The artists nominated by
Founded in 2010 in partnership with Les Rencontres d’Arles, the Tbilisi Photo Festival was born in an attempt to unveil the deep and fast changing realities palpable everywhere in Georgia by contributing to the rise of the local and regional photographic scene while bringing to Tbilisi the best of world photography.
Since 2010 the Tbilisi Photo Festival has hosted the exhibitions of legends and stars of contemporary photography and has created a meaningful platform to support the emerging artists.
Twelve editions later, the Tbilisi Photo Festival firmly established Tbilisi as the capital of photography of the Caucasus by becoming the most important photo festival in the region and one of its major annual cultural events.
Supporting the regional and local emerging photography scene has been TPF’s initial goal since its creation. By joining the Futures platform, the festival has got a chance to put a finger on the pulse of what makes now the emerging European photography - discover new names, new “photographic languages”, new topics, new approaches; and also to create new opportunities for the new talents – opportunities of visibility, professional improvement, international networking.
By nominating Romain Bagnard, Céline Croze, Julie Glassberg and Eleni Onasoglu for Futures talents 2021, TPF unveils the group of emerging European photographers and their works with a strong visual identity that result from the capacities to develop long-term personal projects throughout deep researches to define an individual photographic writing, to build a coherence between the content and the shape the photo project is supposed to take in its final version.
Between Celine Croze ’s SQEVNV that focuses on social issues and human bodies as territories; Julie Glassberg’s Dekotora - a saga of misunderstood subculture of heavily decorated trucks in Japan; Aphros by Roman Bagnard who brings to surface the opaque signs of a primitive ephemeral urban alphabet and Eleni Onasoglu’s Hippocampus – a visual diary, a coded memory map that leads to an inner journey to explore the time and the emotions – TPF gives to discover 4 artists with very different photographic writings who re-invent their individual visual codes, overcome their vulnerability and transgress the reality they look at into the images that attract by their multilayerness of meanings and sensuality.
Text by Nestan Nijaradze
Julie Glassberg was born and raised in Paris, France. After studying graphic design for four years, she decided to make her passion for photography become her life and moved to NY. Her interests are primarily based on the diversity of world cultures, subcultures, underground scenes as well as the misfits of society. Photography is like a passport to enter worlds that she would never be able to see otherwise.
She regularly collaborates with The New York Times, and from late 2011 to 2015, the Metropolitan section of the paper assigns her, with staff reporter Corey Kilgannon, to photograph the portraits of the weekly column Character Study.
After spending close to 7 years in New York City, she lived in Tokyo, Japan for a year, where she met local artists and experimented more with photography and collaborations. She recently completed a 6 months residency program in Shanghai at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel and lives in Paris at the moment.
Her work has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Le Monde, The International NYT, El País Semanal, ESPN mag, Neon mag, Stern View, L'Equipe mag, Polka, among others.
She has been awarded a Lucie Scholarship Emerging Grant, a Getty Images Grant for Editorial Photography, a POYi Award of Excellence, an Art Directors Club Young Gun award, an IPA award and her first book was recently shortlisted by Paris Photo / Aperture.
Celine Croze is a visual artist born in Morocco and based in Paris with a background in cinema.
Sensitive to the cracks that our society is going through, her work focus on social issues and human bodies as territories. Celine uses film codes to transgress the world she’s looking at.
Her various works as a photographer and video artist were presented at the Billboard Festival in Casablanca (2015), the Marrakech Biennale in 2016, the Paraguay Biennale (El ojo Salvaje - 2018), the Tangier Photography Foundation (2019), the Dummy Award Photobook of Kassel and the Fuam Dummy Book Award from Istanbul in 2018.
In 2019, she is the winner of the In Cadaqués Festival with « SQEVNV », and the Revelation Price between Festival Map and Face à la mer.
In 2020, she is selected among 100 emerging European photographers by Gup magazine and Fresh Eyes Photo Talent 2020 (book published in July 2020) and she’s the winner of the Prix Mentor 2020 with « Mala Madre ».
In 2021, she’s one of the finalist of the HSBC prize 2021 with « SQEVNV » and will exhibited it in April at the Festival Instantes in Portugal.
Her work 'Nothing Hapenned' will be exposed in April 2021 at the Rencontres de la jeune photographie internationale de Niort (Villa Perochon). She’s also have been selected by Claudio Composti for the Leica Oscar Barnack, and she’s one of the laureate of the Tremplin Jeunes Talents of the Festival Planches Contact in Deauville 2021.
Eleni Onasoglou was born in Syros Island (Greece), where she lived during her early years. In 2008 she graduated with a scholarship from ESP school of photography.
Today she lives and works as a photographer in Athens. Her work has been published in magazines from Greece and abroad, and presented in photography group exhibitions.