Julius Thissen

Emilia Martin is a Polish artist and photographer based in The Hague, Netherlands, where in 2022 she graduated from Photography & Society Masters at the Royal Academy of the Art. Working with photography, writing, and sound, she explores how the stories we tell shape the realities we inhabit. She investigates mythologies and tales, and how they fluctuate and shift throughout histories. Through her work, she aims to complicate the binary understandings of fiction and truth and their established aesthetics. Her process is based on careful research and personal, often playful approaches, through which she questions dominant narratives. The belief in storytelling is rooted in her upbringing, where she engaged with both rural mythologies and urban narratives. She grew up between two different realities: a remote farm belonging to her grandmother in rural Eastern Poland and a heavy industry coal mining urban region in the West of the country. The clash between these two realities, the narrative of extractivism against rural mythologies and the proximity of nature, formed a place that continues to ground her artistic practice. Her work is inspired and informed by her rural Polish ancestry and intersectional feminist approaches.

Masha Weisberg (b. 1997, Ukraine) is a visual artist currently based in Vancouver, Canada. Working primarily with photography—ranging from historical and alternative processes to experimental and mixed-media approaches—Weisberg explores themes of generational trauma, cycles of human history, motherhood, and the complex relationship between personal and collective memory. Her practice blends abstract and narrative-driven imagery, engaging with photography as a medium beyond documentation, often intersecting with installation and video art. Her ongoing projects investigate inherited histories, war trauma, and the fragility of human experience.

Irish artist Shane Hynan holds an MFA in Photography (Ulster University, 2019). His practice centres on photography with experimental elements in sound, video, collage, and sculpture. The metaphorical exploration of place, land and architecture is a significant subtext throughout his work. He draws upon conceptual, performative and subjective documentary approaches and works primarily with analogue photography processes as it enhances an emotional and intuitive connection with landscape and topography. He has shown his work extensively in Ireland and received multiple awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Creative Ireland, and Kildare Arts. He has exhibited internationally in China, Germany, and the UK, and was shortlisted for the Royal Photographic Society IPE162, IPE163 and IPE166. In 2024 he undertook residencies at the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris, France), and at the Roscommon Arts Centre (Roscommon, Ireland).

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.

Jaka Teršek (b. 1997, Slovenia) is a photographer and visual artist whose work explores themes of national identity, mythology, and the interplay between geography and human culture. He frequently combines photography with text, creating narratives that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. He holds a BA in Photography from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Ljubljana and an MFA from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, where he is currently engaged as an artistic researcher. His series OWL, FOX, HEDGEHOG, DEER was a finalist in the Blurring the Lines competition organized by Paris College of Art in 2022 and was shortlisted for the PhMuseum Photography Grant in 2023. Jaka has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including at FOMU Antwerp, Gallery Artget Belgrade, Plečnik House Gallery, Gallery DobraVaga Ljubljana, and UGM Maribor. He is also a founding member of the collectives Fotosfera and Študio.

Jaka Teršek (b. 1997, Slovenia) is a photographer and visual artist whose work explores themes of national identity, mythology, and the interplay between geography and human culture. He frequently combines photography with text, creating narratives that blur the boundaries between fact and ction. He holds a BA in Photography from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Ljubljana and an MFA from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, where he is currently engaged as an artistic researcher. His series OWL, FOX, HEDGEHOG, DEER was analist in the Blurring the Lines competition organized by Paris College of Art in 2022 and was shortlisted for the PhMuseum Photography Grant in 2023. Jaka has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including at FOMU Antwerp, Gallery Artget Belgrade, Plečnik House Gallery, Gallery DobraVaga Ljubljana, and UGM Maribor. He is also a founding member of the collectives Fotosfera and Študio.

Laura Van Severen studied Fine Arts and Photography at KASK School of Arts in Ghent, (Belgium) where she obtained her MA in 2015. She develops photographic projects in which she explores the landscape —apparently static, still, distant— to address the relationship we have with it and the trace we leave upon it. She moves away from the immediacy of the medium and creates from stillness and reflection. This has resulted in projects such as Land, Strata or El camp d’elles in which she addresses topics such as the transformation and fragmentation of the landscape, global logistics, waste management in the EU or the condition of women in a rural environment. Under the title Listening–Gathering, she is currently creating a collection of stories in which sound impacts and materialises into concrete realities. Laura lives in Barcelona (Spain) where she also works as a freelance photographer, teacher and studio manager.

Tudor Rhys Etchells uses the photograph to challenge fictions created by legal systems. Working within such a bureaucracy in his previous role as a human rights lawyer inspires his closeness to the document and the brutally mundane. For him, the photographic medium, with its own cumbersome structures of viewing and representing, appears the best match for understanding processes that construct the imagined norms of our society. Embracing photography’s performative element, he deconstructs our conceptions of visual knowledge. He achieved a Distinction in MA Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales during which he was awarded the Reginald Salisbury grant. Recently he was awarded an Arts Council of Wales Research and Development grant to fund a residency and his first solo exhibition at BayArt, Cardiff. He is based in Cardiff and an associate artist of BayArt gallery.

Jaka Teršek (b. 1997, Slovenia) is a photographer and visual artist whose work explores themes of national identity, mythology, and the interplay between geography and human culture. He frequently combines photography with text, creating narratives that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. He holds a BA in Photography from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design at the University of Ljubljana and an MFA from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, where he is currently engaged as an artistic researcher. His series OWL, FOX, HEDGEHOG, DEER was a finalist in the Blurring the Lines competition organized by Paris College of Art in 2022 and was shortlisted for the PhMuseum Photography Grant in 2023. Jaka has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including at FOMU Antwerp, Gallery Artget Belgrade, Plečnik House Gallery, Gallery DobraVaga Ljubljana, and UGM Maribor. He is also a founding member of the collectives Fotosfera and Študio.

Daria is a lens-based artist currently living and working between Kyiv and Paris. Originally from Odesa, Ukraine, Daria came to France to pursue an M.A. in Photography & Video at École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, graduating in 2023. In her artistic practice, Daria explores the connections between past and present, focusing primarily on the youth and cultural, social and political contexts in which young people live. Her work was exhibited across Europe and the U.S., including La Villette (Paris), Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), Hangar (Brussels), Mystetskiy Arsenal (Kyiv), The Gallery at Dobbin Mews (New York). Daria is a finalist of the 39th Hyères festival (2024), Palm* Phot Prize (2022) and a recipient of Beyond the silence grant by Magnum Photos & Odesa Photo Days (2024), as well as a grant for contemporary documentary photography from CNAP.