Folio 2020

Tommaso Parrillo is an Italian publisher and founder of Witty Books, a publishing house founded with the name of Witty Kiwi in 2012, that aims to promote photography and visual arts. Since 2016 he is also co-founder of JEST, an independent space dedicated to enhancing culture and photography in Turin . He also teaches photography in institutions as IED Torino, private school and workshops.

Federico Barbon is a graphic designer focusing on web and editorial design. He studied at Bauer school in Milan, Italy (2013) and graduated from ECAL in 2019. He worked at Studiopaola (Milan), Navone Associati (Milan) and Lamm & Kirch (Leipzig). He's now working as a book designer for a number of publishers (Witty Books, Humboldt, Yoffy Press, Skinnerboox) and collaborates with ECAL.

Lisa Barnard (1967) is a British photographic artist and educator based in Cardiff. Her photographic practice discusses real events, embracing complex and innovative visual strategies that utilise both traditional documentary techniques with more contemporary and conceptually rigorous forms of representation. Lisa connects her interest in aesthetics, current photographic debates around materiality and the existing political climate.

Sean O Hagan, Guardian Review of 'Chateau Despair': “Barnard describes herself as a photographic artist, but her work seems unapologetically political. She pays homage to, and undercuts, the tropes of documentary realism”.
She is an Associate Professor at The University of South Wales and she is the Programme Leader on the MA in Documentary Photography. Lisa has two publications both with GOST, Chateau Despair and Hyenas of the Battlefield, Machines in the Garden. Her new project, The Canary and the Hammer has been published by MACK in 2019.

Born in 1985 in France, Yogananthan has been working over the last 10 years on the personal projects Piémanson (2009-2013) and A Myth of Two Souls (2013-2020).

The photobook as a medium has been central to Yogananthan’s work since he began which has led him to co-found the publishing house Chose Commune in 2014.

Drawing inspiration from the Ramayana, the 7-book project A Myth of Two Souls mixes daily life with staged pictures combining a wide range of techniques. The Musée de l’Elysée (Lausanne) and the Chanel Nexus Hall (Tokyo) have presented the first solo exhibitions of A Myth of Two Souls in 2019.

Yogananthan has received several awards, including an ICP Infinity Award (2017). That same year he was also selected among the 20 FOAM Talents. In 2019, he was awarded the Immersion prize by the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès. This award will lead Yogananthan to create a new body of work in the US in 2021, to be exhibited at SFMOMA and Fondation Henri-Cartier Bresson in 2022.

Vasantha Yogananthan is represented by The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London), Jhaveri Contemporary (Mumbai) and Polka Gallery (Paris).

Natasha Christia (Athens, 1976) is an unaffiliated curator, writer and educator based in Barcelona. She holds a BA in Archaeology and History of Art from the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, an MA in Modern Art and Film from the University of Essex, and a Postgraduate Diploma on Publishing from the University of Barcelona. Her research focuses on the exploration and reinvention of dominant narratives through a novel reading of archival collections, film and the photobook, and the dialogue between 20th century avant-garde photography and contemporary forms of expression often labelled as “post-photography”. In 2016, she was the artistic director of the fourth DocField Documentary Photography Festival. She has recently curated “Lukas Birk: Sammlung bis jetzt” (Galerie Hollenstein, Lustenau Austria, 2018), “The Family of No Man” (co-curated with Brad Feuerhelm, Arles Cosmos 2018), and “You Are What You Eat”, a group exhibition on food, identity politics and ideology (Krakow Photomonth 2019).

Niccolò Fano (Rome,1985) - founder and director of Matèria.

Based in the neighbourhood of San Lorenzo in Rome, Matèria opened its doors to the public in 2015. The gallery represents seven artists and proposes an exhibition programme that touches upon all aspects of Contemporary Art, with a particular focus on the role and use of the photographic medium.

He holds a BA in Photography from the University for the Creative Arts, a Masters degree in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and Creative Ventures MBA scholarship at London Business School.

Niccolò is currently programme director at ISFCI in Rome and has taught at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, University for the Creative Arts, Rome University of Fine Arts and Officine Fotografiche Roma.

Jörg M. Colberg is a writer and educator. Since 2002 he is the founder and editor of Conscientious, a blog dedicated to contemporary photography. It offers profiles of photographers, in-depth interviews, photobook reviews, and general articles about photography and related issues. American Photo included Colberg in their list of “Photography Innovators of 2006,” writing “a new generation of thought leaders has emerged to give photographers and photography fans new avenues of information.”

In addition to working on Conscientious, Colberg has contributed articles/essays to magazines and artist monographs. He is the author of Understanding Photobooks: The Form and Content of the Photographic Book (Focal Press, 2016). Colberg has taught at a number of universities including the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Hartford.