Inez Baturo (PL)
Artist photographer, publisher, translator, editor.
One of the organizers of FotoArtFestival and its program director
in 2005-2017 and CEO from 2017. Founder (with her husband - Andrzej) and vice-president of the Photography Center Foundation (in the years 2004 - 2017). President of the Photography Center Foundation since 2017. Member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (since 1999, leg. No. 770).
in 2005-2017 and CEO from 2017. Founder (with her husband - Andrzej) and vice-president of the Photography Center Foundation (in the years 2004 - 2017). President of the Photography Center Foundation since 2017. Member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (since 1999, leg. No. 770).
Curator of the Art of Looking exhibition (B&B Photography Gallery, Bielsko-Biała, 2003) and of the international competition and exhibition "Without Borders" (2005). Vice-president of the ZPAF Mountain District (2004 - 2008).
One of the founding members of the Association of Polish Nature Photographers (in 2006). Member of the Forum Agency (Warsaw), IRIS Photo, a UK-based organization that promotes global women's photography.
She translated "The History of World Photography" by Naomi Rosenblum from English, the largest study of this type in the world.
He mainly photographs landscapes, but he also has theatrical, portraits, children and fashion photography.
Major awards: Prize of the Mayor of Bielsko-Biała in the field of culture - Ikar 2005; Annual Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for outstanding achievements in the field of fine arts (2007); Scholarship of the ZAiKS Authors' Association, Warsaw 2011 and 2012, Scholarship of the Culture Department of the City of Bielsko-Biała (2013)
For the Beskidy album: The Amber Book, Meetings of Good Book Publishers, Gdańsk (1995), award for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year, Competition of the Polish Association of Book Publishers (1995)
Katarzyna Zolich (PL)
Photographer and visual researcher. Winner of the scholarship of Spółdzielnia Młodych Twórców (2013) granted by the Society of Creative Initiatives "ę", scholarship of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage for the project "Catalog of invisible places" (2014, 2019), scholarship of the Mayor of Bielsko-Biała in the field of culture and art (2015) and the Institute of Polish-Hungarian Cooperation Wacław Felczak (2020). In 2017, she participated in the residency program at Vera & Donald Blinken Open Society Archives in Budapest, Hungary. She presented her works at individual exhibitions, incl. "Thick description", Debuts, TIFF Festival, Agora Cultural Center, Wrocław (2013), "Coordinates", PDF, Wuppertal, Germany (2015), "Back-up facilities", ArtZona, Krakow (2017). In 2018, the artist's first photo book was published, made in collaboration with Beatrice Bergamo: "Vivir en Valparaíso", Granada: TRN - Laboratorio artístico transfronterizo (Spain 2018).
The artist works at the Paper Beats Rock foundation, where she co-creates and co-organizes events popularizing knowledge about zines and photo books; organizes and conducts editorial workshops all over Poland.
Since 2019, he has been running an online self-publishing library under the banner of Małe nakłady (Small editions).
www.malenaklady.org
Dávid Biró (HU)
photographer and visual artist lives and works in Budapest. He completed BA in Photography at the University of Kaposvár and MA in Photography at the Moholy-Nagy University of Arts.
Dávid Biró’s work is characterized by an interest in technology and its critical examination. He aims to map the technological environment that defines our everyday life to uncover their social and political effects. Meanwhile, he brings into play the ethical issue of observation and being observed, which is without exaggeration one of the most important dilemmas of our time. This creative attitude provides a critical reading of the surveillance capitalism and techno-positivist approach. As an artist, his primary goal is to assess the effects of current trends and thereby develop a conscious and healthy user attitude with which we can face the challenges created by our renewable digital devices.
Dávid Biró’s work is characterized by an interest in technology and its critical examination. He aims to map the technological environment that defines our everyday life to uncover their social and political effects. Meanwhile, he brings into play the ethical issue of observation and being observed, which is without exaggeration one of the most important dilemmas of our time. This creative attitude provides a critical reading of the surveillance capitalism and techno-positivist approach. As an artist, his primary goal is to assess the effects of current trends and thereby develop a conscious and healthy user attitude with which we can face the challenges created by our renewable digital devices.
Biró is a representative of the new generation of Hungarian photographers, his works are regularly featured in Hungarian and international art festivals and exhibition spaces, such as Ludwig Museum, MODEM, Q Contemporary, Capa Center and Mai Manó Ház. Between 2017-2022, he was represented by Trapéz Galéria. In 2018, he was a finalist in the Dutch ING Unseen Talent Award, in 2022 he won the MODEM award, in 2021 and 2022 he received a József Pécsi creative scholarship, in 2022- 2023 he was a lecturer at the MOME photography master department.
Gábor Arion Kudász (HU)
(1978, Budapest) received his diploma at the Hungarian University of Art and Design in 2003. He incorporates staged and artificial elements into a documentary approach to photography. He is currently involved in photographic research on the life choices of youth, supported by a scholarship from the Hungarian Academy of Arts. His achievements were recognized by the Balogh Rudolf Award in 2012, the Robert Capa Grand Prize in 2015, Kone Foundation scholarship in 2021. His works are included in public collections, such as the Hungarian National Gallery and Musée de l'Elysée. Kudász is head of the photography MA program at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design.
Igor Manko (UA)
Born in 1962, Poltava, Ukraine; lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Photographer and curator. Head curator at VASA Exhibitions ( vasa-project.com ).
Igor Manko has been engaged in art photography since 1982. In the mid-1980s he joined the well-known Kharkiv School of Photography group of artists and has been an active participant of Ukraine’s art photography scene ever since. In 2013 he joined the VASA Project curatorial team and is a head curator for VASA now.
In 2021 he completed a project on the Kharkiv School of Photography for the Ukrainian Institute’s Ukraine Everywhere program ( ksp.ui.org.ua ).
Igor Manko has exhibited his work extensively both in Ukraine and internationally. His photos are kept in private collections and galleries. Igor is the author of several essays on photography in Ukraine.
Zuzana Pustaiová (SK)
is a freelance photographer, lecturer, educator, photo editor, and editor-in-chief of Fotonoviny. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld, Germany. In January 2022, she completed her doctoral degree in arts. In her artworks, Pustaiová explores role-playing in contemporary society as a principal element that forms the relationships between family members, relatives, friends, or other diverse social groups. With a sense of wit, humor and irony, she uncovers the cultural stereotypes related to gender, age, tradition, and social inclusion. She has received numerous awards in contemporary photography (nomination C/O Berlin Talent Award 2024 & MAST grant 2023/2024, 3rd prize LensCulture Art Photography Award 2023, finalist at Grand Prix and Book Award Images Vevey 2023/2024, Grand Prix Rovinj Photodays) and in 2018 she was named Slovak Photographer of the Year. She has exhibited internationally in Europe and Canada. Her first art book, based on the work One Day Every Day (2022), is shortlisted for Paris Photo Aperture Photobook Awards 2022. Pustaiová is a member of the Reflektor (AT) and Association of Slovak Professional Photographers (SK). She is represented by Photon Gallery.
Štěpánka Bieleszová (CZ)
studied art history at the Faculty of Arts of Palacký University in Olomouc (1990-1995). From 1995-2018 she worked as chief curator at the Olomouc Museum of Art, and since 2007
as curator of the photography collection there. She has contributed to the publication of monographs on Czech photographers by Miloslav Stibor (2007), Jaroslav Vávra (2011), Vladimír Birgus (2015), Jindřich Štreit (2016) and Milena Valušková (2017). She is the author of the publication Civilized Illusions, in which she professionally processed the photographic collection of the Olomouc Museum of Art, which represents the development of Czech photography from the 19th to the 21st century. She cooperates with Palacký University in Olomouc (edition Olomouc Photographers, since 2021), and teaches externally at the Institute of Creative Photography at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Opava. She also participated in the
preparation of the exhibition Czech Photography of the 20th Century (Bonn 2009). Together with photographer Jindřich Štreit, she realized a series of exhibitions of emerging
photographers in the Archdiocesan Museum in Olomouc between 2009 and 2017. In 2015 and 2016, she and Prof. V. Birgus prepared overview publications and exhibitions on Czech modern photography for foreign audiences (A Century of Avant-garde and off-guard Photography, Landskrona 2015; At first sight. A selection of Czech photography from the 20th and 21st centuries, Olomouc 2016, highlights the most important manifestations of Czech photography in the past hundred years.
as curator of the photography collection there. She has contributed to the publication of monographs on Czech photographers by Miloslav Stibor (2007), Jaroslav Vávra (2011), Vladimír Birgus (2015), Jindřich Štreit (2016) and Milena Valušková (2017). She is the author of the publication Civilized Illusions, in which she professionally processed the photographic collection of the Olomouc Museum of Art, which represents the development of Czech photography from the 19th to the 21st century. She cooperates with Palacký University in Olomouc (edition Olomouc Photographers, since 2021), and teaches externally at the Institute of Creative Photography at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Opava. She also participated in the
preparation of the exhibition Czech Photography of the 20th Century (Bonn 2009). Together with photographer Jindřich Štreit, she realized a series of exhibitions of emerging
photographers in the Archdiocesan Museum in Olomouc between 2009 and 2017. In 2015 and 2016, she and Prof. V. Birgus prepared overview publications and exhibitions on Czech modern photography for foreign audiences (A Century of Avant-garde and off-guard Photography, Landskrona 2015; At first sight. A selection of Czech photography from the 20th and 21st centuries, Olomouc 2016, highlights the most important manifestations of Czech photography in the past hundred years.
Michael Hanke (CZ)
(*1972) was born in Kladno, Czech Republic. His photographic career began when he was 40 years old. However, only one year later he began to receive prestigious awards for his work, both at the regional and international levels. From the very beginning of his career, he has dedicated his work to the humanistic black & white documentary photography, focusing on long-term projects. He is two-time World Press Photo winner. In 2017, he received 2nd prize for series of photographs documenting a thrilling atmosphere of youth chess tournaments. In 2019, he received 2nd prize for series of photographs documenting an everyday life of the handicapped athlete Zdenek Safranek. He became only the second Czech photographer who has managed to succeed more than once at the World Press Photo contest in its long 67-year history.
Terézia Suránová (SK)
I'm a student of photography and Social Anthropology in Bratislava. My main interest is in topics of structural power, marginalization, and the influence of these phenomena on the aesthetic preferences of local communities. For the last few years, I've been doing mainly documentary photography and visual ethnography, working for multiple magazines and research teams, with multiple exhibitions and two self-published books.
Michaela Bosáková (SK)
I studied the History of Arts at the Commenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
Yet during my studies I started cooperating with Slovak contemporary artists including painters, photographers, multimedia artists...
From there I was offered to cooperate with the House of Photography in Bratislava, which is a very important photography institution known worldwide and respected in the European area.
CEHP runs 2 photographic galleries, renowned annual festival The Month of Photography - we opened the 33rd edition last year (I was co-organizing the exhibition of Bryan Adams). The institution also hosts events, courses on photography and is also a publishing house.
I worked for the festival from 2008 - 2015 full time and until today basically partially, coordinating some parts of the festival, writing articles, reviews, PR for the festival. Otherwise I run the 2 galleries for 7 years.
I also run a Photo gallery in Vienna, Austria - Photon Gallery Wien
I work for the OFF Bratislava festival, which is a festival that runs parallely with The Month of Photography. I coordinate the Academical exhibition (Universities and schools presenting their works)
I was involved in the European Month of Photography projects (8 countries holding a photo festival around Europe)
I was the project and production manager for the biggest publication on European Photography (The History of European Photography 1900-2000) 34-36 countries (depending on the time period), each country represented by a professional from the country. Coordinated artists, writers, institutions, copyrights, sponsors, translators, completely all!
I have organized or done tens of exhibitions, including artists like Martin Parr, Steve McCurry, Roger Ballen, Araki... Of course Slovak artists..
Latest I have visited the Pallas University in Tartu, Estonia, where I was invited as a part of the graduation committee.
Have done many portfolio reviews , talks, lectures, photo book presentations, conferences, events, juries…
Lucia Benická
Mgr Lucia Benická has been working from 2012 as the director of the Gallery of Spiš Artists (Museum of Art, www.gus.sk) in Slovakian city of Spišská Nová Ves, as well as the curator of photography and contemporary art. She has been lecturing at the Krakowskie Szkoły Artystyczne (KSA) since 2008 on the topics of recent history of photography.
Mgr. Benická graduaded from the History of Art and Aesthetics at the Philosophical Faculty of University of Komensky in Bratislava in 1987. She has extensive experiences in the field of contemporary photography and art as the curator, art-manager, lecturer, publicist and as the exhibitions´s organizer. She curated and organized hundreds of exhibitions at home and abroad and published dozens of catalogues. Her recent work also includes publishing, art-production and lecturing in the field of contemporary and historical photography.
In 1987 – 1992 Mgr. Benická worked as the curator at the Gallery of Spiš Artists, in 1993 – 2002 as the curator at the Tatra Gallery in Poprad, in 2003 – 2012 she was freelanced. In 1996 she founded a non-profit organization Dom fotografie, the first specialized institution of photography in Slovakia: till 2005 it resided in Poprad, from 2006 till 2016 at the Liptov Gallery of P.M. Bohúň in Liptovský Mikuláš. She run the organization as the director and curator in collaboration with the experts from Slovakia and abroad. The organization maintained extensive photographic archive, exhibitions, artists-in-residencies, international and educational programs, workshops and the international festival of the Summer Photoschool.
Since 1988 she has been a member of the Slovak Syndicate of Journalists (SSN). In 1993 she received the prestigious curatorial Award of Martin Benka in Slovakia for an international exchange project „Northen England in Northern Slovakia“, followed by Fulbright Sholarships in the USA (1996 / 1997 – Chicago: research at the Museum of Photography at the Columbia College, 2005 –research at the San Diego City Coolege). She took part in many study stays, lectured about photography, curated exhibitions and reviewed portfolios at the festivals in the countries such as USA, Great Britain, Finland, Poland, Spain, Austria, Italy, France, Hungary, Russia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Germany, Bulgaria, Estonia and others.
Adam Krajcir (SK)
Adam is a photographer and visual artist who enforces his experiences as technique for raw and unedited photography. With his characteristic approach and documentarist point of view, Krajcir is creating parallels amongst distinct cultures and traditions while often letting his photographs speak for themselves. Recently graduated from Advertising photography at Tomas Bata University (TBU) in Zlín, Czechia.
Karin Šrubařová (SK)
Karin graduated in intermedia at the Academy of Fine Art in Prague. Currently she works as curator in Galerie FM, art educator and visual artists with main focus on soil ecology. Since 2014 operating in an artistic tandem with Nikola Brabcová under the Prototyp studio, a platform for contemporary artistic and curatorial collaboration, oriented on artistic research and ecology in the long-term projects Soil, dirt, earth (2019 - 2021) and Erosion / Regeneration (2022 - 2024) under the platform for contemporarry art Artyčok.tv.
