Emese Mucsi is a Hungarian-born curator, and art critic. Emese curates exhibitions where photography is interpreted in the context of contemporary art and works with artists who have an expanded idea of photography and produce photo-based works. Her projects bring together artists and photographers with photojournalists, writers, editors, and other thinkers to experiment with new approaches to photography. She graduated from the Faculty of Contemporary Art Theory and Curatorial Studies at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2013, and from the Faculty of Hungarian Literature and Linguistics at the University of Szeged in 2017. She is a member of the curators’ collective BÜRO imaginaire since 2012. Since 2013, she ran projects as a freelance curator. From 2014 to 2018, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Artmagazin Online. Emese is a curator of the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center, Budapest since 2018. She is the member of Global Photographies Network since 2020. She founded DOXA exhibition space and editorial den in 2022. She is doing her PhD in the Film, Media, and Contemporary Culture PhD program at Eötvös Loránd University. Emese is a guest lecturer at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (2023) and the University of Szeged (2024).

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Emese Mucsi

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Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center

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Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.

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Maria Beatriz de Vilhena (b. 1991) is a Lisbon based photographer, with a professional background in architecture. She studied photography at CFP Bauer Milan and holds a master's degree in architecture from the University of Lisbon.

Her photographic work explores the pluralism of human nature through belief and collective identity, as well as issues related to memory and noetic. In recent projects, she has been working on the border between fiction and reality, through myths and tales connected to personal and historical events.

Recent shows include One dark night, Lazarus disappeared (Coruchéus Gallery, Lisbon, 2025), Five Relics, Five Photographers (Museum of São Roque, Lisbon, 2025), and Real Life is Not Black and White (Paris Photo, 2024).

Bo Vloors (she/her) is a visual artist, writer, photographer and filmmaker based in Brussels. Using image and text, her work revolves around human relations, within and with their surroundings, and the influential power of images. The Image stands central in her practice. Inspired by natural cycles and symbiotic arrangements, her work finds its origins in the repeated consultation of an ever-expanding archive built up over the past decade. Exploring her role as an image-maker (both in images and words), she defines her writings as The Missing Image, serving a complementary, affirmative or rhetorical purpose in relation to the actual image. Striving to balance aesthetics and content, the formats she uses may vary from publications, spatial installations, audio-visual to audio-performative. Still, The Image remains rooted in the core of her artistic practice, both as subject and material. Her work has been exhibited at Beursschouwburg (BE), Z33 (BE), Argos (BE), Art au Centre (BE), Decoratelier (BE), SB34 (BE), De Studio (BE), Het Bos (BE), OFFoff cinema (BE), CinemaTEK (BE), Bizet Bizar (BE), Radio Panik (BE), RAVI (BE), Folle Béton film festival (FR), Lateral film Festival (IT), San Sebastian film Festival (ES), Cashmere Radio (DE) and Dublin Digital Radio (IE).

Milena Soporowska is a visual artist based in Poland. Her work explores, among other things, the intertwining of everyday life with magic and the occult, questioning the concept of home as a safe, familiar haven. She is interested in the combination of alternative medicine and psychoanalysis, and the overlap between Christianity, esotericism and folk spirituality.She graduated in Art History, presenting her master's thesis on the influence of spiritualistic and mediumistic photography on art in the light of Freud's category of unheimlich. She also studied photography, museology and psychotronics. Moreover, Milena is a graduate of the Sputnik Photos mentoring programme.Read more

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Marcel Top

Top researches the topics of mass surveillance, privacy, data collection.In his practice, he layers a traditional approach to documentary research with a more experimental use of new technologies (such as facial recognition, movement analysis, and deepfakes). The artist uses these technologies to visualise and examine scenarios in which people can protect themselves and their rights by gaining knowledge and reclaiming control of surveillance tools. Top’s projects addressing human rights, police misconduct and facial recognition during protests aim to contrast the abstract nature of the algorithmic mechanisms behind mass surveillance, by providing a concrete visualisation of the phenomenon and confronting the public with the extensive amount of surveillance societies are subjected to and the ethical risks deriving, finally offering theoretical solutions.

Michelle Piergoelam (b. 1997) is a photographer who studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, the Netherlands. She creates visual stories based on dreams, memories, cultural myths and traditions. Despite her Surinamese background, Piergoelam knew little about this country; a curiosity to learn more prompted her to seek out new narratives. With her images, the artist stimulates the imagination and narrative culture – to keep their transmission alive. Her practice applies varied photographic techniques while using elements of the night; details become the subject when light strikes over them, and the smallest gestures speak loud and clear. In 2020, Piergoelam’s The Untangled Tales project was nominated for both Blurring the Lines and the Kassel Dummy Award, and was awarded second prize at the Zilveren Camera Prize for Storytelling.

Clare Lyons (b.1993) is an artist and photographer working between Belfast and Dublin. Considering the photograph as an object is integral to Clare’s practice. Her work often employs methods borrowed from sculpture and printmaking to draw attention to this, blurring the lines of what photography is or can be. Clare’s practice has been largely autobiographical, focusing on deeply personal themes and stories of healing and catharsis in the face of trauma and mental illness. Recent works represent a transitory phase for Clare as her practice shifts and changes, no longer confined to being the subject of her own work. Clare was one of five Irish Talents selected by PhotoIreland for the FUTURES European Photography Platform in 2021, and in 2022 represented Ireland at 'Visage(s) d'Europe' curated by Collectif Fetart in Paris. Clare presented her debut solo exhibition 'To Jack' at The Limerick Museum in October 2024.

Ilias Lois (b. Athens) is an artist whose work considers the notion of home, life in European urban centers, and the materiality of objects and technologies. His practice pays particular attention to the act of translating the three-dimensional world into two-dimensional surfaces—and the reverse process that may follow. He is especially drawn to photographic sequencing and the possibilities of non-linear storytelling. In the summer of 2024, he earned a Master’s degree in Photography: Research and Methodology from UniWA. He contributes to photography education as a tutor at the Hellenic Centre of Photography and Paper Drop Lab (founder), where he leads project development and experimental curation workshops. He is also an editor at Velvet Eyes, an online photography magazine. On the recommendation of the publishing house Void, he became Future Talent ’24.

Laura Paloma (*1995) is an artist and writer based in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Her practice questions the relationship between image, object, text, language, and play online. She is interested in the détournement and misuse of corporate social media platforms, as well as the negotiations that take place between the user and the platform. She works with DIY, lo-fi, and self-publishing techniques, as well as with found or recycled physical and digital materials. Her projects address ideas of authorship, materiality, and performativity of digital and networked images and texts. Context-based and site-specific, her practice explores various formats, ranging from installations to online and print publications, as well as long-duration social media performances. 
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I'm a photographer based in Brussels. After a stint at the École Nationale Supérieure de Photographie in Arles, France, I have developed my practice with the support of various art institutions, including Wiels Contemporary Art Center, Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, Centre photographique d'Île-de-France, FOMU in Antwerp, and Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire in Dakar.

My work operates at the crossroads of official history, erased memory, and personal narrative, exploring the ecological, social, and spiritual transformations that marked the Brazilian Amazon at the turn of the 20th century. Through my practice, I examine the philosophical and phantasmal framework that sustain the ideals of discovery, conquest, and supremacy central to Western modernity, offering a subtle yet incisive reflection on their enduring impact.

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Paweł Starzec

Paweł Starzec (Ph. D) is a documentalist, photographer, sociologist, academic teacher. Mainly interested in long-term projects focusing on envisioning broader processes through their aftermath and consequences. Recipient of the Young Poland 2024 Ministry of Culture scholarship, PixHouse Talent of the Year Scholar award, Artistic Scholarship of the Mayor of Wrocław 2024, winner of Urbanautica Institute Award, Enconctros da Imagem Discovery Award and Spojrzenia Award, received honorable mentions in Allegro Prize, Lodz Fotofestival Grand Prix, and CDS Documentary Essay Prize, finalist of the Polityka Passports Award and Grand Press Photo. His works are in collections of Encontros Da Imagem (PT) and National Institute of Architecture and Urbanism (PL). As a sociologist, he researches modern iconographies and visual narratives. Vice- Dean of the Faculty of Design at SWPS University and Head of Communication Design speciality at the School of Form USWPS. Creator of workshop programs, co-founder of Azimuth Press art/ education collective. Member of APP platform. Graduate of Applied Sociology Department of University of Warsaw, and of Institute of Creative Photography of Silesian University in Opava (MA). Part time musician and sound artist under various monikers. DIY / zine culture enthusiast.

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Salvatore Vitale

Salvatore Vitale (b. 1986, Palermo, Italy) is a Swiss-based artist, director, and professor whose work explores the complexity of contemporary societies. Using expanded and speculative storytelling through mixed media techniques, he focuses on the politics of systems that regulate modernity and the impact of technological transformations. Vitale is the Artistic Director of EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival and FUTURES Photography, both international platforms dedicated to contemporary photography. He also serves as a Professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, where he leads the Transmedia Storytelling Programme. Previously, he was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of YET magazine, an international photography publication. Vitale’s work has received international awards. It is featured in several public and private collections and has been widely exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide.

Angel Luis Gonzalez Fernandez

Ángel Luis González Fernández is a designer, artist, and curator supporting engaging visual arts practices, winner of Business to Arts David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Awards 2011. His work manifests through PhotoIreland, which he founded in 2010 to stimulate a critical dialogue on Photography. He devises curatorial projects placing conversations in the public realm around visual culture, critical thinking. These include events (PhotoIreland Festival, Halftone Print Fair, arts residency How to Flatten a Mountain, and New Irish Works), a cultural hub (The Library Project: Ireland’s Art bookshop, host to a unique resource library of photobooks and a productive arts programme), publishing projects that distribute inexpensive access to local practices, research projects (Critical Academy: examining contemporary art practices). He works collaboratively with a growing network of organisations, noticeably through ambitious Creative Europe partnerships. During the Summer 2020 lockdown he launched the critical publication OVER Journal, now distributed globally. He received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary to deepen research on the broad historical and specific artistic context of Photography in Ireland, to curate an ambitious survey exhibition in PhotoIreland Festival 2022 and to publish a series of publications on the matter. He regularly contributes to publications such as the forthcoming The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies, edited by Lucy Soutter, Duncan Wooldridge. See some of his Graphic and Web Design work in the 100 Design Archive.

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Danaé

Danaé Panchaud is a Swiss exhibition curator, museologist and lecturer specialising in photography. She has been the director of the Centre de la photographie Genève since 2022, after serving from 2018 to 2021 as director and curator of the Photoforum Pasquart in Biel, Switzerland. She trained in photography at the Vevey School of Photography before completing a bachelor’s degree in visual arts with a specialisation in curatorial practices at Geneva University of Art and Design. She later studied museology at Birkbeck, University of London, earning a master’s degree in 2017. She has held positions in several Swiss institutions in the fields of contemporary art, design and science, including the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, where she was a research associate from 2007 to 2012, the Gallery SAKS in Geneva in 2012-2013, the Fondation Verdan in Lausanne as scientific collaborator, and the mudac in Lausanne, where she was in charge of the public relations from 2012 to 2017. As a free-lance curator, she has curated exhibitions for several Swiss and international museums, independent spaces and galleries since 2012. She regularly writes texts for monographs of contemporary artists, exhibition catalogues, and thematic publications such as Flora Photographica, co-authored with William Ewing and published by Thames & Hudson in 2022. She was a lecturer at the Vevey School of Photography from 2014 to 2018, and regularly lectures at art and photography schools in Switzerland. In 2023, she joined the teaching faculty of the CAS in Theory and History of Photography at University of Zurich.

Iveta Gabalina

Iveta Gabaliņa (1979) is a curator, artist and educator. She has studied photography at the studio of Andrejs Grants, at Bournemouth Art Institute, and in the MA programme at Alto University in Helsinki. Her work has been exhibited in Latvia and internationally, including at C/O (Berlin, Germany), GESTE (Paris), and Williams Tower Gallery (Houston, USA). Gabaliņa has participated in photography festivals in Singapore, Hanover, and elsewhere. Her work is included in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Geste Paris, and the Deutsche Börse Art Collection. Since 2008 she has been part of ISSP team, responsible for numerous educational and curatorial projects. In 2018 she founded ISSP Gallery - an exhibition space dedicated to contemporary photography.

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