The artists nominated by
.tiff is FOMU’s platform dedicated to emerging Belgian photography. Each year, 10 artists are invited to participate in a year-long journey with a poster magazine serving as the starting point. Since the magazine’s inception in 2012, its concept has remained consistent, however, the scope of the project has expanded significantly. .tiff has evolved into a platform shaped and influenced by the artists’ needs. FOMU leverages its extensive network, expertise and resources to stimulate the artistic practices and personal visions of the artists involved. The selection process is comprehensive, involving outreach to professionals in the Belgian photography and art scenes, as well as previous participants. This results in a longlist that encompasses a diverse range of backgrounds and artistic approaches.
For this edition, FOMU enlisted the expertise of three external jurors: Damarice Amao, photography historian and curatorial assistant in the photography department of Centre Pompidou, Paris; Pieter Vermeulen, art critic, lecturer, researcher and curator; and Tom Callemin, .tiff alumnus and artist. Together, we carefully curated a diverse group of artists, always considering whether the participants would benefit from our support at this particular juncture in their careers.
Over the years, .tiff has fostered a thriving Belgian photography community that transcends language barriers, facilitating the exchange of ideas between artists, curators and critics. .tiff offers a fresh perspective on the possibilities of photography and connects you with the creations of emerging image-makers.
This years selected artists are Romain Cavallin, Lina Wielant and Elise Dervichian, Romane Iskaria, Ksenia Kuleshova, Catherine Lemblé, Nathan Mbouebe, Angyvir Padilla, Marcel Top, Marens van Leunen and Laure Winants.
ANGYVIR PADILLA (b. Caracas, Venezuela, 1987) is a Brussels-based visual and performance artist. She studied Art in the public space at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels (2011-13, BA), sculpture at ENSAV La Cambre (2012-15, MA), and Fine Arts at LUCA School of Arts of Brussels (2016-18, MA).
Her work has been recently exhibited in numerous venues, including JAP vitrine, Brussels (2023), IKOB Museum, Eupen (2023), Antwerp Art Weekend (2023), CIAP, Genk (2022), Centrale Vitrine, Brussels (2021), Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France, Dunkerque (2021-22), and S.M.A.K Museum, Ghent (2021). She has also gained international recognition through exhibitions in Paris, Germany, Athens, and Caracas.
In recent years, Padilla has been granted numerous residencies and awards including the Fiminco Foundation residency in Paris (2022-23) and long-term residency at Moussem Nomadic Art Centre in Brussels (2023-). She received the Sabam prize of ArtContest in Brussels in 2020, the prize of the Watch This Space biennial in Lille in 2022, and was one of the laureates of the Friends of S.M.A.K prize in Ghent in 2021. Her work is currently on view at The Kunstverein Friedrichshafen in Germany. In 2024, Padilla was selected for the MINO Female Artist Mentorship program with mentors Otobong Nkanga and Léonard Pongo, and will be part of the MLeuven residency program at Cas-co in Leuven and Morpho residency program in Antwerp.
Elise Dervichian and Lina Wielant are two Belgian artist-photographers based in Brussels. They have a history of collaborating but launched a new project together in 2020. Studying at ESA le 75 from 2015 to 2018, Elise Dervichian deepened herself into the reportage style. Towards the end of her studies, she worked as an assistant curator at La cité des Arts in Saint Denis, Réunion Island. Her work is focused on documentary photography, working on societal subjects such as rape culture or the Armenian diaspora in Belgium. Lina Wielant graduated from Sint Lukas Hogeschool Brussel, where she primarily focused on analogue darkroom techniques, with a predilection for editing photo-books. In August 2022 she participated in a residency at DecorAtelier, (Brussels) with the organisation Dis Mon Nom, which aims to shed light on invisibilised people. Together, Elise Dervichian and Lina Wielant combine analogue and digital photography, mainly through staged self-portraits and photo-montages.
Ksenia Kuleshova is a photojournalist and visual artist. She has been featured in the British Journal of Photography as one of thirty-one women to watch (2018), as one of twenty rising women photojournalists by Artsy (2019), and as one of The 30: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch (2022). Her work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, DIE ZEIT, and De Standaard. Ksenia’s first book “Ordinary People” was published by The New Press (New York) in December 2023.
Laure Winants is a researcher and field-based visual artist (BE, FR). Winants set up her artist’s studio in the heart of the Arctic ice pack. Embarked on a four-month polar expedition, she joined a team of multidisciplinary researchers to understand the evolution of this vast territory, where man is only a tiny part of life. Immersed in this white desert, she uses techniques developed specifically to capture the optical and luminous phenomena unique to the region. Using environmental sensors, the interaction of matter itself has become the creator of the work, putting human intervention to one side. Laure Winants makes this data tangible and emotionally perceptible, highlighting the interdependence of ecosystems and creating encounters in more-than-human temporalities. In this way, the artist creates a dialogue between art, the natural sciences, and technology.
Laure has exhibited her work internationally in Berlin (DE), Reykjavik (IS), Brussels (BE), Paris (FR), and soon in Stockholm (SE), Luxembourg (LU), and Osaka (JP). Her work has entered the collection of several foundations, such as the Fondation des Arts du Luxembourg and the Palais de Liège (BE).
Marens van Leunen (1994) is a Dutch visual artist, currently based in Antwerp. Her work explores different layers within the everyday. She is interested in objects and spaces and their quality to carry meaning and memories. The relationship between individuals and their home environment and the objects within this space is often a starting point of her work. She creates images with multiple layers by both observing and staging, using personal memories and her imagination.
Nathan was born in 1996 from an Italian mother and a Cameroonian father.
He grew up in a small post industrial town of Belgium where his grandparents as well as many other south Italian families emigrated to work in the coal mines.
He received his first camera from his father at 9 years old while visiting his family in Cameroon. From there, he starts documenting life around him, finding inspiration in the richness and texture of the communities that made him.
He wishes for his photography to be a modest look at his own experience of life.
Romain Cavallin is a photographer.
His documentary approach uses photography as a link between a habitat and its inhabitants, as well as between the inhabitants themselves. In so doing, he questions notions of territorial, social, architectural and industrial identity.
In 2020, he co-founded La Nombreuse ASBL, a cultural space in Saint-Gilles, Bruxelles dedicated to emerging and contemporary photography. Since 2019, he has been driving a truck transformed into a camera obscura to meet the inhabitants of northern France.
He graduated from the BTS photo de Roubaix (fr) in 2015 and from ESA Le75 in 2018, where he has been teaching since 2023.
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