of Education & Projects at The Photographers’ Gallery in London

Maja Dyrehauge Gregersen - Head of the Copenhagen Photo Festival

Claire Gould - Curator of the Copenhagen Photo Festival

Tim Clark - Founder and editor of 1000 Words

Sergio Valenzuela Escobedo - Independent artist and curator, currently completing his PhD at the National Photography School in Arles, France (ENSP)

Kim Boske - Visual artist. She studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, from which she received her BA in 2005

Salvatore Vitale - Visual artist, editor of Yet Magazine and professor at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU)

Sarker Protick - Visual artist, teacher and curator

Aaron Schuman - Artist, photographer, writer, editor, curator and teacher at UWE Bristol

Max Pinkers - Artist based in Brussels, Belgium

Nicolas Polli - Artist, graphic designer and founder of Ciao Press Publishing

Valentina Abenavoli - Visual artist and founder of Akina Books

Marcella Manni - Founder of Metronom gallery and publishing house based in Modena (IT)

Claudia Dader - Fashion Editor at O'Neill

Juan Curto - Founder, owner and director of Camara Oscura in Madrid

Tommaso Parrillo - Publisher and founder of Witty books (Witty Kiwi)

Erik Vroons - Editor-at-large for GUP Magazine

Caroline O'Breen - Founder and director of Galerie Caroline O'Breen in Amsterdam

Yvette Mutumba - ‘Curator-at-large’ at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and editor-in-chief of the art magazine Contemporary And (C&)

Jenny Nordquist - Artistic director for Landskrona Foto, Sweden

Taco Hidde Bakker - Writer, translator, teacher, curator, and sparring partner for photographers and artists

Thyago Nogueira - Head of the Contemporary Photography Department at Instituto Moreira Salles, Brazil and editor of ZUM photography magazine

Void Publishing

Milo Montelli – Publisher and founder of SKINNERBOOX

Virgilio Ferreira - Founder and director of Ci.CLO Porto

Emma Bowkett - Director of Photography at the Financial Times FT Weekend Magazine

Rebecca Simons - Independent photography editor, producer and educator

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Belgium bursts with photographic talent that asks to be seen. Since 2012, FOMU has been selecting ten of the very best of the up-and-coming image makers of Belgium every year for the .tiff magazine, which has since grown into an international platform.

The project is part of Futures. And the nominated talents also join our platform: Laure Cottin Stefanelli, Etienne Courtois, David Denil, Katherine Longly, Renée Lorie, Sebastian Steveniers, Wiktoria Synak, Florine Thiebaud, Pierre Vanneste en Sybren Vanoverberghe.

Besides the magazine, their work is also being exhibited in a show at FOMU. You can visit the exhibition until February 21.

More information: https://fomu.be/en/exhibitions/33-days-of-tiff

The Futures Talents nominated by PHotoESPAÑA this year will be presented in a collective exhibition within the festival’s main programme in Madrid. Curated by Ana Berruguete, the show will bring together works from five emerging artist from September 17th to January 24th at the Círculo de Bellas Artes.

Every year, PHotoESPAÑA nominates five talents to our platform. The artists selected for this year are: Bernardita Morello (Buenos Aires, 1984), Mar Sáez (Murcia, 1983), Ire Lenes (Madrid, 1981), Ruth Montiel Arias (A Coruna, 1977) and Jon Gorospe (Vitoria, 1986).

In 2020, PHotoESPAÑA is hosting one of its most unique editions. The exceptional situation around the world caused by the coronavirus health crisis has prompted substantial changes in all areas of our lives, including changes in the way we live and interact, which the festival is experiencing as well.

Despite having been hatched under exceptional circumstances, the 23rd edition of PHotoESPAÑA, which will last through 31 October this year and encompass almost all of Spain, will focus on important digital projects. The programme include activities online and offline.

Collective. FUTURES

17.09.2020 - 24.01.2021

Círculo de Bellas Artes (Sala Minerva) - Calle Alcalá, 42, 28014, Madrid  

Info: https://www.phe.es/en/