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Announcing the new Foam Talents

The 20 artists selected for Foam Magazine's Talent Issue look closely at the world around us, and the one within - without shying away from discomfort or pain.
Paintings, Dreams and Love © Yushi Li and Steph Wilson, courtesy of the artist.

This year, the submission numbers to Foam’s Talent Call reached a record high of 1938 submissions from 85 different countries. Foam is proud to present a selection that offers as much food for thought as beauty and innovation for the medium from all over the world.

The 20 fascinating artists selected for the 2022 edition of Foam Magazine’s Talent issue look closely at both the world around us, and the one within. They use the photographic medium to respond to, digest and navigate a world that continues to present new challenges and problematic structures. Climate change, political conflict, discrimination, displacement and social justice issues: the works address the pressing problems of our times and remind us that photography has the capability to confront the unspeakable.

Ritsch Sisters

The Ritsch Sisters duo started as a collaborative project in the beginning of 2020 by sisters Anna and Maria Ritsch, who have worked in the field of audio-visual media independently over the past years. Their focus is in photography and video that explore the tensions between the physical, spatial, and emotional. The duo collaborates internationally, with Maria based in Vienna, Austria and Anna in New York City, United States.

The Act of Sitting © Ritsch Sisters, courtesy of the artists

Marwan Bassiouni

Marwan Bassiouni is a photo-graphic artist. He holds a BA in photography from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) and he is the recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Student Grant, the 2019 Harry Pennings Award and several other awards and nominations. His work has been featured in the British Journal of Photography, Exit Magazine, LensCulture and Aperture and in private and public international art collections, such as the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Kunstmuseum Bern and the International Center of Photography in New York. Marwan is based in Amsterdam.

New Western Views © Marwan Bassiouni, courtesy of the artist

Myriam Boulos

Myriam Boulos was born in 1992 in Lebanon. At the age of 16 she started to use her camera to question Beirut, its people, and her place among them. She graduated with a master degree in photography from Alba in 2015. Myriam took part in both national and international collective exhibitions, including Infinite identities (Amsterdam), 3ème biennale des photographes du monde arabe (Paris), and C’est Beyrouth (Paris). Today, she uses photography to explore, defy and resist society. In 2021, Myriam was awarded the Grand Prix ISEM and she joined Magnum.

Tell the Trees to Smile © Myriam Boulos, courtesy of the artist

Ange-Frédéric Koffi

Ange-Frédéric Koffi is a visual artist born in Korhogo, Ivory Coast. His installations are the result of a complex articulation between the history of photography, contemporary postcolonial reflections, and the forms and devices of monstration. Since 2015, his photographic work has been interested in the notion of displacement, circulation, and the way in which in West Africa travel contains an essence of its own revealing a part of the everyday. Ange-Frédéric lives and works between Lausanne and Cape Town.

Le Grand Voyage – Version Courte © Ange-Frédéric Koffi, courtesy of the artist

Donavon Smallwood

Donavon Smallwood grew up wanting to be an archaeologist and a poet. He uses photography as an extension of poetry, attempting to understand reality as a world of paradox, symbolism, and human connection. His work focuses on the individual, community, nature, and the anti-nihilistic. His work has been exhibited and published in the USA and overseas. Donavon is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2021 Aperture Portfolio Prize and the 2021 Daylight Photo Awards. Publications and editorial clients include The Cut, FT Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and more. Languor, his first monograph, was published by Trespasser Books in the winter of 2021.

Languor © Donavon Smallwood, courtesy of the artist

Pavo Marinović

Pavo Marinović is a photographer and visual artist traversing the fields of identity, memory, and the reconstruction of political and generational transmission. Through photography, video and installation, his practice engages an approach that swings between fashion, fiction and documentary. Pavo currently lives and works between Switzerland and Paris

Marble Ass © Pavo Marinović, courtesy of the artist

Czar Kristoff

Czar Kristoff is an artist, publisher, designer and organiser, interested in (re)construction of space and memory, through concepts of nesting and temporary architecture, for (pedagogical) occupation, using cottage industry publishing — blueprints, xerox, and other low-fidelity printing methods — as his current media of interest. He has exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Showroom MAMA Rotterdam, Jogja National Museum, C3 Artspace Melbourne, Bangkok Arts and Culture Center, De Appel Amsterdam, Dansehallerne Copenhagen and Vargas Museum Manila. Czar runs Temporary Un ReLearning (URL) Academy, a school with no permanent address, interested in queering art and cultural production in the Philippines.

To Destroy Is To Build © Czar Kristoff, courtesy of the artist

Laura Chen

Laura Chen is a Dutch image maker and writer based in London. Working within the fields of photography, video, collage, mixed-media and found or archival material, her multidisciplinary practice associates a fine art and documentary approach where research and implementation are closely intertwined. Recurring themes and interests include identity, memory, tactility, the marginalised, disregarded and overlooked — whether in everyday objects or groups of people who live and work on the fringes of society. She has been featured in and published by the British Journal of Photography, GUP, Photo London, amongst others. Laura is currently undertaking an MA in Photography Arts at the University of Westminster, London.

Words from Dad © Laura Chen, courtesy of the artist

Kata Geibl

Kata Geibl is a photographer living and working between Budapest and The Hague. Her work is mainly focused on global issues, capitalism, the Anthropocene, and the ambiguities of the photographic medium. Drawing concepts from philosophy and cultural studies, she steps in with metaphorical images to fill in the gaps where words fall short. In 2018, she received the Paris Photo Carte Blanche Award for the series Sisyphus and was nominated for the Palm* Photo Prize. In 2020, Kata was a Grand Prix finalist at Fotofestiwal Łódź, was shortlisted for the Hyères Photo Prize, and won the PHmuseum Vogue Italia Prize.

There Is Nothing New Under the Sun/See Daylight © Kata Geibl, courtesy of the artist

Marvel Harris

Marvel Harris is a photographer whose work revolves around his experiences as an autistic, non-binary transgender artist who has struggled with mental health problems for many years. Marvel graduated from the University of Applied Photography in Apeldoorn in 2018. Marvel’s work is shown both in the Netherlands and abroad at fairs and exhibitions, such as the World Press Photo Expo, Museum Hilversum, Paris Photo, Musea Zutphen, and Webber Gallery. He has since won several prizes with his work, including the prestigious Zilveren Camera in the documentary category (2018). In 2020, Marvel self-published the photo book MARVEL. The book won MACK’s 2021 First Book Award and got republished in 2021.

Inner Journey © Marvel Harris, courtesy of the artist

Seif Kousmate

Seif Kousmate is a self-taught photographer and visual storyteller based in Morocco, with a visual vocabulary at the intersection of documentary photography and the poetry of fine art photography. He is the co-founder of KOZ collective and a member of Diversify Photo. Since 2018, he has been a National Geographic Explorer and was selected in 2020 as a 6x6 Global Talent by World Press Photo, as well as one of the grantees of the Arab Documentary Photography Program. Seif has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, M Le Monde, Newsweek, Libération, The Guardian, El País, amongst others.

WAH’A © Seif Kousmate, courtesy of the artist

Alexandra Rose Howland

Alexandra Rose Howland has spent the last decade working in the Middle East and Africa, creating work that challenges traditional coverage of the regions and their geopolitics. She has shown her work internationally with both solo and group exhibitions and regularly works with National Geographic, Le Monde, the Wall Street Journal, amongst others. In 2021, Alexandra had the solo exhibition as well as the book publication of same title with GOST Books.

Maryam, 2020, Leave and Let Us Go © Alexandra Rose Howland, courtesy of the artist

Yushi Li

Yushi Li is a Chinese artist based in London, working primarily in photography. She holds an MA in Photography and is now doing her PhD in Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art. Yushi was nominated as one of the 100 RPS Hundred Heroines in 2019, and one of the winners of the Female in Focus prize in 2021. She has shown her work in different countries and had solo shows in Malmö, London and Oslo. Yushi’s work mainly engages with the question of the gaze in relation to gender, desire and sexuality, culminating in the investigation of the male representation as an erotic subject in light of digital social networks.

Paintings, Dreams and Love © Yushi Li and Steph Wilson, courtesy of the artist.

Lina Geoushy

Lina Geoushy is an Egyptian photographer working within the spectrum of documentary and portrait photography. She aims to tell stories that deconstruct and question the public’s perception of the prevailing power of patriarchy. Her work largely explores gender, sociopolitics, and women’s empowerment issues. She strives to push the boundaries through her work by exploring rarely documented communities and ineffable topics. Lina’s practice is research-led and her projects are both commissioned and self-initiated. She was awarded Documentary Photographer of the Year by the Royal Photographic Society in 2019 and is currently completing her MA in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism at the London College of Communication. Lina is based between London and Cairo.

Shame Less A Protest Against Sexual Violence © Lina Geoushy, courtesy of the artist

Olgaç Bozalp

Olgaç Bozalp’s cultural awareness and sensitivity to personal identities mixed with fashion and documentary is what makes his work feel simultaneously nostalgic and alien. Olgaç explores the world of his subjects by frequently shooting in their homes, providing an intimate portrayal between subject and photographer that is undeniably captivating and informative. He was featured in British Journal of Photography’s 2019 ‘Ones to Watch’, and Aperture’s ‘Element of Style’ issue. Olgaç’s work has also been published by Dazed, Le Monde, Atmos and his work has been exhibited in the Aperture Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery and Odunpazarı Modern Museum.

Home/Leaving One for Another © Olgaç Bozalp, courtesy of the artist

Carla Liesching

Carla Liesching is an inter-disciplinary artist working across photography, writing, collage, sculpture, installation, bookmaking and design. Grounded in early experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa, her work considers the intersections of representation, knowledge and power, with a focus on colonial histories and enduring constructions of race and geography. She is an avid self-publisher and is a contributing editor and co-founder of femme-centred quarterly publication Puzzazz Mag. In 2021, the book version of her project Good Hope was published by MACK. Carla is a 2021 Light Work Grant recipient, as well as a winner of the British Journal of Photography Open Walls Arles competition

Good Hope © Carla Liesching, courtesy of the artist

Ghazaleh Rezaei

Ghazaleh Rezaei is a photographer based in Tehran, Iran. She obtained both her BFA and MA in Photography from the University of Tehran. Her work focuses on aspects of culture, history and their relation to contemporary concerns. Ghazaleh has also been exhibited in photography festivals such as Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles (2017), the 10th Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Gaspésie (2019) and Photolux Italy (2019), amongst others.

The Martyrs © Ghazaleh Rezaei, courtesy of the artist

Linn Phyllis Seeger

Linn Phyllis Seeger is a cloud-based artist and PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London. Her work is rooted in digital imaging and online media, examining the ways in which we navigate the private and public spheres of our password-protected personalised interfaces, social networks, and urban spaces. Of specific interest within her iPhone-based artistic practice and research are contemporary modes of intimacy enabled through digital communication. Linn’s first monograph You I Everything Else, articulating post-digital romance as an ecstasy of communication, was published in November 2020.

0N0E © Linn Phyllis Seeger, courtesy of the artist

Diego Moreno

Diego Moreno specialised in photography between Mexico and Switzerland. He has received different awards around the world such as: the 2021 iPhone Photography Awards 2021 in New York, the 2021 LensCulture Art Award, the 2020 OpenWalls by the British Journal of Photography, the 2019 Cheerz Photo Festival Award in Paris, the 2019 POY Latam Award in Iberoamerica, the 2019 International Image Festival FINI and the LensCulture Emerging Talent Award in 2018. Diego’s work is part of collections and solo and group exhibitions in some of the most important visual arts festivals in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the USA.

Malign Influences/The Holy Mountains © Diego Moreno, courtesy of the artist

Donja Nasseri

Donja Nasseri's work combines photography, objects, video and language to a ‘collaged unity’. As the German-born daughter of an Afghan father and an Egyptian-German mother, she has a sharp view on the diversity of possible narrations and the truths associated with them. The changes in tradition, culture and (gender) identity make up the conceptual core of Donja‘s oeuvre, which is primarily based on photography as a ‘carrier of memories’, as a medium of documentation and fictional manipulation with all digital and analogue collage techniques.

Woman, who would be King © Donja Nasseri, courtesy of the artist

About Foam Talent Call

Foam invites photographers to submit their portfolios through the Talent Call, an international search for exceptionally talented photographers under the age of 40. Selected photographers gain international exposure and recognition within the photography industry through a number of career-building opportunities offered by Foam, including publication in Foam Magazine, participation in the Talent Programme, and the opportunity for their work to be added to the prestigious Art Collection Deutsche Börse of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Frankfurt, funding partner of the Talent Programme.

The next Foam Talent Call will take place in early 2023.

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Foam Magazine #61 Talent. Image: Paintings, Dreams and Love © Yushi Li and Steph Wilson, courtesy of the artists.

For more information or press requests, please see here or contact our press office at pressoffice@foam.org.

The biennial Foam Magazine Talent Issue and the related Talent Programme are supported by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and the VandenEnde Foundation.

Foam Magazine is an international photography magazine, published three times a year by Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam.

Foam is supported by the VriendenLoterij, Foam Members, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, the VandenEnde Foundation and the Gemeente Amsterdam.

Announcing the new Foam Talents - Article - Foam: All about photography The 20 artists selected for Foam Magazine's Talent Issue 2022 look closely at the world around us, a [...]
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Announcing Foam Talent 2022