Karim El Maktafi (Desenzano del Garda, 1992) is an Italian Moroccan photographer based in Milan. In 2013 he graduated at the Instituto Italiano di Fotografia in Milan. In 2016, he obtained a one-year scholarship at Fabrica, Benetton's communication research center in Treviso.
During his residency period, El Maktafi made the project Hayati and, one year later, won the PHMuseum 2017 Grant - New Generation Prize. With the same project, El Maktafi has been finalist of the CAP Prize 2017 (Contemporary African Photography prize) and second prize at the Kassel Dummy Award 2018. In 2017 he won a mentorship with the American photographer Maggie Steber (VII Agency), while in 2018 he gets the Magnum Photos scholarship with Alex Majoli.
Karim works on long-term projects between Italy and Morocco exploring concepts as identity and sense of belonging through documentary and portrait photography. His work has been exhibited at La Triennale Museum in Milan, Museum in Der Kulturbrauerei in Berlin, Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier, Macro Testaccio Museum in Rome and in other photography festivals in Europe, as well has been published, among others, on The Washington Post Magazine, National Geographic USA, Internazionale, Vice, GEO.
www.karimelmaktafi.com
After graduating with a BA in geography and communications, she started studying photojournalism at the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX). She has worked at the Danish daily, Dagbladet Politiken and studied abroad at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK). In January 2020 she graduated and is now working freelance and on personal projects.
Nanna is a Canon ambassador and member of Women Photograph. In 2020 she was nominated for the Joop Swart Masterclass held by World Press Photo, and for The 6x6 Global Talent Program in 2019. In 2017 she attended the Canon Student Development Programme at Visa Pour l’Image. Her work has been published in NPR, PHmuseum, Politiken, Information among others and she has won several prizes at CPOY, Danish Picture of The Year and others.
Sheng-Wen Lo (b. 1987) was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and lives and works in Leiden, the Netherlands. Lo's works investigate the relationships between non-humans and contemporary society through a range of media, including images, installations, and games. He is an alumnus of the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, and received an MSc in Computer Science from National Taiwan University. His works have been shown at Foam and World Press Photo in the Netherlands; The International Center of Photography in the USA; MMCA in South Korea; The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia; and the Taiwan Biennial, Taiwan. He was selected as a Foam Talent in 2021, and has received fellowships from De Nederlandsche Bank and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds/Prince Claus Fund. Lo is represented by Avocado Art Lab, Taipei.
Most of her long-term projects are focused on the aftermath of loss. Experiencing it herself she wants to draw attention to the issues people face. Projects on this theme include "Self-portrait with my mother", "Lost", "Reborn", and "Little Poland". Her long-term projects were nationally and internationally awarded. She won Magnum & Ideas Tap award and completed the internship at Magnum Photos office in New York City.
Karolina is an award-winning photographer with a master's degree in photography from the Polish National Film, Television and Theater School in Lodz. She is based in Poland and works on verity of her projects both locally and internationally.
Camarda’s artistic practice focuses on and explores themes such as the construction of identity, and collective phenomena that affect and define the lives of each single individual. Creating a series of dreamlike and suggestive images, he wants to ask questions and trigger reflections, rather than giving simple answers. His works have been exhibited, among others, at the Triennale of Milano and CAMERA of Torino.
http://www.domenicocamarda.com/
Throughout my practical and theoretical based art, I work across mediums, with a focus on photography. I explore forms of the female body, ideas of beauty, desires, taboos and sexuality. Subsequently, I analyze the interdependencies of women on social norms. I am interested in how society shapes norms that influence the representation and perception of women and how the female body can be used as a tool of power.
Sex workers are sensitive observers of our society, especially about what we do not dare to see. Thus, I consider this work a reflection on society as a whole. Sex is at first place about pleasure, desire and lust, addiction and ecstasy. At the same time, it is about power, about hierarchies, about interrelationships of men and women. It appears that the female body becomes a political weapon. How we live and talk about sex says much about our taboos and fantasies and finally how society is created by a world that exists by judging the unknown instead of listening to each other.
I am grateful for every single conversation and the time I could spend with the women who became part of this work. I cannot express in words how much they taught me about life, about our society and finally about myself.
I did not believe how much we have in common. I found my soulmates in these women who are not only crucial for the existence of this body of work, but close friends that I don ‘t want to miss anymore.
With this work I share some personal insights that truly are my own observations and therefor fully subjective on this topic. It is a collection of images and notes from women I admire and who I met in Brussels, Athens, Paris and Accra.
Over time he acquired his own language, nourished by his own experience and the realization of several master classes with different photographers such as Antonio Heredia, Manu Brabo, Antoine d'Agata and Crisitna García Rodero.
Currently, he is dedicated to the realization of long-term photographic works related to social and human taboos.
Her art practice focuses on the relationship between the human being and the landscape. She tracks the history of the ways of space use, of the actions and transformations that leave a series of dispersed marks behind. Including archival materials in her practice, she reveals the changeability of the space in time and constructs a visual essay about memory.
A few chance encounters, passing through the Xiamen campus, in China, where Sarah Mei Herman was in residence, simultaneously constituted the starting point for a friendship and a photographic narrative. In the manner of her other current series, where she explores the relationship between her father and her brother over fifteen years, this Dutch photographer’s vision is long-term. She initially visited Xiamen for a four month residency, but has returned several times, driven by the series which she initiated and the bonds that she has made. She returns to find some of the young girls she photographed and together they weave a thread consisting of daily and intimate moments. A frantic and noisy China has given way to an environment that is pared down and silent, made of delicate gestures, which allow for these moments of sorority to unfold in the frame created by the image. Sarah Mei Herman’s soft and luminous palette proceeds out of this same delicate treatment, reinforcing the feeling of empathy which exists between these young girls as well as that which is patiently nourished between them and the photographer.
Sarah Mei Herman’s work has been shown internationally, among others at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Le Chateau d’Eau in Toulouse, Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne and the Benaki Museum in Athens. Her work has been included in several art collections such as Rabobank Art Collection and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Herman was a finalist for Hyères Festival of Fashion and Photography 2018 where she received the American Vintage Photography Prize 2018. That same year she also won the Rabobank Dutch National Portrait Prize. Last year her project “Germano” was exhibited at the Jewish History Museum in Amsterdam. Recently Herman completed the photography for a new commissioned photo book “Solace” about the Chinese LGBTQ community. She received an honorable mention by the Gomma Photography Grant for this project.
Andi Galdi Vinko is an internationally acclaimed artist working in photography. She studied photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest and at Esag Penninghen in Paris, as well as art history and aesthetics at ELTE University in Budapest. Her work draws visual analogies between intensely personal and intimate experiences of motherhood, womanhood, and universal human experiences of coming of age, ageing, loss, and the conflict between western and eastern European ideologies. Using both staged and documentary photography, Andi is a vivid visual storyteller who assembles her snapshots and studio photos into unconventional and unexpected narratives, juxtapositions that are playful and humorous but also elicit pathos and absurdity. Her photographs are both empowering and intimate at the same time and are often published in the form of zines or editorials. She also works as a director and member of Kinopravda.tv. Andi GV has been published and commissioned by M Le Monde, Die Zeit, i-D, Dazed, Vice, The New Yorker, Tate etc, Vogue.it among others. Her personal work has been exhibited internationally in group and solo shows. Recent exhibitions include: “Birth” at TJ Boulting, London; “Variations of Reality, Circulations” at Fetart, MAC, Paris; “Golden Boundaries”, Robert Capa Center, Budapest. Her first book “Sorry I Gave Birth I Disappeared But Now I’m Back” will be published by Trolley Books in 2022.
With additional background in gender studies & activism Marta’s artistic work focuses on geopolitical and social issues, gossip & fiction, as well as personal experiences. She experiments with various media including participatory workshops and sound installations..
Marta’s work was shown e.g. at OBSCURA Festival of Photography in Malaysia, at TIFF Festival in Wroclaw, at ODESA PHOTO DAYS 2020, BLICA - First Biennale of Arts in Lebanon. Photobook presenting SHIFTERS project is shortlisted for Mack First Book Award 2020. She was selected for several residencies, most recently Landskrona Foto Residency (2020), as well as Nida Art Colony, Gasworks, and Botkyrka Konsthal. She took part in ‘Re-Tooling Residencies Project’ organised by CCA Warsaw. She created & curated ‘Fenix Cities: workshops and exhibitions in Warsaw and Beirut’.
www.martabogdanska.com
Ignacio Navas (b. 1989, Tudela, Spain) is a photographer based in Madrid. After studying a Fine Arts Degree at Complutense University of Madrid he specialized in photography at Blank Paper School. Along with other photographers, he currently runs El Local, an independent space for photography in Madrid. In his work, Navas presents us daily life narratives that dig into the complexities and contradictions of western society. His approach researches how political, economic and social structures are made present and shape our everyday affaires. In his latest projects he explores new interactive paths for the medium by creating photography-based interactive experiences and non-fictional videogames.
Website: http://www.ignacionavas.com
Jonas Yang Tislevoll (b. 1993) was born as Jin Sub Yang in the city of Daegu. At 4-months old, he was given a new name by his adoptive parents in Fitjar, a small farming town in Western Norway. After studying photography in Oslo from 2019 to 2021, Yang Tislevoli moved back to South-Korea in the hope of finding his biological mother. This laid the foundation for the series, Take care of yourself son, your mom loves you. The project explores themes of identity, belonging, social issues, women's rights and adoption in South Korea. Yang Tislevoli does not see himself as a photographer, but as an individual who uses the medium of photography to tell stories that deserve to see the light of day.
@jonastislevoll
www.jonastislevoll.no
Elena Helfrecht (b. 1992) is a German visual artist based in Bavaria. She graduated with an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 2019, having previously studied Art and Image History at Berlin’s Humboldt-Universität, and Art History and Book Science at Erlangen’s Friedrich-Alexander-Universität. With a dark, eerie aesthetic, Helfrecht’s work navigates thresholds of fiction and reality, exploring existential questions of mortality, trauma, memory and post-memory. With Void, Helfrecht will launch her first solo monograph in the fall of 2023.
Gulsah Ayla Bayrak (born 1997), is an interdisciplinary artist from Belgium, working on the larger themes of identity and belonging, in a complex world of interactions between her the different fragments that she embodies: Her Turkish roots and her political identity as a citizen of modern Europe, juxtaposed for the ramifications of feminist theory when thinking about the body and the self and the cultural and political consequences of queerness in an era of increasing polarization, but also of multiple polarities. Taking the migration stories in her own family as a starting point, Bayrak draws on personal biographies, to re-narrate events in such a way as to reconstruct the experience of lived time, and not merely chronologies. In her practice, moving seamlessly between Asia and Europe, both physically and emotionally, the polarity of global north versus global south emerges sharply, around the political definition of “East”—a borderland of European modernity, wholly constructed by it. The idea of the fragment resurfaces in Bayrak’s projects as a partial narrative, constitutive of our shared, social experience, and which cannot be dovetailed or manipulated, so that it remains always alive, fresh, fragile, and unfinished. In this inconclusiveness the artist finds paradox, and within paradox, the complexities of modern identities fabricated from torn off bits of different, larger structures. In dealing with objects as markers of memory, and with memories as physical objects Gulsah Ayla Bayrak creates unfinishable threads of historicity, unfolding in simultaneity, searching for a lost, but ultimately unidentifiable, temporal index.
Richard Kiss (b. 1994) holds a BA in Photography from Budapest Metropolitan University. He is currently an MA student in Photography at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences. As society and visual culture change rapidly, Kiss uses new media to grasp at the essence of our saturated present, focusing on changes triggered by the internet and their effects on contemporary art. In his projects, Kiss often strips photographs of their original contexts and meanings, transforming them into entirely new artworks. Throughout his projects, Kiss seeks to question the relationship between the spectator and artwork and the reasons behind an image’s production, thus making the act of photography a subject of reflection.
Website: kissrichard.com
Instagram: r_ch_k.ss
Her aim is to make the spectator observe and to be observed at the same time. While we watch others, we are being watched too. The desire of observing one another, of having insight into the lives of others posits a system of norms based on which we define ourselves compared to others. We want to confirm that we have similar problems as others, that we are better than or just as good as they are. In other words, that we only deviate from the average on an average scale.
Her works explore how we can describe our body in the most objective manner possible, to represent it without any intimacy whatsoever. Looking at these so-called anti-intimate states, the works examine all the subtle and complex relationships our physical extension forms with our environment, and how social expectations shape our appearance. Personal stories and critical observations regarding the body are represented along with abstract objects and intertwined sculptural bodies. Her fundamental medium is photography that she often combines with other disciplines, such as objects, photobooks or video.
After receiving the National Scholarship of Hungary for photographers, he self-published his first book, titled Common Nature (2014). With his most recent photography project, Kontakt, he received the Robert Capa Grand Prize Hungary (2018), and the Louis Roederer Discovery Award in Arles (2019), divided with Laure Thibergien. The project Kontakt reports from military-themed summer camps for kids, observing our attitude towards strict discipline, weapons, and war, and raises questions about their place in our society.
More: https://barthamate.com/
Since the beginning of 2020, he is now fully dedicated to his photographic activity. This year he exhibited an excerpt from his series Dystopia at the Halles du Faubourg in Lyon and participated in a group exhibition around Dante’s Hell at the Polo Museale Santo Spirito in Lanciano (Italy). Recently selected by GUP magazine to be part of Fresh Eyes 2020 talents that bring together 100 emerging European photographers in a book published in July 2020. His series The Shelter was exhibited at the Athens Photo Festival 2020 and will be at Photographiques du Mans in spring 2021. In January 2021, Fisheye magazine published a large portfolio of its Médusa series. He's been recently shortlisted for the Gomma Grant 2021.