Julia Gelezova

Romane Iskaria is a French photographer and artist based in Brussels, Belgium (1997). The photographer highlights the injustices and inequalities of invisible communities with a documentary and fictional approach. Her images, specific to “Care”, tell a story and allow her subjects to become aware of their painful stories. She creates a connection with these subjects that goes beyond the simple link between the photographer and her model. The artist uses photography and the field of video, but also textiles, sound, and sculpture to create immersive installations. She tells stories that take the form of a long-term investigation across several territories. Romane replays specific rituals and stories that also transcend borders, addressing questions around migration and exile. The photographer creates plastic forms allowing her to subvert the codes of documentary. She graduated with a Master's degree in photography from ENSAV La Cambre in 2022 and a DNA (National Diploma in Plastic Arts) from INSEAAM Beaux Arts in Marseille in 2018. She also completed an exchange at the U-LAVAL Visual Arts school in Quebec, Canada. Romane is laureate of TIFF 2024 Emerging Belgian Photography, by FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerpen and the european platform FUTURES Photography. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions: in the United States (ART-ARK Gallery in San Jose, California; Assyrian Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.), in Brazil (João Pessoa Paraíba Nordeste Art Gallery of the Energisa Institute), in France (Circulation(s) Cent-Quatre Festival in Paris, Lille Art-Up Centre Photographique in Lille, La Grande Vitrine Gallery in Arles, HLM Gallery in Marseille), in Belgium (FOMU Fotomuseum Antwerp, S.M.A.K Museum in Ghent, House of European History Brussels, TAMAT Museum in Tournai, BPS22, Art-Brussels Off, Prix Médiatine, Hangar Art Photo Center, TICK-TACK Gallery, Tiny-Gallery, Fondation Carrefour des Arts), in Armenia (French Consulate in Yerevan), in Italy (L’Asilo in Naples), and in the Netherlands (Flemish Cultural Center). Brakke-grond, Noorderlicht Festival). Romane was selected as part of the call for projects launched by Polka Magazine and Kickstarter for the creation and support of an artist's book, with the self-publishing of her first work, "Assyrians," in a print run of 300 copies in 2022. The book "Assyrians" was also a winner of the Belgian Photo Books selection, presented at the Rencontres d'Arles in July 2022.

Laura Van Severen is a photographer interested in landscape representation. She develops her artistic practice in the form of long-term projects that result from traversing, connecting, observing or interacting with a specific place. In doing so, she touches upon a variety of subjects, from global logistics and waste management to local rural realities or sound (hi)stories. Laura studied Fine Arts and Photography at KASK School of Arts in Ghent, (Belgium) where she obtained her MA in 2015. that same year she was selected as one of ten talents by the FOMU Photography Museum in Antwerp. In 2016, she published the photobook Land (The Eriskay Connection), which was awarded Best Dutch Book Design. In 2021, she became part of Futures Photography after being nominated by the Triennial of Photographie Hamburg. In 2023, she received the Creación Injuve grant from the Spanish government and participated in an exchange residency between Hangar Barcelona and Kunstiftung Baden–Württemberg in Germany. Under the title Listening–Gathering, she is currently creating a collection of stories in which sound impacts and materialises into concrete realities. Laura lives in Barcelona (Spain) where she also works as a freelance photographer, teacher and studio manager.

Anna Safiatou Touré (Bamako, Mali, born in 1996) is a Franco-Malian multidisciplinary artist based in Brussels. She graduated from the Nantes Saint-Nazaire School of Fine Arts and the ENSAV La Cambre in photography. Anna Safiatou was awarded the Médiatine Prize in 2022 and the Roger De Conynck Fund in 2023-24. Her work explores the space that unites or separates the two sides of every migratory narrative. The journey through this personal, historical, and cultural blending fills for her empty or unanswered spaces. On her own scale, she wishes to materialize this absence by creating her own evidence to make history heard—rendering the absence visible to tell stories from these new bodies. Like a certain poetry of emptiness, couldn’t the world be told in reverse, like a stencil, from the edge?

Michal Sita (1985) is a photographer and curator. Graduate of photography at the ITF in Opava and anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he is concluding doctoral research on social uses of the past in contemporary Poland. Interested in social memory and research strategies of photography. Curator of an interdisciplinary analysis of Wiesław Rakowski’s interwar zoological photographs, curator and producer of a series of exhibitions (including Małgorzata Lebda and Rafał Siderski, Mayumi Suzuki, Jan Kurek, Martin Parr and Rimaldas Vikšraitis, Sputnik Photos, among others), and photobook festivals. Co-author of “Củ Chi Tunnels Restoration Report” (Photographic Publication of the Year 2020 – Łódź, PL), a book relating to the activities of the Polish-Vietnamese architectural heritage conservation mission. Author of “History of Poland” vol. 1 and 2 — publications commenting on anthropological research carried out in Murowana Goślina among volunteers staging a large-scale historical pageant. Author of critical texts on photography. Lecturer at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań.

Viacheslav Poliakov is a visual artist, photographer, graphic designer. He was born in 1986 in Kherson, Ukraine. Obtained a master’s degree in art education from Kherson State University. Now based in Lviv, Ukraine. His art practice exists on the intersection of documentary photography and design. He's interested in objects and spaces made by people, the historic background behind the urban landscape. Viacheslav is a finalist of Foam Talents, Vienna Photobook Festival, Circulations, Krakow Photomonth Showoff, Fotofestival Lodz Grand Prix, Prix Levallois. His works were published in the Foam Magazine, The British Journal of Photography, GUP magazine, Lensculture, The Washington Post.

Umberto Diecinove (b. 1978) is an artist and author with with a background in literature, philosophy and poetry and a master degree in photography. His projects have been presented in various international galleries, festivals, and cultural institutions, including the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (Budapest, Hungary), the Muséum d’Orléans pour la Biodiversité et l’Environnement (France), and the Glass Box Gallery (Santa Barbara, California, USA), among others. In 2025, with the project I N S C Ṭ S, he was nominated for both the World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award.

João Bragança Gil (Lisbon, 1989) is an artist, based in Lisbon, Portugal. Attended the Painting course at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon between 2008 and 2010; Graduated in Industrial Design in 2013 from Escola Superior de Artes e Design. In 2014, Bragança Gil moved to London, graduating in MA Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins UAL in 2016. In 2019 Bragança Gil, moved to Lisbon, and started practicing fine arts full-time. Currently he’s pursuing a Media Arts PhD at Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon.‍Recent exhibitions include “Drop me in the river, Dip me in the water!” (2021) at Galeria Pedro Cera; “The sun, the oldest, the sheep, as the origin (on and on) and the klecks klecks” (2021), by Sismógrafo at Casa das Artes, Porto; “CODA” (2022) at Buraco, Lisbon, “Uncertain Strata” at EGEU; “Estudo do Meio”, Carpintarias de S. Lázaro; “Midnight Sun”, Mono. Recidency at Arquipélago — Centro de Artes Contemporâneas, São Miguel, with FetArt (France) and CiCLO (Portugal). In 2023, Bragança Gil presented “Artificial Paradises” (2023) a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Science and Natural History, resulting from more than two years of research.‍In 2024, participated in the group exhibition “Entre Margens” curated by João Pinharanda and the group show “Passages” at Galeria Encounter; and the solo exhibition “Trouble in Paradise” at (Projectspace) at the Encounter and Jahn und Jahn Gallery, in Lisbon.

Emanuel Constantino (b. 2002), Portugal, is an independent photographer currently living in Porto. He has a degree in Photography from School of Media Arts and Design, in P.Porto. He is currently attending the Master's Degree in Cinema and Photography - Specialization in Photography - at the same institution. His main focus of research and authorial creation falls on the universe of documentary and fiction, in their various intersections and interactions. He seeks to understand and manipulate the boundary at which documentary ceases to be documentary and begins to assert itself as fiction, and vice versa, in his mix. Vernacular and archive photography are also areas that he explores and approaches, usually integrating them into his projects. He has exhibited at the Portuguese Center of Photography (PT), CEFT – Casa dos Cubos (PT), Galeria da Estação – Encontros da Imagem (PT), IPMA Festival in Kaunas (LT), Belgrade Photo Month (SRB). He won the CEFT Open Call in Photography and Territory in 2024 (PT), was selected as a New Talent at Belgrade Photo Month (SRB) and was nominated to join the FUTURES Platform in 2025 – European Photography Platform – as a new talent, by the Porto Photography Biennial (PT).

ROXANA RIOS *1994 (they/them) currently based in Leipzig, Germany.In 2017 Roxana picked up a double study at HGB Leipzig and AdBK Nuremberg and studied in the classes of Heidi Specker and Juergen Teller. After graduating in 2020 Roxana joined Isabel Lewis' class of the performing Arts.They received their Diploma in July 2023. Roxana's work has been shown at Museum Folkwang Essen, DEICHTORHALLEN Hamburg, Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig, Fotomuseum Winterthur and FOTOHOF Salzburg. Roxana was nominated for the Federal Prize for Art Students in 2020 and won the Contemporary German Photography Grant in 2024 ࿐ Roxana's current practice engages in critical discussions concerning the development of (hegemonial) narratives, as well as the relations between image- and knowledge-production. Roxana examines ‘the’ body as a construct, material and representative within social orders. In this function, the work understands itself as an exercise in utopian thinking, seeing and speaking – a contribution to contemporary, social and aesthetic discourses.

Carlos Trancoso is a Portuguese visual artist that works and lives in Porto. He uses the photographic gaze as a critical tool to understand how the human being relates to technology. His work aims to challenge established patterns of interaction relating to the creation of images in contemporary society. Although he mainly uses fictional approaches, his work incorporates a documental photography language with the expanded practice of creating cameraless images, mixed media and computer generated images. He is a founding member of Barda collective, which utilizes visual arts to foster social cohesion. He has exhibited at festivals such as Photoalicante, Backlight (2020), Photo Open Up, f/est Amarante (2022), Athens Digital Arts Festival (2023), Bienal da Maia (2021/2023) and Bienal de Fotografia do Porto (2025) . His works have also been exhibited in spaces such as Galeria FFAC, Galeria Dentro and MIRA FORUM in Porto, Casa do Capitão and XYZ Books in Lisbon and El Local in Madrid.