Artist
Maria Guțu
Maria Guțu was born in 1996 in Moldova, Republic of. In 2022 she finished her studies at Docdocdoc School of Modern Photography, Saint Petersburg. In 2020 she finished her studies at, Academy of Music, Theatre, and Fine Arts in Chisinau she studied cinematography for 4 years. In 2018 she became one of 30 women photographers under 30 years by Artpil. In 2019 she received a CDFD(Centre of Documentary Photography) grant, Bucharest, Romania. In 2020 she became a finalist of 2020 People Photography Award by The Independent Photographer. From 2021 Maria is a member of WomenPhotograph.
In 2022 she was shortlisted at Sony World Photography Awards, Open Competition: Portraiture. In 2023 she was shortlisted at Sony National & Regional Awards. She had collective exhibitions in: Romania, France and The United States. Maria is interested in documentary photography, remote places, youth, notion of home and the relation between humans and environment.
Homeland
‘’Homeland’’ is my main project that I began in 2019 and am still working on, it's my personal story, when I was a child, my parents emigrated abroad for work and left me to spend my time with grandparents in the picturesque and remote northern region of Moldova. I usually identify myself with children and teenagers I photograph, they experience the same reality of emigration of their parents, as I did. This project seeks out the connections between people from the northern Republic of Moldova and their surrounding scenery.
I travel a lot in villages, the quiet place inspires me and people there, their simple and natural way of life, their connection with land and animals, many times there I feel myself again in childhood or teenage years, I feel a nostalgia for my past. My work itself evokes a nostalgic yearning for family, the past, and simply life itself. I set out on a quest to find a homeland in the faces of the people I photograph. One third of Moldova's population has emigrated, and the number of young citizens leaving only increases each year. Homeland is a poetic quest for roots, for a home who’s meaning always changes, even in the understanding of children.
Mykhaylo Palinchak has dedicated himself to documenting the daily lives of the Ukrainian people since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In his two photo series’ Sirens’ whisper and Highlight, Mykhaylo documents places of Russian war crimes all over Ukraine, destroyed civilian objects and houses, but also the extraordinary courage and solidarity of Ukrainian society. Both series demonstrate this documentary photographer’s unique style, extraordinary sensitivity to detail and excellent editing skills.
Maria Gutu drew our attention with the classical form of her photography. Maria photographs young people, often at the moment of transition from childhood to adolescence. Each of the gazes Gutu photographs is authentic, not only because she approaches her characters with great visual sensitivity, but also because she looks at them with understanding.
Childhood is also one of the key subjects of Michalina Kacperak's project. Soft Spot is the artist's personal story about her own family experience of alcoholism. Michalina is the eldest of four sisters – the offspring of an alcoholic father who is currently on the path to sobriety. “Among us, only Zosia clings to her childhood,” Kacperak says, and as a result, it was Zosia who became the inspiration for the project.
In nominating Grzegorz Wełnicki for FUTURES Talent, we wanted, above all, to recognise his consistent, long-term work on his project No'am. Since the beginning of his creative path, Wełnicki has been interested in themes of transience, corporeality and spirituality. In the project No’am he approached the theme of transhumanism in a multithreaded story about death.
Karolina Gembara is a photographer, researcher and activist who uses photography both as a tool and a pretext for collaboration, often involving people with a migratory experience. Gembara uniquely manages to combine extraordinary empathy and sensitivity with an excellent academic background and this makes her one of the most interesting artists in the Polish visual arts landscape.