Created by Fleur Boonman in 2005. The artwork is a c-print on synthetic material and displayed at 10 x 15 cm.

Waves from the Web, 2009

A desert-like landscape appears through two window frames. The light outside seems so bright, you almost need to squint to focus on the dark scene inside. 

, by Fleur Boonman, shows a group of men in the corner of a room, barely visible. The soft light shining through the window only illuminates a set of pans and some of the squatting figures. The inability to see the gestures and faces of the men leave the viewer's imagination to run its course. Are they eating or perhaps discussing something? In conjunction with the lighting and the soft colours, the image has the feeling of a movie still.  

, which was exhibited at Foam in the spring of 2005. The selection of images serves as a diary of Boonman’s nomadic life, consisting of everyday encounters during her travels around the world. 

Painting from the series 34 Seconds

Painting

Mario Klingemann, The Butcher’s Son, 2017, Giclee printon paper, 80x57cm

Helena Sarin, AI Candy Store, 2018, Fine art print on paper, 20x20cm

David Young, (b38, 4016,16) from Learning Nature series, 2018, Fine art print on paper, 30x30 cm

Harold Cohen, Arnolfini Series, 1983, Plotter drawing, 60x80cm

Obvious, Portrait of Edmond de Belamy, 2018, Inkjet print on canvas, 70x70cm

Roope Rainisto, Emergent Culture from Excessize series, 2022

Spread from Morehshin Allahyari's portfolio in Foam Magazine #66

Foam
Magazine
#66 Missing 
Mirror


our annual print edition

From Innovation to Art: The History of AI Images

Pretend There Is Water

The New Waterworks

Pretend There Is Water (2026)

De jongens op de palen

In Conversation: Bebe Blanco Agterberg and Mirjam Kooiman 

Family 2023

Test of Time: Family by Sabrina Tirvengadum

Self-Portrait / Nursing 2004

Self-Portrait / Cutting 1993

Bo, 1994

Catherine, Melanie & Sadie Rain, New York, New York 1998

Oliver in a Tutu 2004

Joanne, Betsy, & Olivia, Bayside, New York 1998

Self Portrait 1970 2008

Mary Ellen, Ann, Gunner, Zoe, & Nora, New York, New York 1998

Miggi & Ilene, Los Angeles, California 1995

Jesse, 1995

Guillermo & Joaquin, 2013

Mother’s Day 2026

From the series Sea Beach

From the series After Rana Plaza

From the series The People Who Feed The United States

Ismail Ferdous: the Shared Pulse of Image and Sound 

Ricardo Nagaoka presents a series of intimate portraits that addresses the prevailing societal ideas on what makes a man a man. Born in Paraguay to Japanese parents, Ricardo found himself stuck between the macho culture of Latin America and the strict patriarchal norms of his family.  

The photographs, all black and white, vary in crop and position: sometimes up close, cutting off certain body parts and revealing others, whilst others zoom out and show the portrayed head to toe. All images carry a quiet, timeless atmosphere, yet they express a distinct softness. Together, they call for a more inclusive understanding of gender, away from masculine stereotypes—largely based on Ricardo Nagaoka’s own experiences and desires. 

Nagaoka’s projects are not only about breaking down the ruling ideas on masculinity, but more so about building up what this term can include in the future.  

Kitchen, 2022

Aprétame (Justin), 2022

Wrestlers (Self), 2022

Daniel, 2022

Touching (Self), 2022

Brit II, 2023

El Mundo (Rose), 2023

Breaking (John & Timme), 2021

Ivan, 2022

John, 2022

Ricardo Nagaoka

Credo, from the series MADRE

challenges the binary opposition between the ‘good girl’ and the ‘bad girl’ deeply rooted in the Catholic traditions within Bolivian society. Closely collaborating with the sitters of her portraits, Marisol Mendez counters the simplified, sinner-versus-saint, vision on femininity. 

‘Madre’ in this case signifies much more than just a mother figure. It connects to the complex and multi-layered female goddesses traditionally worshipped in indigenous cultures and points to the rich, complex and varied experiences of 

Mendez deliberately uses the alternative spelling to, also linguistically, rid herself from limiting definitions of femininity. 

The portraits play with traditional symbolism associated with the stereotypical female: fragile, devout and proper stand next to rebellious and sexual. By doing so, the photographs show the contradiction experienced by many womxn between rebelling against and adopting these expected gender roles. 

Llorona, from the series Madre

Durazno, from the series Madre

Killa, from the series Madre

El marido sin cabeza, from the series MADRE

Huevo, from the series Madre

Our Lady of Plaster, from the series Madre

Pliegues, from the series Madre

Efigie, from the series Madre

Dolorosa, from the series Madre

Pared, from the series Madre

Estampita, from the series Madre

Quinceañera, from the series Madre

Virgen Andina, from the series MADRE

Soft, from the series Madre

Dual, from the series Madre

Marisol Mendez

is a close observation of performance in everyday life. Which roles do we act out on a daily basis and how does that influence our identities? Using the metaphor of the theatre to separate private (

) spheres, Eleonora Agostini studies her mother’s behaviours, gestures and expressions in her job as a waitress. 

Puzzling together photographs, archival images, moving images and texts into various collages, Eleonora Agostini breaks down the layers of performance one by one, revealing the repetitiveness of gestures, habits and adopted mannerisms used in serving clients.  

The work is also a commentary on the feminist theory of the “gaze”. The restaurant becomes the space where her mother is both the observer and the observed, where parts of her public behaviour as a waitress bleed into her private behaviour of being an individual, woman, and mother. Through her project, Agostini examines this relationship between the female body and the different social roles it performs in different spaces. 

From the series A Study on Waitressing

Eleonora Agostini

Opening Foam Talent | London, 2019

We can't live – without each other, 2019

Ka 2phisi yaka e pinky II, 2013, Her Story series

Tell the Trees to Smile

There Is Nothing New Under the Sun/See Daylight

The Act of Sitting

Malign Influences/The Holy Mountains

Face As Mask II, 2018

Koraal Tabak, 2016

Foam Talent Call

Being selected as a Foam Talent puts you in the spotlight of the international photography world.

Dialect, 2020

An internationally acclaimed photography prize awarded to artists whose creative vision speaks to our current time.

Foam Paul Huf Award

A fixed exhibition space in the museum that is exclusively oriented towards the innovative work of young talent from the Netherlands and abroad.

Foam 3h

Exhibition series that aims to introduce the public to innovative art created by young visual makers with ground-breaking use of photography.

Next Level

Foam 3h: Karolina Wojtas We can't live – without each other, 2022

Grant established in memory of Florentine Riem Vis with the goal of supporting young photographic talents.

Florentine Riem Vis Grant

Opening de Meervaart 

Youth development programme that focusses on up-and-coming talent within various cultural houses in Amsterdam.

Foam Forward

Talent Programmes

A biennial fellowship for three promising emerging photographers working in the artistic field.

recommended Olympus Fellowship

Foam was one of the founding partners of Unseen Amsterdam. Each year, Unseen is the place where many renowned galleries worldwide reveal artist's work

Unseen Photo Fair

Your Foam, 2021

The Your Foam team consists of MBO students from a variety of educations.

Your Foam

Foam Lab was a cultural traineeship for young professionals that offered suitable work experience within the museum. 

Foam Lab

Past programmes

 Foam Magazine #65: Talent, 2024

Front cover: Faceless, 2023. Image from the series (Inter)Faces of Predictions

in Foam Magazine

Discover more Foam Talent

on Foam Magazine Online

Explore free editorial content

Talent

Hiền Hoàng - Garden of Entanglement

Verena Blok - Love Shit 

Jasmijn Vermeeren - You Don't Look Sick

Julia Kochetova - War is Personal

Martin Parr - Very Modern and Rather Ugly

Foam Talent 2026

For information and visual material please check www.foam.org/press or contact the press office of Foam on +31 (0)20 5516500 / pressoffice@foam.org

Note to editors

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Hajar Benjida - Atlanta Made Us Famous

Opening of recommended Olympus Fellowship at Foam

major partners

collaborative projects

Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation & Foam Talent

Opening of Now You See Me Moria at Foam

Image from the series Flash Points

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Created by Manon Wertenbroek in 2014. The artwork is a pigment print on Hahnemuhle Fine Art 285gr, on aluminum, on wood, and with paint, and displayed at 90.5 x 72 cm.

Visible in

The bright colours and cartoon-like drawings on the model’s body create a playful image. At the same time, the model’s elegant posture might remind you of a classic sculpture from the Renaissance era. In 

, Manon Wertenbroek combines the art of sculpture with the medium of photography. By incorporating the model into all sorts of compositions of colours, circles, blocks, numbers and frames, Wertenbroek explores a rather unconventional approach to portraiture. The young man in the photograph is her brother. They were very close as children, but grew apart as they grew older. Creating this series was a way for Wertenbroek to restore the bond with her brother. Yet her brother cannot recognise himself in the portraits, so that these represent her own projections rather than his actual self. 

Manon Wertenbroek was part of the 2015 Foam Talent selection. Her image 

 served as the cover image for the talent issue of Foam Magazine. 

Tandem Rose, 2014 from the series Tandem, 2014

Tandem Rose, 2014

Created by Egon van Herreweghe. The artwork is a Vogue magazine page altered with trichlorethylene, glued on plywood  and displayed at 40 x 30 cm.

The photographic medium is strongly connected to the world of fashion, fuelled by early fashion photographers like Edward Steichen and Richard Avedon. Vogue Magazine, as one of the world’s most important fashion magazines, publishes and largely dictates through images what counts as fashionable and is ‘en vogue’. But what happens when we don’t look at the image itself, but at its reproductions? This question forms the core of the work by visual artist Egon Van Herreweghe. 

Instead of making photographs himself, Van Herreweghe transforms existing photographs from Vogue magazines by using acetone to distort the ink. The process results in painting-like, alienating images, such as the work shown here, from the series 

. Whereas fashion photographs on billboards and in bus stops often just flash by, Van Herreweghe manages to get viewers to stop and take a good look at his work. His art urges us to reflect on the use and consumption of visual material in our daily lives. 

Gucci from the series Elaine Firenze

Gucci

Created by Sara Cwynar in 2015. The artwork is a c-print and displayed at 88 x 72 cm.

A range of colourful items floods the image from below, cluttering the otherwise anonymous space. The objects are carefully composed as a still-life – originally a painting genre that shows arrangements of inanimate objects, flower bouquets or food. Here, on closer inspection, the viewer notices a pattern in the seemingly random collection: whether it is the picture of the moon, a plastic hamburger, or an alarm clock, all items are circular. In this work, artist Sara Cwynar does not just capture the sentiment of a time gone by, but also makes the viewer aware of the amusing fact that certain shapes have become part of our modern-day society. 

, reflecting her obsession with collecting and organising visual materials. In her work, she rearranges the everyday objects and materials she has collected over the years, to create images that represent her own visualisation of the times we live in. 

Circles, 2015 from the series Everything in the studio (destroyed)

Circles, 2015

Created by Viviane Sassen in 2013. The artwork is a c-print on aluminum and displayed at 102 x 83 cm.

 for the first time, you might wonder whether the image was accidentally presented upside down. But this is precisely how the Dutch artist Viviane Sassen intended it to be. Turning the image upside down affects our sense of gravity. Instead of dangling down from the adult’s shoulders, the child’s hands now seem raised and appear to radiate a certain power and grace, like an angel in a classic painting. But it isn’t just the upside-down presentation that creates an alienating effect: it is also the odd posture that the two entangled figures form and the invisibility of their faces and facial expressions. The result is a mysterious atmosphere and a certain unease on the part of the viewer. Viviane Sassen performed a lot of photography work in Kenya, the country of her earliest childhood memories. The surroundings, the light, the colours and the people in this East African country had a strong impact on her iconic visual language. Compare this work with her other images in the Foam collection: 

, an annual photography event in Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek, of which Foam is one of the co-founders. 

Take Off

Created by Fleur van Dodewaard in 2012. The artwork is a inkjet print on aluminum and displayed at 35 x 29 cm.

How does photography relate to the arts of sculpture and painting? These are the types of questions that Dutch artist Fleur van Dodewaard explores in her work. Like her 

 is a contemporary conceptual interpretation of the classic still-life. However minimalistic the work might be, the questions it evokes are highly complex.  

, Van Dodewaard plays with the distinctions between different art disciplines and examines where these boundaries turn blurry. Image 

, showing two red stripes against light-coloured backgrounds, could just as well have been a minimalist painting. The depth contained within the composition is only revealed by the shadow cast by the red block. In this way Van Dodewaard plays with the concept of sculpture, creating a photographic sculpture that lets the viewer see a three-dimensional object through photography’s lens.  

#4 / red

Created by Raphaël Dallaporta in 2010. The artwork is a dye destruction print process of an original ektachrome slide, Ilfochrome print by Choï in Paris and displayed at 150 x 120 cm.

visible in

Both death and the human anatomy are frequently occurring themes in art. How can you document something as sensitive as death? In contrast to the grief and horrors often associated with death, the French artist Raphaël Dallaporta treats the death of a person with the same businesslike approach as doctor Tulp in Rembrandt’s famous painting, 

, Dallaporta worked with a team of forensic physicians to determine the cause of death. Blood shows a drop of blood against a black background, but also resembles the image of an eye’s pupil and iris. The result is a purely rational image of death, without any of the customary emotions. 

Blood from the series Fragile, Humours

Blood

Created by Raimond Wouda in 2006. The artwork is a c-print and displayed at 104 x 134 cm.

The bell rings: a bustling cacophony of pupils’ voices, footsteps and excitement fills the school hallway. For his series 

, the Dutch artist Raimond Wouda visited secondary schools across the Netherlands. The final result is a series of modern-day group portraits, a genre reminiscent of the famous Dutch civic guard paintings from the 16th century, such as 

 by Rembrandt. Amidst a busy crowd in a catholic high school in the provincial town of Apeldoorn, a Muslim girl lost in thought draws our attention. What is on her mind?  

Notice the point of view chosen by the photographer: the camera’s high vantage point offers a complete overview of the school's hallway, conveying the hustle and bustle of students in-between classes. Wouda deliberately chose the moments outside of the classroom: it is in these places where students can be themselves and unleash their energy. Each image created by Wouda is part of a sociological map that captures the behaviour of, interactions between, and trends among an entire generation of students. 

Veluws College, Apeldoorn from the series School

Veluws College, Apeldoorn

Created by Daniëlle van Ark in 2005-2007. The artwork is a c-print on aluminum and displayed at 60 x 75 cm.

What happened a minute before this photo was taken? Did a loud ringtone disturb the quiet art space? A woman has taken a step back from the group to take a call, unaware of the annoyed look by one of the other visitors. 

 is part of Daniëlle van Ark’s series, 

, in which she captures the upper classes of New York society as they visit gallery openings. Chelsea is a bustling neighbourhood in New York City, located on the far end of Manhattan's West Side. Although it only covers 6 blocks, this neighbourhood is home to over 300 art galleries. The gallery’s sterile environment forms a stage for the comic scene that takes place in front of van Ark’s lens. The only touches of colour come from the painting on the wall and the bright pink skirt. As a sociologist, van Ark likes to observe people’s behaviour, subtly capturing how they interact in theatrical scenes. 

Untitled (Pink Skirt vs. Brown Pants) from the series For Art's Sake

Untitled (Pink Skirt vs. Brown Pants)

Created by Wang Juyan in 2015-2017. The artwork comprises of four prints on Hahnemühle baryta paper (matte), mounted on aluminium boards, each displayed at 250 x 150 cm.

Maldoror #6, 2014

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

In 2021 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and Kickstart Cultuurfonds

, shows a misty mountainous landscape divided across four panels. Wang Juyan’s mountainscape is reminiscent of the art of traditional Chinese painting, 

, but it was actually created through a complicated technical process. During his many travels between London and Beijing, Juyan took hundreds of aerial shots of Chinese mountain ranges. Using digital technology, he combined the images he captured over a period of two years to create a fictional landscape of steep mountains, valleys and rivers. The message behind the piece is as serious as the piece itself is magical: the collage refers to the political value of landscapes in both Eastern and Western history. Traditional Chinese scroll paintings, propagandist murals, cartography, surveillance material captured by airplanes or drones… The title of the series is a reference to George Orwell’s influential novel 1984 (plus 101 years) and the fear of being constantly watched by the authorities.

Painting

Painting

From Innovation to Art:
The History of AI images

On the Dutch choreography of water

Which images will stand the test of time, and why?

Virgin Mary fucked up the image of motherhood

Ismail Ferdous: The Shared Pulse of Image and Sound

Ricardo Nagaoka

Marisol Mendez

Eleonora Agostini

Talent

Hajar Benjida - Atlanta Made Us Famous

Our partnerships

Tandem Rose, 2014

Gucci

Circles, 2015

Take Off, 2013

#4 / Red

Blood, from the series Fragile, 2010

Veluws College, Apeldoorn

Untitled (Pink Skirt vs. Brown Pants)

No 8.

White Charcoal

Bouquet V

Hajar Benjida: Atlanta Made Us Famous

Collection

Painting

Painting

From Innovation to Art: The History of AI images

On the Dutch choreography of water

Which images will stand the test of time, and why?

Virgin Mary fucked up the image of motherhood

Ismail Ferdous: The Shared Pulse of Image and Sound

Ricardo Nagaoka

Marisol Mendez

Eleonora Agostini

Talent

Hajar Benjida - Atlanta Made Us Famous

Our partnerships

Tandem Rose, 2014

Gucci

Circles, 2015

Take Off, 2013

#4 / Red

Blood, from the series Fragile, 2010

Veluws College, Apeldoorn

Untitled (Pink Skirt vs. Brown Pants)

No 8.

White Charcoal

Bouquet V

Hajar Benjida: Atlanta Made Us Famous

Collection

From Innovation to Art:
The History of AI images