Romain

Frida Lisa Carstensen Jersø (b. 1997) holds a BFA in Photography from HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg, Sweden, and previously studied at Copenhagen Film and Photography School. Her photographic practice encompasses both classical photography, including analog and digital techniques, as well as medical imaging. She incorporates radiological scans of her body, creating two- and three-dimensional works that bridge medical processes and personal narrative. Jersø's artistic focus lies within the realms of Sick Photography and Therapeutic Photography. Her work explores the physical and emotional dimensions of the disabled and chronically ill body, challenging societal perceptions and ableist norms. She has exhibited at venues such as Röda Sten Konsthall in Gothenburg, participated in the Artist’s Autumn Exhibition, and contributed to group exhibitions across Scandinavia. Currently, she is preparing a solo exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography. In 2023, she received an award in the Portræt NU! competition. Her work has been featured in Danish media outlets such as DR.DK and Politiken. Jersø is also collaborating with Disko Bay Books on a photobook publication, further cementing her role as an upcoming voice in contemporary photography.

Mara Palena (1988) lives and works in Milan. Her research focuses on themes such as memory, recollection, and identity. She works with photography, video, and sound, reworking materials from archives, often open and participatory, like home movies, and drawing on a personal archive of photographic images that she has been curating for years to document her life. Her work has been exhibited at various international festivals, venues, and galleries, including the Guardian Art Center in Beijing, Galleria Studio G7 in Bologna, Careof, Marsèll Paradise, Nowhere Gallery, Pananti Atelier, and Video Sound Art in Milan, the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Madrid, MOPLA in Los Angeles, Artphilein Foundation in Lugano, and Recontemporary in Turin. Between 2021 and 2024, she was a finalist in several art prizes, including the Lucie Foundation, Combat Prize, Premio Fabbri, New Post Photography, and Artphilein Photo Book Contest. In 2022, she was selected by Camera Torino for FUTURES Photography. Her work Oikeiôsis won the 2022 Surprize Award from Sprint and the Marcelo Burlon Foundation. The editorial project was curated and published by Witty Books in 2023 and was included by Photo España among the 100 best books published in 2024.

Constantin Schlachter’s research takes place through an exploration of interior and exterior landscapes. Nature, the invisible and matter are dominant entities in his work. His experimental approach to the techniques he employs aims to put a less anthropocentric world into perspective, and to re-enchant nature. This mysterious entity that takes hold of each viewer in its own way, because it’s eloquent for everyone, but never entirely translatable. Through different media linked to photography, he questions matter and its synesthetic power. By inverting the scales, colours and textures of the elements presented, he induces a confusion of senses in the viewer, revealing deeper ones. His images invite us to let go, to enter a contemplative state in which we can project our emotions. His cosmic and telluric images, in which matter plays a predominant role, merge the microcosm and the macrocosm. In the course of his work, the artist increasingly seeks to erase his own presence to highlight that of his subject. Constantin Schlachter was born in Altkirch in 1992 and graduated from Les Gobelins in 2014. He lives and works in Paris.

My name is Claude. As an interdisciplinary artist, I mainly use the media of photography and sound. I am based in Lichtensteig in Toggenburg, Switzerland. I grew up in the 90‘s in a small village on the Swiss side of Lake Constance and was socialised in the environment of the Catholic Church. Today, after studying analogue photography at Ostkreuzschule in Berlin and living in various house and farm projects, I no longer feel that I belong there.

However, the themes in my artistic practice today are still characterised by a tightly structured childhood, youth and apprenticeship: in my work, I have been exploring the concepts of collectivity and intimacy for several years. I am always looking for liberating and solidary acts in performative moments and arts production. My image- and sound-based practice reveals my great affinity for technology, the exploration of boundaries and needs in dialogue and the creation of trusting connections and learning spaces in my collaborations.

As a child of the working class, I am concerned with my own role as an artist in society and what (political) room for manoeuvre this opens up for me. The problem of self-exploitation, especially - but not only - with a body read as female, is a recurring theme in my artistic practice.

Since 2019, the Salon Vert has been a network of artists, a laboratory for sound research and a place for interdisciplinary dialogue. The Salon Vert has found a new home in my studio in Lichtensteig in 2023. I am also co-founder of the audiovisual Glitch Festival in St.Gallen and music editor at the community radio station Stadtfilter in Winterthur.

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.

Anna Adamo land on this planet on September ’91, born and raised in the suburbs of Milano, north of Italy, investigate intimate, detailed portraits of her mother and her daily life since she was a teenager. She approached to photography in her childhood with her brother's camera. After the artistic studies she took part on the first national competition established by Leica, with the project ''This is our youth'' and won along with 5 others. Here she got scouted by a member of the jury, Magnum’s member Alex Majoli, whom later proposed her a work experience with the collective of photographers and photojournalist, Cesura, which he founded in 2008. After having worked there as an intern for three months, she’s since been working there as a collaborator for five years. She has documented various underground scenarios such as Gabbers, Punks. All of this drives me in search of stories surrounded by human presence, emotions and families. From 2018 she works as a photographer freelance developing long-term personal projects, but also began to take her first steps in the fashion and editorial’s world.

He approached photography as a self-taught artist after earning a diploma in Graphic Design and Art Direction from NABA Milan in 2014. In 2015, after spending one year in Tbilisi (Georgia) working on a documentary about Abkhazian refugees, he returned to Italy and joined the photography collective CESURA, where he remained for two years. During this time, he worked as an assistant to photographer Gabriele Micalizzi and collaborated with Alex Majoli (MAGNUM) on the production of several major exhibitions. While at CESURA, he shifted away from a photojournalistic approach, developing a long-term, research-driven photographic practice with a strong focus on photobooks. After leaving the collective in 2017, he began working as a freelance photographer. His journey took him first to Siberia, where he worked on the project I Don’t Try to Feel Awake Anymore. In 2019, in Oklahoma, where a chance encounter with Kristal and her son Skyler led to Love Mom, an ongoing project that explores the sometimes toxic relationship between a mother and her son while also reflecting on emptiness and the profound solitude embedded in the vastness of the American suburbs. In 2020, driven by the need to find a place to call home, he moved from Milan to a small village of 50 inhabitants in the Val di Noto. There, he began working on All These Goodbyes, a body of work that serves as both self-reflection and the story of an escape. In the spring of 2021, he spent three months in Denmark collaborating with photographer Jacob Aue Sobol (MAGNUM) on the production of his book James House (2022). In 2022, he was selected as one of the 25 winners of Italian Panorama, an open call organized by Vogue Italia and PhotoVogue. In January 2023, the Penumbra Foundation (New York, USA) awarded him a full scholarship for its Long-Term Photobook Program.

Ana-Cristina IRIAN is a visual arts researcher, curator, and research-based artist who works with collections, photo archives, and multimedia materials. She studied sociology (Trento&Regensburg) and visual anthropology (Bucharest&Perugia). She holds a PhD in visual arts at UNARTE. Her artistic practice is developed under the motto No one left behind. It consists of the production of photo-objects and working with marginal/hidden objects and photographs, together with research materials transformed into photo-video installations reflecting the life of unknown people. Cristina participated in over 35 exhibitions in Romania and abroad, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Portugal, and Hungary. Cristina's recent projects focus on interpreting memory objects and integrating photographic material into contemporary spaces through visual installations. Notable displays include her contribution to Fragmentum at Palatele Brâncovenești and Here they lived at Carol 53 and the International Visual Art Biennale Brașov (2021, 2023). Cristina has published studies in Anthropology of East Europe Review, Indiana University; History of Communism in Europe, IICCMER; Studies and History Articles, Romanian Society of Historical Sciences; Romanian Contemporary Photography Influx; Revelar, Universidade do Porto. She is also the author of "Photographic collections and archives today, in the digital world," published by Tritonic.

Tony Dočekal (1992, Amsterdam) is a photographer and visual artist whose work focuses on identity, belonging, and the shared human condition. Her practice is shaped by encounters with individuals and communities on the road, with a particular interest in the resilience and adaptability of people living on society’s margins. Her first monograph, The Color of Money and Trees, explores the tension between material success and deeper fulfillment, asking if true prosperity lies in community and self-awareness rather than wealth and possessions. The series includes Chad on Skid Row, which won the Zilveren Camera Portrait Award in 2021, and Lyric at El Pais, a portrait of a young girl living off the grid in Arizona. The work navigates the balance between societal expectations and individual freedom. Tony’s debut short film, Pearls on Credit, reflects on how personal identity is shaped by broader economic systems and societal expectations. Shown alongside an installation of The Color of Money and Trees at Biennale Images Vevey, it deepens Tony’s exploration of the pressures individuals face in navigating these structures. Tony holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from ArtEZ University of the Arts and has received recognition, including the Olympus Young Talent Award and De Burgemeester de Bruinprijs.