The artists nominated by
Donja Nasseri explores museum spaces and liberates secured objects from display cases by taking 3D scans of them. For her project, she will focus on the example of the figure of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun, addressing questions of reparation and appropriation in the context of the restitution debate.
Malte Uchtmann, will use AI to work on an ‘Atlas of Impossibilities’, reflecting on the construction of knowledge through images. He investigates the visual transformation of assumptions, policies and worldviews into knowledge within encyclopaedias across different historical periods and geographical regions.
Verdiana Albano explores her own fragmented and mystery-laden Afro-European history in a photographic process that moves between staging and documentation. Employing the Stasi files belonging to her parents, alongside personal and institutional image archives, she delves into the implications of being born within the framework of the erstwhile German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Agata Szymanska-Medina scrutinises the contemporary challenge of a global freshwater crisis unfolding in Chile through her photographic work – a crisis which poses a threat to humanity at large. Employing a nuanced narrative approach in her documentary photography, incorporating texts, archival material, video and sound, the photographer unveils the actors entangled in this conflict and the motivations driving them.
Through a synthesis of documentation, essay, and portraiture, Lea Greub delves into the intricate dynamics of the ‘business of love’. Her exploration navigates the interplay between love, financial considerations and societal expectations within relationships, particularly in venues like wedding fairs and single-date trips, where these connections are both forged and exhibited.
Donja Nasseri explores museum spaces and liberates secured objects from display cases by taking 3D scans of them. For her project, she will focus on the example of the figure of the ancient Egyptian king Tutankhamun, addressing questions of reparation and appropriation in the context of the restitution debate.
Malte Uchtmann, will use AI to work on an ‘Atlas of Impossibilities’, reflecting on the construction of knowledge through images. He investigates the visual transformation of assumptions, policies and worldviews into knowledge within encyclopaedias across different historical periods and geographical regions.
Verdiana Albano explores her own fragmented and mystery-laden Afro-European history in a photographic process that moves between staging and documentation. Employing the Stasi files belonging to her parents, alongside personal and institutional image archives, she delves into the implications of being born within the framework of the erstwhile German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Agata Szymanska-Medina scrutinises the contemporary challenge of a global freshwater crisis unfolding in Chile through her photographic work – a crisis which poses a threat to humanity at large. Employing a nuanced narrative approach in her documentary photography, incorporating texts, archival material, video and sound, the photographer unveils the actors entangled in this conflict and the motivations driving them.
Through a synthesis of documentation, essay, and portraiture, Lea Greub delves into the intricate dynamics of the ‘business of love’. Her exploration navigates the interplay between love, financial considerations and societal expectations within relationships, particularly in venues like wedding fairs and single-date trips, where these connections are both forged and exhibited.
Agata Szymanska-Medina (b.1981) is a Polish visual artist, photojournalist, and storyteller based in Berlin Germany. She graduated in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany. Her work focuses on long-term projects with socio-political issues.
Agata is working as a freelance photojournalist and a cinematographer. Her work has been published in DER SPIEGEL, Stern, DIE ZEIT, SZ-Magazin, The Guardian, ARTE TV, ARD, NZZ, DUMMY Magazine, Greenpeace Magazine, Taz, BuzzFeed, Free Mens World, Spiegel Online, Zenith, SPIEGEL WISSEN, Politiken, Zeit Online, Gazeta Wyborcza, Newsweek.
Agata's projects have been supported by numerous grants, including: the Magnum Foundation, the Pulitzer Center, Journalismfund.eu, Robert Bosch Stiftung and VG Bild-Kunst.
Donja Nasseri, born in Düsseldorf in 1990, studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Gregor Schneider and Peter Piller until 2022. She previously studied at the Kunstakademie Münster under Mariana Castillo Deball. She combines photography, objects, video and language to create a 'collaged unity'. The central aspect of Donja Nasseri's work is the negotiation of tradition and change - that of an artistic medium as well as that of a diverse society, including the examination of interwoven histories and narratives that shape our understanding of identity and trauma and the reactivation of materials from museums, archives and communities. By generating and recontextualising historical and personal memories, she aims to contribute to a nuanced understanding of the past and its impact on the present, for example to negotiate a dialogue about the impact of colonialism.
Lea Greub was born on January 7, 1998 in Düsseldorf, lives in Berlin and works across Europe. As a photojournalist she deals with socio-cultural issues, discriminated minorities and European politics. The principle of her work is to meet people at eye level and to portray them with dignity. In doing so, she is guided by humanistic values. In recent years, she has traveled abroad a lot to work on photo reportages and multimedia projects. Her work has already been published in renowned media such as ZEIT ONLINE, SZ-Magazin, Fluter, Stern and Monopol.
Malte Uchtmann (*1996 in Hamburg) is a photographer and media artist based in Leipzig, Germany. Using different visual media he is interested in how concepts of knowledge, truth and reality are expressed and affect our perception and behavior. His work has been awarded the German Photo Book Prize and was shortlisted for the C/O Berlin Talent Award 2023. He is currently part of the Photography and Media Class and the Expanded Cinema Class of the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig.
Verdiana Albano (*1993) is an Afro-European artist based in Frankfurt and Hamburg. Throughout her studies at the University of Arts and Design Offenbach until 2021, she specialized in photography and installation art. Supported by the DAAD, she studied and lived in Chongqing, China, in 2019, where she created the series "surrounded," which is now part of the Art Collection Deutsche Börse.
Her works and engagement has been marked by accolades, including the Bayern Innovativ’s Junge Kunst und Neue Wege Stipendium, and grants like the Neustart Kultur Stipend 2022 and Neustart Plus Stipend 2023 from Stiftung Kunstfonds. Albano's works have been showcased in both solo and group exhibitions nationwide and internationally. She premiered her first solo exhibition through the ISO 5000 Prize 2021 of Hans and Annemarie Weidmann Foundation. In 2023 she was part of Les Rencontres de la Photographie d'Arles at the Fondation Manuel Rivera-Ortiz.
Albano's influence extends beyond her art, as she has been an invited guest at the German-British Democracy Forum, and held talks for the Hertie Foundation and the BARCAMP of the German Foreign Office. In 2023, she started to establish an Afro-European artist network, leveraging her Allianz Foundation Fellowship to foster collaboration within the artistic community.
