Ieva Baltaduonyte (b.1988 in Kaunas, Lithuania) is a lens based artist and graduate of thePhotography BA programme at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Informed by her own personal experience of displacement, her artistic practice engages with topics and issues relating to migratory culture. Central to her work are the psychological consequences of migration, such as displacement trauma, as well as the concepts home, identity and the in-between state. After spending seventeen years living in Dublin, Ireland, Ieva has recently returned to her native Lithuania, where she is currently based. Transnational migration is perhaps the most highly contested issue across Europe. For new migrants spatial and temporal displacement is potentially traumatic, resulting in shifting identities where home can no longer be understood as a fixed knowable entity. Ieva is preoccupied with revealing personal and collective narratives where trauma, identity and memory encourage a deeper engagement with cross-cultural dialogue. By using photography for both personal expression and to foster a critical dialogue with contemporary society, she invites the viewer to participate in societal debates, foregrounding human experiences, and exposing what is otherwise obscured or ignored. Her carefully constructed projects combine politics and aesthetics inviting a dialogical relationship with the viewer.
In 2020 Erien Withouck’s fascination for overlooked figures and myths led her to the Shetland Isles. Several islanders told her of the mythical “Selkie”, a hybrid creature which has the ability to remove its seal skin and take on human form. On Midsummer’s eve, a female Selkie emerges from a foaming sea and sheds her seal skin. A man sees her on the shore: he carelessly steals her skin and makes her his wife. Always longing for the ocean, the Selkie prefers the freedom as a seal to her expected role as a good mother and housewife, she eventually reclaims her skin and returns to her former home.
This myth is the sort of transient tale that chimes with Withouck’s aesthetic and sensibility. The antagonism between the fleeting nature of oral history and the desire to capture things permanently on film raises an important question: what do we wish to remember, and what would we rather forget? A literal reconstruction of the past is neither useful nor appropriate. The camera offers the chance to play, to intersect the paths of history and imagination.
Her photographs illuminate the traces of these unknown figures and mythical creatures which escaped the pages of history books, subtly capturing the unwritten habits, routines and cultures that still slumber on in remote communities. In scenes that beautifully evoke the fisherman’s world of pounding waves and craggy cliffs, the sea – with its continuous ebb and flow between eternity and fluidity – is clearly the protagonist. This ambiguity is exposed in the imagery of Erien Withouck.
- Text by Dagmar Dirkx (.tiff)
Scarlat’s work has been recognised and awarded in several national and international competitions, such as PHotoEspaña, the Emerging Photographer Fund (Magnum Foundation), World Nomads, Promoción del Arte at Tabacalera Cantera, Visa pour l’image, Matera European Photography, Artistas Novos, and Creación Injuve. In 2021 he received a bookmaking scholarship at Magnum Photos. This year he also has received a long-term mentorship scholarship at Magnum Photos, and he is currently working with Gregory Halpern and Alessandra Sanguinetti for this project.
Scarlat has always been interested in working with his family from Romania. After leaving in 2005 at the age of 11 and having spent 15 years away, his relationship with them has changed. In his projects, he like to insist on those tensions and conflicts that have arisen as a result of moving to Spain. He is interested in Eastern Europe, Romania, alcoholics, his mother, religion, death, the traces of communism on people's faces, gypsies, children, the cemetery, the lake, wedding dresses, unmarried women, dead girls in wedding dresses, dead horses, boys playing soccer, abandoned dogs, funerals, weddings, enchantments, women who are going to clean the graves in the cemetery, flowers, gold…
Main topics in her practice are: life in province, religion, connections between mythology and identity, her private relations with the world and her own country, with life and death. Her working method — continuous travels to small towns. She looks for something unique — people, communities, as well as place sand objects they produce. Elena says that provincial towns can be compared to separated islands, which are far enough from the mainland for evolution to goin a very unique way. She collects peculiarities of local cultures, since is sure they are on the edge of extinction, caused by globalization as well as just poverty.
Her project “Grandmothers on the Edge of Heaven” is a private family story, but also a reflection on the gap between generations. Which is multiplied in her case by the gap between two countries and two political systems: Soviet Union and modern Ukraine.
Balázs Fromm (B.1991) is a photographer, currently living and working in Budapest. He studied photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, and new media at the CityUniversity of Hong-Kong, Hong-Kong. Fromm's field of work revolves around Eastern European topics, the historic legacy of socialism, the power of masculinity, local issues, and youth culture. His photographic approach involves documenting the disappearing working class of rural Hungary and it's gloomy industrial cities ( A city built of steel 2018-2022), and unveiling the non-conventional beauty norms and the precarious identity of the Z generation. ( East and Eden 2021) Guided by an intuitive sense of connection, Fromm captures the bonds of communities and their environment in the amidst of democratic backsliding, and rising nationalism throughout the region. He works regularly on documentary commissions, shedding light on regional stories for publications as Zeit and Republik, and many others. Balázs Fromm is part of the Studio of Young Photographers of Hungary. He received the Jozsef Pecsi photography grant from the state of Hungary in 2021. Presently, he is working on two ongoing photgraphic series, Casting and Csango Land.
Inuuteq Storch, born in 1989, Sisimiut, Greenland. Based in Copenhagen and Sisimiut.
I studied at Fatamorgana – The Danish School of Art Photography in 2010 and at the International Center of Photography in New York in 2016. After that, I published the following books: Porcelain Souls, Flesh and Mirrored – Portraits of Good Hope.
My work is based on identity searching, which means the subject is usually around being from Greenland.
I work with my photography and archives.
Rami’s work is visually striking. The objects of his portraits are statuesque, almost sculptural and hold a quiet dignity, these aforementioned fabrics (the Veil, the Durag) are elevated from their utilitarian role into markers of adornment. A hijab becomes a royal veil, a durag transforms into the crown of a young, anonymous king, A portrait becomes a painting.His use of colour elevate the text in a variety of ways. His work brings a dynamic element of emphasis, playing on the themes of alienation, anonymity and the question of belonging. the pops of vivid colours bring a sensation of playfulness, while some images use the richness of deep blues, purples and gold tones that bring forth a sense of mystery, a world where the viewer is not entirely welcomed but granted a glimpse of what the (un)veiling allows. He presents his family, his source of inspiration with deference, honouring them in portraits that beam with a sense of pride. The questions of stigmatisation and alienation starts in ‘Hooyo’, and re-occurs in his ongoing series « Durag », taking a step back in Indaha qurbaha, (In the eyes of the diaspora) by showing his subjects up close and personal as well as in their contextual spaces respectively.
Catalin Anghel (b. 1984) is an artist based in Timisoara, Romania, who works in the fields of photography and mixed media art. He obtained his Photography degree in Dublin at Institute of Photography in 2011. He moved back to Romania in 2014 and in the same year he organized his first event ‘Fotocultura – Timisoara European Cultural Capital’ | photography contest and exhibition. In 2017, he started 'Wedtrotter' - a documentary series which follows the best wedding photographers in the world. His latest project is 'Imagine Timisoara Festival' (2019) – an event who got together over 200 photographers in 2 days of conference, workshops, photography contests and exhibitions.
In 2013, she published her debut book "Fitting Rooms," which examines the role of women in her generation. Between 2009 and 2016, Karolina was based in India, where she produced her second book "When We Lie Down, Grasses Grow From Us," exploring the migratory experience (published by GOST Books in 2019). She is an editor of several Strike Newspapers published by the Archive of Public Protest.
In recent years, she has initiated and completed several participatory projects involving refugees, creating spaces for collaboration and self-expression.
Karolina is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation (K. Kieślowski Film School), which centers around the subjective narratives of historical migrations. She is a member of Sputnik Photos and the A-P-P
Her work retraces her personal family history drawing on her Togolaise heritage, and the idea of origins. The theme of family is explored through self-portraits in which she plays her mother and father, narrating their experience of migration from Togo to Italy. Her images are partially informed by the West African studio portrait tradition.
He deals with social issues and the people‘s connection to history and their surroundings. With his photo-essays he wants to raise questions that follow the viewer and contribute to an examination of the topics and thus to a better mutual understanding.
He was awarded for PDN Student Contest, World Report Award, PDN Emerging Photographer and was nominated for the W. Eugene Smith Student Grant. In 2019 he was selected for the screenings at Visa Pour l’Image. His work was featured in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, FAZ Woche, Tortoise Media and others.
He is a founding member of DOCKS, a collective of five documentary photographers who act upon shared humanistic values.
After graduating with a BA in geography and communications, she started studying photojournalism at the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX). She has worked at the Danish daily, Dagbladet Politiken and studied abroad at The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK). In January 2020 she graduated and is now working freelance and on personal projects.
Nanna is a Canon ambassador and member of Women Photograph. In 2020 she was nominated for the Joop Swart Masterclass held by World Press Photo, and for The 6x6 Global Talent Program in 2019. In 2017 she attended the Canon Student Development Programme at Visa Pour l’Image. Her work has been published in NPR, PHmuseum, Politiken, Information among others and she has won several prizes at CPOY, Danish Picture of The Year and others.
Lisa Bukreyeva (b. 1993) is a photographer based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Since her journey with photography began in 2019, her works have been presented at a range of museums and festivals, including Photo Elysée, Lausanne; Noorderlicht Festival, Groningen; and Deichtorhallen – Internationale Kunst Und Fotographie, Hamburg. Meanwhile, her images have featured in the likes of Der Spiegel, Zeit, The New York Magazine and Blind Magazine. Bukreyeva is a member of the Burn My Eye collective.
Peggy van Mosselaar is a documentary and visual storyteller motivated by curiosity and human interest. Van Mosselaar creates photographic and video works based upon the stories and memories of the people she meets. The artist graduated from PhotoAcademy, Amsterdam and Foto Vakschool, Rotterdam. Peggy has exhibited at Loods 6, Amsterdam; Museum Hilversum, Hilversum; and SKVR, Rotterdam. In August-November 2022, she will present her work in FOTODOK’s group exhibition Part of Me… Shaping Mental Spaces.
Irene Zottola is a self-taught photographer; in 2016, she began honing her skills in the laboratory of Madrid’s Slow Photo collective. Her poetic works probe at the limits of analogue photography, which she often pairs with text. Working simultaneously as an arts educator, Zottola explores photography as a tool for social intervention amongst vulnerable groups. Her first photobook, Icarus, was published by Ediciones Anómalas in 2021. With the same project, Zottola was a finalist at PhotoEspaña, and at the Photobook Awards of Les Rencontres d'Arles in 2022. Her work has been exhibited in Spain, Italy and Morocco.