The artists nominated by
ISSP is an educational and exhibition platform for contemporary photography, based in Latvia and engaging internationally. As a member of the Futures platform, we champion emerging voices, particularly those from the Baltic region. This year’s selection was based on an open call disseminated through ISSP’s network of partner organizations.
The selection of the Talents 2025 was done by an international jury: the Artistic Director of Tallinn Photomonth Kulla Laas (EE), curator Ieva Meilute-Svinkūniene (LT), artist and curator of the ISSP Gallery Iveta Gabaliņa (LV) and ISSP director Jūlija Berkoviča. The resulting cohort of artists exemplifies a shared conceptual depth and a willingness to experiment. Across selected projects, the artists push beyond the static image to explore photography’s power as an evolving space—one that embraces ecological processes, mythic heritage, and the complexities of memory.
In her project Pupa, Ieva Maslinskaite explores photography as a medium in flux, mirroring the transformative state an insect undergoes in its pupal stage. By allowing bacteria and fungi to colonize large-format film negatives depicting highly controlled Dutch landscapes, Maslinskaite challenges conventional, anthropocentric hierarchies of image-making. In doing so, she shifts photography’s purpose from a fixed representation to a site of ecological habitation and ongoing metamorphosis.
Rūta Kalmuka’s Dzen revives an ancient Latvian spring solstice ritual, once practiced by the Livs, involving the symbolic banishment of evil spirits and the calling of light. Her method—using a large-format camera and direct positive prints on photo paper and fabric—constitutes a contemporary ritual of its own. By integrating ancestral folklore with a reflective creative process, Kalmuka underscores ritual’s capacity to heal and renew both cultural identity and personal well-being.
In Visvaldas Morkevicius’s I Want to Tell You Something, grief is articulated as a non-linear, endlessly revisited terrain. Morkevicius integrates archival photographs, images of everyday objects, and repeated scanning and printing to construct a visual echo of loss. This approach emphasizes the fragility of memory while advancing toward acceptance, becoming, in essence, a farewell letter to a former self.
Across these three works, a unifying thread is the emphasis on transformation—both of the photographic medium and of personal or communal experience. Maslinskaite’s bacterial interventions on large-format negatives invite an ecological metamorphosis that challenges anthropocentric control; Kalmuka’s revival of an ancient ritual foregrounds the cyclical interplay of darkness and light as a means of cultural and personal renewal; and Morkevicius’s layered images of grief chart a non-linear passage toward acceptance and self-redefinition. While each artist addresses distinct subject matter—ranging from environmental processes to ancestral folklore and the fragile terrain of memory—they converge in using photography as a space of transition, reflection, and continuous becoming, revealing how images can evolve with the very conditions that shape them.
The selecting committee consists of:
Iveta Gabaliņa | ISSP Curator/Co – Founder
Julija Berkoviča | ISSP Director/Co – Founder
Kulla Laas | Director of Tallinn Photomonth
Ieva Meilute-Svinkūniene | Curator
