Criticae 2023/24

A visual artist working with different forms of photography and other lens based mediums, text and archival material. Henri’s work is socially engaged, revolving around presenting perspectives on phenomena within society and communities through documentary narratives. His works are characterised by the dialectical document that engages a subject matter but at the same time inquires about the constructions and incongruities within the medium it uses to represent that subject. He defines documentary as an intention by the author to constitute and disseminate understanding, constructing his documentary narratives in polyphonic, inclusive and contradictive ways.

Graduating with a BA in photography at the Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Art in 2021. His work has been a part of exhibitions at festivals and museums such as Krakow Photomonth and Amos Rex. In addition to his artistic practice, Henri is the main lecturer for photography at the HEO Institute for Further Education.

Maryam Al Khasawneh is a multidisciplinary researcher and photographer from Jordan. Her work stands at the intersection between historical archival research, photography and food and plant sustainability. Having participated and organized workshops on Food Design, her photography is very much focused on relationships and interdependencies between human and plant species. She has participated in multiple solo and group photography exhibitions around the Arab world.

Amsterdam based photographer who visualizes scenes with a cinematographic approach. Her work revolves around (sub)cultures and a sense of community. As a visual anthropologist she examines culture, identity, traditions and the associated symbolism.

She graduated with her Bachelor of Arts at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague in 2016. She creates autonomous projects as well as works for clients. Her work has been exhibited during the Dutch Design Week, Helsinki Photo Festival and in TETEM, among others.

Alexandra Corcode (b.2000), is a Romanian Documentary Photographer based between The Netherlands and Romania.

Her work focuses on themes of immigration, loneliness, death, lost traditions, mental and physical deterioration and the traces of human absence. Much of her practice is focused on capturing the unseen communities in her country. She continues to document the life of her family and low-income communities, in her home country of Romania.

In 2021 she participated in the VII Academy 9 month long programme in documentary and narrative practice. This year she has been published in Reuve 6 Mois - La Revue de Photojournalisme and has been selected for the New York Times Portfolio Review. In 2019 she was the recipient of the Licart portrait award and was a finalist for the Siena International Photo Award.

Alexandra is currently undertaking a BA in Photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK).

Angela Crosti graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) Honours in Photography at the University of Westminster in 2022. She also completed a master’s degree in Economics and Business Administrations and worked as a Project Manager before becoming a photographer.

Angela's way of photographing is instinctive, looking for simple beauty and moments of silence that dwell in everyday life. She embraces coincidence and intuition as essential working methods, working predominantly with medium format film cameras and using natural light. Angela is interested in documenting different perspectives and hidden dialogues. Her practice revolves particularly on youth and adolescents, where she creates visual narratives open to the viewer's interpretation and imagination. Angela uses landscapes to evoke interior states, as reflections and metaphors of everyday life that transcend the surface and unravel the tension that linger below. Her portraits are taken instinctively capturing tender moments that are authentic and intimate, focusing on human connection and complicity.

Angela is inspired by literature, philosophy and painting and her way of photographing is the by- product of this immersion. She is based in London.

Back in Brazil for two years, visual artist Paula Faraco lived for 12 years in Berlin, Germany, where she studied photography. During that time, she participated in group exhibitions, and artistic residencies, Paula also received two honorable mentions. Under the influence of her training in journalism and, this year, in Philosophy, her most recent works mix photographs and texts and her research focuses on issues such as women's sexuality, femicide, and sexual harassment.

Currently, Paula Faraco lives and works in São Paulo.

A French national of multicultural origin, born in 1965 and mother of two, Sandra has been living in Switzerland again since January 2018 after having left France in 1997 and lived for several years in Italy, Singapore and Japan.

Expatriation required great adaptability and pushed her to reinvent her life several times. After a rewarding experience of 12 years in the field of industrial marketing and fashion, she chose to study again to become an interior designer, profession that she exercised for several years.

In Asia from 2012 to 2017 she decided to share the emotions she felt while capturing images in the streets. Photography appeared to her as an essential part of her life and she followed some workshops with inspiring photographers who helped her develop an artistic sensitivity and a certain consistency in her work.

Among other things, this allowed her to be selected for the KG + Award in 2017 with her BEHIND serie and to be exhibited in Kyoto during the Kyotography festival. Her work is usually judged as being delicate and poetic, while she is always looking for a singular and sensible aestheticism in the outlook she puts on the world around her.

Xuan-Phong Le is an independent photographer based in Hanoi, Vietnam. He is currently exploring the nuances of photographic practice with a focus on documentary strategies while advocating for the empowerment of young, emerging photographers in the local scene.

Camilla Marrese (1998) is an italian photographer and designer. She holds a bachelor in visual communication from ISIA Urbino (IT), and is now attending MA Information Design at Design Academy Eindhoven (NL). Together with Gabriele Chiapparini, she is developing a collaborative artistic practice rooted in the idea of turning private, individual thinking into raw matter for a collective elaboration. They are interested in employing photography as a tool to explore and study territories, identities, and to look for answers to intimate questions.

Michaela Nagyidaiová is a Slovak photographer based in Bratislava. Her work analyses the connection between landscape and memory, the transformation of Central & Eastern EU countries from communism to capitalism, and migration. She is intrigued by past, yet also current ideologies, and political systems that often shape layers of one’s upbringing, daily life, and native environment. Drawing inspiration from often unresolved past events, though also contemporary issues, she usually works on long-term and personal projects that allow her to combine her photographs with text or archival material. She graduated with an MA in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication in 2019. She is a member of Women Photograph.

Emilio Nasser is a photographer and multi-media artist originally from Argentina and currently based in Switzerland.

Embarking on different paths, his works are based on the interconnections with local histories, re-visited myths, oral memories, belonging, imagination and community. Seeking to expand the multiple possibilities of visual narratives and storytelling through lens-based practices, research and collaborative approaches.

After graduating in photography at Spilimbergo School of Applied Arts, he became a self-taught cook on the move when the Argentinian social-economic crisis in 2001 broke out. While living between Latinoamerica and Europe he has been engaging in multiple learning experiences; such as ISSP-Lisa Barnard, Criticae-Max Pinkers, Folio Phmuseum, Laura El-Tantawy-Sybren Kuiper, Experimental's Photobook-Julián Barón, among others. Member of Now_you_see_me_moria collective and co-editor of Brote, a collaborative platform focusing on food with local-global perspectives.

Awarded and exhibited on different platforms as; the Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award at Duke University (US), Phmuseum Days (IT), Verzasca Foto Festival (CH), Emergentes International Photography Award-Encontros da Imagen (PT), Valongo Festival Da Imagen (BR), Yet-Magazine (CH), PHEspaña (ES), SCAN PhotoBooks (ES), Ojo de Pez (ES). Twice awarded grants by the National Arts Fund (AR).

She holds a BA and MA in Photography from ”George Enescu” National University of Arts, Iași, where she is now a doctoral candidate, with a research on photographic documentary practices regarding the Romanian economic migration. She has also pursued two Erasmus programs at Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao and Universidad de Murcia, Spain. Her work has been displayed in group exhibitions in Iași and Bucharest, Romania.

Moa Linnea Matilda Nyberg is a Sweden and Italy based photographer and aspiring photojournalist. Born and raised on the Swedish west coast she spent three years in Florence, Italy, where she obtained a BFA in Photography and New Media.

Her work mainly focuses on tabu and uneasy social topics. Visually, Nyberg focuses on the small details and the atmosphere, the individual fractions of the story that together creates a whole. By connecting these pieces, she wants to take something abstract (such as mental health) and turn it into something concrete. Her most recent and current project talks about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) or, more commonly, Winter Depression, a mental disorder that affects many but isn't talked about or recognised enough.

Lee-Ann Olwage is a visual storyteller from South Africa. Her work is all about identity, collaboration, and celebration. She is interested in using the medium of photography as a mode of co-creation and celebration. With her long-term projects, she aims to create a space where people she collaborates with can play an active part in the creation of images they feel tells their stories in a way that is affirming and celebratory.

In 2020 she was awarded a World Press Photo Award, Palm Photo Prize shortlist, CAP Prize shortlist, Marilyn Stafford Fotoreportage Award shortlist, IPA Honorable Mention, and selected for The New York Times Portfolio Review. She is a member of Native Agency, Women Photograph, and African Women in Photography.

Suzan Pektas is an Istanbul based visual story teller. She developed a passion for visual forms of expression during her high school years. Pektas has been further exploring these different forms at the intersection between visual arts and documentation since 2015. Her current projects focus on the identity of the individual in relationship to his or her environment, dealing mostly with women, urban transformation and immigration. Her works have been featured in printed and online media such as Courrier International, LFI Magazine, Leica Camera, LensCulture, 6MOIS, RedMilk Magazine, etc. and exhibited at international festivals.

Alex Robertson is a photographer living and practising in Hackney Wick, East London. Taking a documentary photography approach to his work, Alex has developed an immersive style with collaboration at the centre of his practice. By positioning himself within the environment of his work, his photography takes on an authentic and highly contextual quality.

Drawing on the many forms that documentary photography can take, Alex chooses to focus on social context and the wider political landscape within which his work sits. He also uses constructed elements within his work, exploring the staged nature of images and our relationship with photography in the era of social media, image manipulation and the internet. Whilst his images from his warehouse project are a product of the at-risk artist’s community in Hackney Wick, they also directly contribute to this rapidly changing landscape; Alex’s documentary practice allows him to explore this symbiosis.

Irina Shkoda is a visual lens-based artist. Originally from Kiev (Ukraine), she currently lives in Moscow. Graduated from the School of Modern Photography Docdocdoc, Saint-Petersburg, in 2019.

The most important part of her work is dedicated to personal long-term projects that contemplate the notion of the sacred and the associated taboos. The impulse for research on this topic arose as a result of her adolescent experience, when she spent a significant part of her time in a convent.

DMT is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist, born in Pretoria, South Africa (1998). A poet and visual artist, DMT specialises in documentary and portrait photography, often drawing from

literary, sociological and metaphysical influences.

DMT is a member of Through the Lens Collective and was a participant of PhMuseum's CRITICAE Masterclass 2022. They have been selected for exhibitions and festivals (F-StopMagazine, Float Photo Magazine, Praxis Gallery), and been published in print and online (Unvael, Pearl Press, among others).

Lisa is a documentary photographer, specializing in family and storytelling. Her work explores complex subjects: humanity - how we exist in the every day, and relationships - the true-to-life stories that can’t be replicated in a portrait studio. Her work captures the unnoticed details that tell a family’s story and aims to create empathy and a greater understanding of the human condition.

Her work has been featured in multiple group exhibitions, including 1854 media/BJP Open Walls Arles 2021, and 'Picture Imperfect', a traveling exhibition featured at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. She resides in Alameda, CA with her husband, two human children, and two dog children, Chloe and Mr. Rufus.