The artists nominated by
Hanane El Ouardani's powerful imagery confronts notions of memory and cultural erasure, prompting viewers to reflect on identity and belonging in a transnational world. Orbiting the subject of home, her project The Skies are Blue, The Walls are Red (2018) serves as a visual diary of diasporic identity, whilst her more recent series The Grass is Greener on the Other Side (2023 – ongoing) offers a revealing glimpse into Kuwait's socio-political landscape.
Gilleam Trapenberg’s project Currents (2022 – ongoing) also studies identity, revealing a complex and personal relationship with his island homeland of Curaçao. Throughout all his projects, Trapenberg delves beneath the alluring surfaces of Caribbean life, examining how mass tourism and colonial legacies have shaped distorted images of the region. Meanwhile, with New Suns (2018 – 2023) his approach is increasingly abstract, dissecting the evocative Caribbean sunset with almost scientific precision.
In Farren van Wyk's series Die lewe is nie reg vir my nie (2016 – ongoing), her focus turns to gang culture in Port Elizabeth’s Schauderville district, offering a nuanced portrayal that transcends common stereotypes. The project underlines how resilience and humanity remain a constant within the community, offering a means of survival and brotherhood.
Elsewhere, Prins de Vos' BOYS DO CRY (2014 – 2021) centres on the queer community, dismantling various taboos surrounding male vulnerability and transgender identity. With each intimate portrait of Levi, an artist and trans man, de Vos captures raw emotions and celebrates the power of self-expression.
Finally, Suzette Bousema's work takes the environment as its starting point. Her project Super Organism (2020 – 2022) studies mycorrhizal fungal networks that are crucial for our ecosystems, but threatened by human activity. Supported by scientific insight, the project highlights the valuable symbiosis of plants and fungi – inviting viewers into a multisensory connection with these hidden networks.
Hanane El Ouardani's powerful imagery confronts notions of memory and cultural erasure, prompting viewers to reflect on identity and belonging in a transnational world. Orbiting the subject of home, her project The Skies are Blue, The Walls are Red (2018) serves as a visual diary of diasporic identity, whilst her more recent series The Grass is Greener on the Other Side (2023 – ongoing) offers a revealing glimpse into Kuwait's socio-political landscape.
Gilleam Trapenberg’s project Currents (2022 – ongoing) also studies identity, revealing a complex and personal relationship with his island homeland of Curaçao. Throughout all his projects, Trapenberg delves beneath the alluring surfaces of Caribbean life, examining how mass tourism and colonial legacies have shaped distorted images of the region. Meanwhile, with New Suns (2018 – 2023) his approach is increasingly abstract, dissecting the evocative Caribbean sunset with almost scientific precision.
In Farren van Wyk's series Die lewe is nie reg vir my nie (2016 – ongoing), her focus turns to gang culture in Port Elizabeth’s Schauderville district, offering a nuanced portrayal that transcends common stereotypes. The project underlines how resilience and humanity remain a constant within the community, offering a means of survival and brotherhood.
Elsewhere, Prins de Vos' BOYS DO CRY (2014 – 2021) centres on the queer community, dismantling various taboos surrounding male vulnerability and transgender identity. With each intimate portrait of Levi, an artist and trans man, de Vos captures raw emotions and celebrates the power of self-expression.
Finally, Suzette Bousema's work takes the environment as its starting point. Her project Super Organism (2020 – 2022) studies mycorrhizal fungal networks that are crucial for our ecosystems, but threatened by human activity. Supported by scientific insight, the project highlights the valuable symbiosis of plants and fungi – inviting viewers into a multisensory connection with these hidden networks.
Farren van Wyk (1993) is a South African and Dutch photographer and educator. She holds a BA Degree in Photography and an MA Degree in Cultural and Visual Anthropology. She has a truly dual perspective on both her home countries, which is visible in her work. Her photographs show how she tries to come to terms with two sides of facing colonialism, the slave trade and apartheid.
Van Wyk is a member of the African Photojournalist Association with World Press Photo, Women Photograph and Black Women Photographers. Her work has been featured by the internationally based i-D, The Washington Post, Photo Vogue, Der Greif and The Times UK.
Born in 1991 in Willemstad, Curaçao
Lives and Works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Gilleam Trapenberg (1991, Willemstad, Curaçao) moved to the Netherlands at the age of nineteen and graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2017. He participated in multiple group exhibitions, such as In The Presence of Absence at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2020). In 2017 he published his first photo book Big Papi and in 2018 he was one of the nominees for the Foam Paul Huf Award. He’s the fourth recipient of the Florentine Riem Vis grant (2020). His first solo exhibition at Foam, Amsterdam opened in 2021. Gilleam Trapenberg lives and works in Amsterdam. Through his work, Trapenberg reflects on the contradictions that are part of the social landscape in Curaçao, were the idea of a utopian paradise is diametrically opposed to the realities of post-colonialism and tourism. He explores stereotypes and tropes that have manifested themselves through social culture and the Western media.
Hanane El Ouardani (NL, b. 1994) lives and works in Amsterdam, where she graduated from The Hague’s Royal Academy of Art in 2018. The Dutch-Moroccan photographer was born in the Netherlands with bicultural roots, and her practice reflects a recurring duality: on one hand, an unwavering desire to truly feel at home somewhere, and on the other, embracing her status as an ‘outsider’ due to the unique perspective it offers her, allowing her to keenly observe differences from a distance. In 2018, she published the photo book ‘The Skies are Blue, The Walls are Red’, a visual diary that explores the various layers of a diasporic identity. The book raises questions about representing one’s roots without feeling estranged from one’s own culture.
Drawing inspiration from clichés and contradictions, her work raises questions about identity, exotism, contradictions and social status. She dissects the layers of these themes, often starting from a personal narrative, which organically speaks to a collective spanning different cultures.
El Ouardani takes her camera to places where men are prominent in public spaces. As she actively interacts with them as subjects, she insists, “ I believe it’s crucial for the female gaze to participate in uncovering masculinity’s place in our contemporary world.” Her work has been exhibited at notable venues, including the Van Gogh Museum, Unseen Amsterdam, Foto Tallinn and Paris Photo.
Prins de Vos (1991, Raamsdonk) is a Dutch photographer living in Amsterdam. In 2013, Prins graduated with a Bachelor Design from the Academy of Popculture (Leeuwarden). Their work touches on themes such as intimacy, sexuality and gender. Prins' first photo book Enclose (2013) was launched in photography museum Foam, and included a poetic introduction, written by Dutch author Arthur Japin. In 2022, Prins published their second photo book BOYS DO CRY, about Levi, who is an artist, poet and trans man.
Suzette Bousema (NL, 1995) visualizes contemporary environmental topics in collaboration with scientists. Planetary conditions and our place in them are the starting point in her work; the way humans interfere with nature and how we relate to the Earth on an individual level. She works interdisciplinary with photography, printmaking, glass blowing, weaving, sound, smell, and organic materials such as seaweed.
Suzette Bousema graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (NL) in 2019. She exhibited at a.o. museum Singer Laren (NL), Foam (NL), Art Rotterdam (NL), Photoville (NY), Fotobok Festival Oslo (NO), COP 25 (ES) and The Scientific Center Kuwait (KW). Her work has been published in a.o. NRC (NL), de Volkskrant (NL), Foam magazine (NL), Harper’s Bazaar (NL), Financial Times (UK), Der Spiegel (DE), Die Zeit (DE) and Liberatión (FR).
