Nina Hansch is a photographer who works in classical photojournalism. Her documentary works are characterized by their nuances and a cinematic quality in her visual language. At the same time, she succeeds in emphasizing the socio-political relevance of her stories and in exploring their visual complexity.
"I am always curious about the facets and details of life and humanity. And often ask myself questions like: What are the decisions and circumstances that consequently made us who we are today?", explains the artist.
A self-taught photographer, he has built his creative practice by travelling around Kazakhstan and shooting uncanny, unpredictable vistas.
The work of Thomas Nolf examines the ways in which national myths are formed, instrumentalised and frequently suppressed. Confounding fiction and documentary, fabled event and scientific enigma, his work looks into how nation-building ideology influences modes of storytelling, and vice versa. Nolf handles his subjects with a close appreciation of narrative and its ambiguous relationship with veracity and considers the ways in which heritage and eroded beliefs can be re-established and repurposed.
For his long-term project Peculiar Artefacts in Bosnia and Herzegovina - an imaginary exhibition, for example, Nolf’s point of departure was the so-called “Bosnian pyramids” and other disputed historical sites and artefacts, including stone spheres and medieval monuments. Juxtaposing his own documentary work with kitschy acrylic paintings of dream-like, bucolic landscapes and an assortment of found photographic footage —including shots of a triangular mountain looming over a scenic village and a shepherd carrying a sheep on his back — Nolf keeps adding elements to our already confused reading of the phenomenon, its emergence and reception. By doing so, he revives the public controversy over the existence of an ancient civilisation in the region.
Drawing on the mythological dimension of the triangle-shaped hills, Nolf proposed an exhibition that would exploit the stories and objects surrounding the “Bosnian pyramids” to the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, in 2012, had temporarily closed its doors due to a lack of state funds. If myths and legends have proven to be valuable assets in branding a particular place as a unique tourist experience, its effectiveness in generating local informal economies might as well be explored.
Even if Nolf’s project-based practice is driven by a pragmatic desire to formulate alternatives to the status quo, he poetically engages with particular sites and times, carefully tending to a range of subjects — from the promise of a desirable ancient past to the current funding realities devastating cultural institutions in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina — while, at the same time commenting on photography's rhetorical qualities and its — at times deceptive — relationship to representation and truth-telling.
Text by Laura Herman
Charlotte's work is being published by outlets internationally and her personal projects on migration and women were shown in solo exhibitions in the United States, Turkey, Austria and Japan. She speaks six languages and is currently based in Berlin.
http://www.charlotteschmitz.com/
Adi Tudose (b. 1987, Bucharest) is an artist-photographer based in Budapest. After completing his studies at The National University of Theatre and Film, he furtherexpanded his artistic vision through experiences in Milano. He is pursuing an MA in Photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, where his practice continues evolving. For him, the camera is far more than a tool—it is a medium through which he connects with the world around him. The streets become dynamic, ever-changing spaces where unpredictable encounters unfold. Immersing himself fully in these environments, Tudose approaches his subjects with empathy and sensitivity, capturing their lives with care and revealing emotional depth and vulnerability.Tudose can transform fleeting, transient moments into cohesive compositions, bringing order and harmony to the everyday. Through this process, he taps into thesubconscious, offering viewers a sense of unity within the chaos. His seamless blending of form and content sets him apart, creating simple yet mysterious representations. His work is characterized by cohesive framing, a rich interplay of diverse elements, and tuned figure-to-ground relationships. Tudose’s work offers an invitation to reflect on what photography can reveal about the human condition. Each frame carries layers of emotional and sociological insight, capturing the essence of his subjects while creating space for the viewer to connect with them on a personal level. Each photograph becomes more than a visual representation; it transforms into a deeply felt emotional experience.Empathy and vulnerability lie at the core of Tudose’s creative process, enabling him to form deeper connections with his subjects and uncover meaningful relationships that might otherwise remain hidden. His work seeks to evoke genuine emotions, delving into themes of social and gender representation while fostering a sense of belonging. In doing so, he transforms emotional disconnection into moments of peace and truth.As an artist, Tudose is committed to long-term projects that tell meaningful stories, ones that challenge him to confront fear, embrace vulnerability, and transform his personal experiences into shared human truths. His photography doesn’t just document—it transcends, offering symbols of connection and hope in a chaotic world.
Hajdu Tamás (b. 1976) was born in Transylvania. Today, he works as both a veterinarian and a photographer in Baia Mare, Romania. His work has been recognised by a series of prizes, including the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards, and the 2015 LensCulture Exposure Awards. Tamás’ photographs have been exhibited in multiple exhibitions including the Spotlight Romania Show at GEMAK in The Hague, the Netherlands. His work has featured in a number of international publications, including Punctum, Practical Photography, Vice, Lenscratch, Feature Shoot, The Independent, La Repubblica, National Geographic and The Guardian.
Tomasz Kawecki (1993) is a photographer living and working between Cracow and the Warsaw (Poland). He is studying at the Institute of Creative Photography in Opava (Czech Republic), and studied in the Faculty of Architecture at Cracow University of Technology.
Tomasz's work comes from his inner space. Using elements of performance and installation, he mixes fiction with reality, which results in quasi-documentary outcome. In his works, he uses universal symbols that are archetypes in the collective thinking of society. Out of the chthonic of nature, out of its chaos, he intuitively selects fragments from which he creates images. The leitmotif of Tomasz’s works is the dualism present in nature and man.
Tomasz's works has been exhibited and published internationally. Among others, he is a winner of LensCulture ArtPhotography Awards (US), Cracow Photomonth ShowOFF section (PL), Grand Prix IMAnext “Dream” (JPN) and Reframing History Photo Vogue Italia.
Filip Bojović (b.1984) is a Yugoslav-born graphic designer and photographer who lives and works in Novi Sad, Serbia. He studied at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, New Visual Media department. In 2003 Filip founded A3.Format, a Serbian-based self-publishing collective, particularly focused on zines and photo books. He was awarded European Design and Grifon awards for his work in the field of graphic design. Filip published his first photo book “Osijek Snapshots” in 2018, and his second book "We will walk" documenting Belgrade's Euro Pride will be published in February 2023. He's been working on an ongoing collaborative project “Turbo Dioxide” with Mirko Žarković (mirkozarkovic.com) since 2019.
Ksenia Kuleshova is a photojournalist and visual artist. She has been featured in the British Journal of Photography as one of thirty-one women to watch (2018), as one of twenty rising women photojournalists by Artsy (2019), and as one of The 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch (2022). Her work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, DIE ZEIT, and De Standaard. Ksenia’s first book “Ordinary People” was published by The New Press (New York) in December 2023.
The perfect skin and the smooth image which accompanies it, Eva O’Leary knows all too well the different ingredients and recipes of commercial photography. She too, as a teen, ate this cake which now, as an artist, she presents to us on a plateau. In a refrigerator rests a sponge cake, accompanied with printed icing: a saccharine young woman with perfect blow-dried hair watches us. Since it is said that revenge is a dish best served cold, this is the fate which the photographer reserves for the young blonde haired woman with the Colgate smile and her diktat. She grew up in the United States of America in a campus town whose name is almost an order – Happy Valley – and remembers her years spent masking her Irish head in the hood of a must have Abercrombie sweatshirt. The series, Happy Valley, is rooted in her town and her adolescent memories, describing an environment which is intrusive and worrying, modelling individuals whose self identity has been traded for a generic body. With the more recent Spitting Image, it is the years before, the adolescent vulnerability which are exposed. Young girls, around fifteen years old, present themselves to us, tightly framed on a vibrant blue backdrop which permits neither an escape for the gaze, nor breathing room for the model. Eva O’Leary accompanies these photographs with videos: perched upon a stool, we watch them searching for the person they hoped to find in the mirror. In this interval the photographer reopens the field of representations and with it, the freedom to be complex, different, uncertain, unique, human.
Olgaç has most recently been featured in British Journal of Photography's "Ones to Watch" photographers of 2019, and Aperture’s "Element of Style" issue, that investigates the role of style, dress, and beauty in the formation of individual identity. His work has also been published such as M Le Monde, New York Times Style Magazine, Dazed, Dust, Replica.
https://www.olgacbozalp.co.uk/
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.
Louiza Vradi is a visual artist working with photography, video, new media and textile. She holds a BFA and MFA in visual arts, new media, sculpture, and art education from the Athens School of Fine Arts. Her work explores social documentary practices, addressing themes such as personal and collective memories, human movement, gender issues, intergenerational trauma, and our relationship with the land. She often examines the impact of sociopolitical contexts on individuals and rituals in contemporary society. In addition to her artistic practice, Louiza is an art educator trained in art therapy, working with individuals with mental and psycho-social disabilities, as well as those recovering from addiction. Since 2020, she has been a freelance visual journalist for Reuters, completing a Hostile Environment and First Aid Training (HEFAT) in 2023. Louiza is a member of Women Photograph and Greek Documentary Association. She was named one of 30 Under 30 Women Photographers for 2020 by Artpil and she has been awarded with the VII Academy Scholarship. Her work can be found in international media such as The Economist, The New York Times, Vogue, Le Monde, Reuters, The Guardian, Monocle, Penguin Books, BBC, Dazed, Paris Fashion Week, etc. She has showcased her artworks in museums and galleries such as The Benaki Museum, Onassis Stegi and The Breeder gallery, among others. In 2023 she was awarded by the Greek Documentary Association for her documentary film, later supported by the Greek Film Center. She is one of the Futures Photography talents selected by VOID for 2024 and an Onassis Air Fellow. She is a recipient of the Global Investigative Journalism Network and iMEdD Fellowship. She currently lives and works in Athens.
He holds a first-class honours degree in Documentary Photography from Newport, University of South Wales. Venezia has exhibited his work in solo shows at VOID (Greece) and JEST (Italy), while his work was displayed in group exhibitions at Fondazione Fabbri (Italy), Capa Photography Center (Hungary), ISSP Gallery (Latvia) and Gallery Image (Denmark). His project Nekyia is a book published by the Italian independent editor Witty Books in May 2017, the monograph is part of the collection at the National Art Library of Victoria & Albert Museum in London and Colección FOLIO at Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City.
His latest work - Is Life Under The Sun Not Just a Dream - started in 2018 and developed under the European Program Parallel Platform, by which Venezia has been selected as second cycle emerging artists.
Next to his personal projects, Rocco is working as a curator for PHmuseum and he is the co-founder of PHmuseum Lab, a photographic hub based in Bologna.
After finishing his studies as an interior architect, he was eager to learn to work the camera. In an auto-didactic way, he developed his own unique vision on fashion photography and later on managed to fuse his moroccan roots, tradition and culture with the western world he grew up with. The last years his Moroccan DNA is flowing more and more through his veins and his works. The urge to show this rich moroccan heritage through an artistic eye is present in everything he portraits and the inspiration he gets from his motherland is endless.
https://mousmous.com/
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.