Umberto Diecinove

Ilias Lois pursued his education at the Department of Photography & Audiovisual Arts at the UniWA and furthered his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Venice. His artistic endeavours have garnered international recognition, with his works featured in institutions, festivals, and prominent photography publications. In 2018, he received the title of “Young Greek Photographer” from APhF, and in 2019, he earned the “Lensculture Emerging Talent” award for his series, Aisle Seat. In addition to his artistic pursuits, Lois serves as editor of the photography magazine Velvet Eyes. He is also a regular contributor to the Athens Photo Festival, where he recently curated the exhibition Good Advice & Other Recipes (2022) at the Benaki Museum. He contributes to the field of photography education as a teacher at the Hellenic Centre of Photography and Paper Drop Lab, where he is in charge of project development and curation classes. In the summer of 2024 he graduated with a Master of Photography: Research and Methodology from UniWA. Lois’ work is usually developed in long-term series, in which the interplay of different photographic genres is attempted, mixing staged photography and quasi-documentary strategies. His projects are inspired by the systematic observation of communication between people, the human manipulation of materials and technology and body language. The artist’s approach pays close attention to the practices of transferring a three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional surface, as well as to the reverse process that follows. He is particularly interested in the sequencing of photographs while researching and practising non-linear forms of narration, both in his personal and curatorial work.

Sarah Mei Herman holds a BA in Photography from The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and an MA in Fine Art Photography from London’s Royal College of Art. Her personal projects explore relationships, intimacy, loneliness, longing, and the human urge for physical proximity, often focusing on the vulnerability of transitory life stages. Her work has been exhibited internationally, at institutions and festivals such as The National Portrait Gallery, London; The Benaki Museum, Athens; Photo Elysée, Lausanne; Le Château d’Eau, Toulouse; The Jewish History Museum, Amsterdam; and the JIMEI x ARLES International Photo Festival, Xiamen. Her projects have been recognised by a range of prizes and awards, including the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, the Hyères Festival of Fashion and Photography and the Arnold Newman Prize For New Directions in Photographic Portraiture. Her work is found in several public and private art collections, whilst her images have been published by the likes of iD, Vogue Italia, Foam Magazine, Paper Journal and Dear Dave. Herman’s second photo book – Julian & Jonathan – was recently published by the London-based GOST Books. Future 2025 exhibitions include solo shows at Concertgebouw Brugge in Belgium, and at GLAZ festival in Rennes, France.

Nuno Alexandre Serrão is a Portuguese photographer and director whose work explores the relationship between natural landscapes and human-made structures, combining cinematic formalism and raw storytelling. Led by curiosity, he often creates or documents non-linear narratives about uncomfortable and ambiguous topics that challenge comfort zones and encourage reflection, ultimately provoking questions about what is fundamental or emergent. His work has gained international attention, and is published in established media outlets like HuffPost, Público, Expresso, L’Hémcycle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and GQ. It has also been exhibited in cultural institutions such as Fotogalerie Friedrichshain in Berlin, ImageNation in Milan, ArtIcon in Paris, and the National Museum of Finland. His short films and commercial projects have been recognized at festivals like Aesthetica, Caminhos do Cinema Português, FUSO, and Inshadow Festival. Critics describe Serrão’s work as ‘pursuing the beauty that emerges at the intersection of nature and humanity’ (Ana Marques Maia, Público, 2024). Claire Ducresson-Boët describes his landscapes as ‘places of passage and transition where time seems to stand still, offering a moment of quietness before life resumes.’

Based in Chisinau, Moldova, Natalia Ciobanu is an internationally recognized photographer specializing in portraits and travel photography. With over 18 years of experience, she masterfully blends color and emotion, crafting images that tell profound human stories. Her work has been exhibited across Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine and has earned prestigious awards, including Gold Winner at the London Photography Awards, Finalist in the Smithsonian Contest, and distinctions from Nikon Photo Contest and Trierenberg Super Circuit. For Natalia, photography is more than just capturing moments; it’s about telling stories, connecting with people, and celebrating the beauty of the world in all its diversity. Each photograph she creates is an exploration of humanity and a tribute to the colors that define our lives.

Michal Sita (1985) is a photographer and curator. Graduate of photography at the ITF in Opava and anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he is concluding doctoral research on social uses of the past in contemporary Poland. Interested in social memory and research strategies of photography. Curator of an interdisciplinary analysis of Wiesław Rakowski’s interwar zoological photographs, curator and producer of a series of exhibitions (including Małgorzata Lebda and Rafał Siderski, Mayumi Suzuki, Jan Kurek, Martin Parr and Rimaldas Vikšraitis, Sputnik Photos, among others), and photobook festivals. Co-author of “Củ Chi Tunnels Restoration Report” (Photographic Publication of the Year 2020 – Łódź, PL), a book relating to the activities of the Polish-Vietnamese architectural heritage conservation mission. Author of “History of Poland” vol. 1 and 2 — publications commenting on anthropological research carried out in Murowana Goślina among volunteers staging a large-scale historical pageant. Author of critical texts on photography. Lecturer at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań.

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).

Sarah Stone (U.K., 1994) is a photographer and artist based in Antwerp, Belgium. She received her master’s degree in photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 2022, winning the Photography Department prize. Her photographs have been published in .Tiff Magazine, Der Greif and Subbacultcha/Different Class and self-published books such as: 'La Vie De Camille' (2023), ‘ANNA’ (2022) and ‘The End of The Pipeline’ (2021). Her project '76 collages' was published by SO-RI in 2021 and a following series ‘98 collages’ is set to be published in 2025. In 2023 her image 'Whistle' from the project 'ANNA' was selected for ONBOARDSBiennale, an exhibition of art displayed on billboards throughout Antwerp. Her collage 'West Virginia Interior' was published in Karoo magazine in 2024. In 2024 Stone exhibited her work as part of the outside art trail "Out ofOffice" with BREEDBEELD in Gooik, Belgium and in 2023 with the FOMU(Photography Museum Antwerp) as part of .Tiff. Her collages were exhibited withStieglitz19 Gallery in the group show ‘Collage! Collage! Collage!’ with Vincent Delbrouck and Miriam Tolke (2021) as well as a pop-up in (2020). In 2025 she began her own TOT ZINES project, publishing local artists in the zine format. Stone’s work is created around a strong signature of aesthetic, poetic and colourful images, conveying a powerful message. This is substantiated by her usage of analog photography, creating imagery that presents an open and honest reflection of her surroundings, details, friends or objects that she is drawn to. Shot on 35mm film, they reveal her inner life at a certain time, almost like a distant diary. Stone's series are often founded on human traces, whether that be in personal relationships, or relationships to objects and materiality. Each with its own angle of approach, but based on the beauty of life and it's details. Her photographs illustrate and inspire people to embrace colour, texture, shape, and to see the world as a theatrical stage, full of props and characters. To capture the atmospheric variety of photographs, Stone uses various analogue cameras and experiments with making collages, using paint in her collages and works on paper.

Karol Szymkowiak (b. 1983) is a photographer, photobook artist, curator and educator based in Poznań, Poland. Self-taught photographer, specializing in documentary photography and photo collages - work with archives. His work revolves around themes such as environmental problems, military and civil defence, physical and mental immobilisation. He is constantly fascinated by finding surrealism in faithfully recording reality using photography. As a photographer, he has participated in over a dozen group exhibitions. Since 2015 he is art curator of a long-term photography documentary project The Września Collection (Kolekcja Wrzesińska) whose patron is the Mayor of the City and Municipality of Września. As part of his work on this project, he is collaborating with leading Polish photographers to create photobooks and exhibitions about his home town of Września. Karol is a member of The Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF) and a scholarship recipient of the Marshal of the Wielkopolska Region in the field of culture. He is also a lecturer in photography at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.

Jeroen De Wandel uses photography as a starting point to create new images from all sorts of material (photographic or otherwise), using his own photography in different shapes, contexts and meanings. His artistic work often starts from a personal need to react within a social context / our society. A common thread is the functioning of our brain: how we deal with zeitgeist, with information, with manipulation, with technology and how all this reflects back on our psychological well-being. Depending on the angle and location, he uses different techniques, from photography and collages to installations, sculptures and spatial interventions. He showed work in FoMu (BE) and Circulations (FR) and recently had his first solo show (2024). Follow at @jeroen_de_wandel for recent work

Agate Tūna is a multidisciplinary artist from Riga, Latvia, working across photography, photographic installations, experimental video and sound art.  Her practice explores the relationship between spirituality and technology from a woman’s perspective. Taking a research-driven, web-like approach, she traces connections between her family's spiritualist heritage, hauntology, quartz crystals, and techno-specters while examining how historical narratives, personal experiences, and technological advancements shape our perception of the unseen. Photography, as a "haunted medium," plays a central role in her work, preserving traces of the past while shaping imagined futures. Through analogue and experimental techniques such as chemigrams, she investigates the materiality of the photographic image. From self-portraits to staged compositions, her process is deeply hands-on, involving set construction, object-making, and direct engagement with physical materials.