The
Artist
Pavle Nikolić
Lives and Works in
Paris
Pavle Nikolić (b. 2001, Niš, Serbia) works with photography and video, examining fundamental human tensions — authority and powerlessness, dominance and submission, aggression and passivity. He investigates how these opposing forces interact, using the constructive and transformative capacities of his chosen mediums to find the threshold at which they begin to turn into one another. Pavle studied applied photography at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and fine art at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. He now lives and works in Paris.
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Pavle Nikolić
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Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.
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Julia Gaisbacher (*1983) lives and works in Vienna (AT). She studied art history at the University of Graz (AT) and sculpture at the Dresden University of Fine Arts (DE), as well as the Sint-Lukas School of Arts in Brussels (BE).
At the center of her working method are extensive research and long-term observations that focus on the urban landscape as a human living environment. The starting point is always photography.
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Paweł Starzec (Ph. D) is a documentalist, photographer, sociologist, academic teacher. Mainly interested in long-term projects focusing on envisioning broader processes through their aftermath and consequences. Recipient of the Young Poland 2024 Ministry of Culture scholarship, PixHouse Talent of the Year Scholar award, Artistic Scholarship of the Mayor of Wrocław 2024, winner of Urbanautica Institute Award, Enconctros da Imagem Discovery Award and Spojrzenia Award, received honorable mentions in Allegro Prize, Lodz Fotofestival Grand Prix, and CDS Documentary Essay Prize, finalist of the Polityka Passports Award and Grand Press Photo. His
works are in collections of Encontros Da Imagem (PT) and National Institute of Architecture and Urbanism (PL). As a sociologist, he researches modern iconographies and visual narratives. Vice- Dean of the Faculty of Design at SWPS University and Head of Communication Design speciality at the School of Form USWPS. Creator of workshop programs, co-founder of Azimuth Press art/ education collective. Member of APP platform. Graduate of Applied Sociology Department of University of Warsaw, and of Institute of Creative Photography of Silesian University in Opava (MA). Part time musician and sound artist under various monikers. DIY / zine culture enthusiast.
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Pecyna holds an MA in Photography and Multimedia from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Poland. He has presented work widely in solo and group exhibitions in Poland and internationally, across museums and festival contexts. He currently participates in the international Heritage Lens programme, focusing on how climate change and environmental catastrophe reorganise cultural heritage, public imaginaries and the conditions of living. He was awarded the Artistic Scholarship of the City of Łódź (2025).
Tony Dočekal (1992, Amsterdam) is a photographer and visual artist whose work focuses on identity, belonging, and the shared human condition. Her practice is shaped by encounters with individuals and communities on the road, with a particular interest in the resilience and adaptability of people living on society’s margins.
Her first monograph, The Color of Money and Trees, explores the tension between material success and deeper fulfillment, asking if true prosperity lies in community and self-awareness rather than wealth and possessions. The series includes Chad on Skid Row, which won the Zilveren Camera Portrait Award in 2021, and Lyric at El Pais, a portrait of a young girl living off the grid in Arizona. The work navigates the balance between societal expectations and individual freedom.
Tony’s debut short film, Pearls on Credit, reflects on how personal identity is shaped by broader economic systems and societal expectations. Shown alongside an installation of The Color of Money and Trees at Biennale Images Vevey, it deepens Tony’s exploration of the pressures individuals face in navigating these structures.
Tony holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from ArtEZ University of the Arts and has received recognition, including the Olympus Young Talent Award and De Burgemeester de Bruinprijs.
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.
Zoe is a photographer from Co. Antrim, now living in Edinburgh.
Zoe is interested in the relationship between humans and the environment, as well as the systems of classification that we use to make sense of the world around us. She works on long term photographic projects, drawing on scientific and historic research as well as lived experience to tell a story about a place or subject. Her background research has been informed by photography’s history as a tool of imperialism and this is something that she works to recognise and subvert within her photographic practice.
She currently teaches on the Stills School, an alternative education programme for young people and is a visiting lecturer at Queen Margaret University. She has received funding from Edinburgh City Council and the Richard & Siobhan Coward Foundation and was recently included in Fantasy Island, a publication documenting the last 50 years of photography in Ireland.
Zoe participated in PhotoIreland's New Irish Works III between 2019 and 2021.
Ornella Mari is a Belgian-born, Hungarian-Italian photographer based in Budapest. Her work explores themes of identity, femininity, and self-perception, often delving into the emotional and psychological landscapes of her subjects. Through a nuanced approach to portraiture, she captures the complexities of human experience, from moments of vulnerability to personal transformation.
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Rooted in both conceptual and documentary influences, Mari’s photography serves as a visual dialogue between the external world and inner realities. Whether through staged compositions or candid moments, her work seeks to challenge perceptions and offer new ways of seeing oneself and others.
Sarah Mei Herman holds a BA in Photography from The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and an MA in Fine Art Photography from London’s Royal College of Art.
Her personal projects explore relationships, intimacy, loneliness, longing, and the human urge for physical proximity, often focusing on the vulnerability of transitory life stages.
Her work has been exhibited internationally, at institutions and festivals such as The National Portrait Gallery, London; The Benaki Museum, Athens; Photo Elysée, Lausanne; Le Château d’Eau, Toulouse; The Jewish History Museum, Amsterdam; and the JIMEI x ARLES International Photo Festival, Xiamen. Her projects have been recognised by a range of prizes and awards, including the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, the Hyères Festival of Fashion and Photography and the Arnold Newman Prize For New Directions in Photographic Portraiture. Her work is found in several public and private art collections, whilst her images have been published by the likes of iD, Vogue Italia, Foam Magazine, Paper Journal and Dear Dave. Herman’s second photo book – Julian & Jonathan – was recently published by the London-based GOST Books. Future 2025 exhibitions include solo shows at Concertgebouw Brugge in Belgium, and at GLAZ festival in Rennes, France.
Ondřej Kubeš (* 1999) is a Czech visual artist working primarily with documentary and staged photography, installation, drawing and performance. His intimate, poetic archive-based artworks examine topics of personal memory, identity, affection, trauma, queerness and family relations. Kubeš’s work has been exhibited in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Belgium. He completed his master's degree at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague at the Photography II. studio led by Alena Kotzmannová.
Visual artist. Born in Minsk, Belarus. Based in Paris, France.
Masha’s work has been shown internationally, including at UNFAIR in Amsterdam; Fotofestiwal Lodz; the Gallery of Contemporary Art (GfZK) in Leipzig; Arsenał Gallery in Białystok; KVOST in Berlin; Cité internationale des arts; Circulation(s) festival in Paris, etc.
Her work has been featured in British Journal of Photography, Fisheye Magazine, Der Greif, De Standaard, WePresent, etc.
She is one of the recipients of the Prince Claus Seed Award 2021.
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Salvatore Vitale (b. 1986, Palermo, Italy) is a Swiss-based artist, director, and professor whose work explores the complexity of contemporary societies. Using expanded and speculative storytelling through mixed media techniques, he focuses on the politics of systems that regulate modernity and the impact of technological transformations.
Vitale is the Artistic Director of EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival and FUTURES Photography, both international platforms dedicated to contemporary photography. He also serves as a Professor at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, where he leads the Transmedia Storytelling Programme. Previously, he was the co-founder and editor-in-chief of YET magazine, an international photography publication.
Vitale’s work has received international awards. It is featured in several public and private collections and has been widely exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwide.
Ángel Luis González Fernández is a designer, artist, and curator supporting engaging visual arts practices, winner of Business to Arts David Manley Emerging Entrepreneur Awards 2011.
His work manifests through PhotoIreland, which he founded in 2010 to stimulate a critical dialogue on Photography. He devises curatorial projects placing conversations in the public realm around visual culture, critical thinking. These include events (PhotoIreland Festival, Halftone Print Fair, arts residency How to Flatten a Mountain, and New Irish Works), a cultural hub (The Library Project: Ireland’s Art bookshop, host to a unique resource library of photobooks and a productive arts programme), publishing projects that distribute inexpensive access to local practices, research projects (Critical Academy: examining contemporary art practices). He works collaboratively with a growing network of organisations, noticeably through ambitious Creative Europe partnerships.
During the Summer 2020 lockdown he launched the critical publication OVER Journal, now distributed globally. He received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary to deepen research on the broad historical and specific artistic context of Photography in Ireland, to curate an ambitious survey exhibition in PhotoIreland Festival 2022 and to publish a series of publications on the matter. He regularly contributes to publications such as the forthcoming The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies, edited by Lucy Soutter, Duncan Wooldridge.
See some of his Graphic and Web Design work in the 100 Design Archive.
Iveta Gabaliņa (1979) is a curator, artist and educator. She has studied photography at the studio of Andrejs Grants, at Bournemouth Art Institute, and in the MA programme at Alto University in Helsinki. Her work has been exhibited in Latvia and internationally, including at C/O (Berlin, Germany), GESTE (Paris), and Williams Tower Gallery (Houston, USA). Gabaliņa has participated in photography festivals in Singapore, Hanover, and elsewhere. Her work is included in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, Geste Paris, and the Deutsche Börse Art Collection.
Since 2008 she has been part of ISSP team, responsible for numerous educational and curatorial projects. In 2018 she founded ISSP Gallery - an exhibition space dedicated to contemporary photography.
I’ve always loved photography, even if it sounds like a cliche. The first photos I took, I did without knowing how to do that, without paying any attention to framing, subject or composition. After a while, I began to understand what is happening in the space between me as a photographer and the subject I was photographing. And many years later, I also understood why I love to photograph. To communicate. A message, a concept, an emotion.
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