Mooncake, Foam Café, Amsterdam

Spread from Chinees-Indisch Stickeralbum

Cahier for Benjamin Li's In Search of Perfect Orange - Chinese Version

Chinese version

Liz Johnson Artur - of life of love of sex of movement of hope, 2021

In Search of Perfect Orange. About the work of Benjamin Li

Aby Fulani

Gigapedia: Haatsymboliek en Online Codetaal

Bereitschaft, 2024

Gigapedia: Exhibition Glossary. About the work of Jakob Ganslmeier and Ana Zibelnik

. A group exhibition showcasing work of an extraordinary new wave of image-makers shaping the future of photography. This year’s exhibition features the work of 15 extraordinary artists, chosen from nearly 3,000 submissions from 107 countries.  

Through the use of powerful visual language, their works often connect to a notion of belonging; the search for a safe space, whether found within the home, family, community, or a sense of place, is an underlying thread that surfaces in different ways.

 From intimate portraits to sweeping visual narratives, each piece invites you to see the world through a new lens.

Alongside the Foam Talent group exhibition in Amsterdam, the selected artists’ work will be presented across multiple Foam platforms, offering international visibility: through a travelling presentation at the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation in Frankfurt, a dedicated issue of Foam Magazine, and features on our digital platform.

A Lion's Watermelon (بطيخة أسد), 2022

Foam

Wenhao 2025

The Beach Park 2025

A house with no roof #17

Shutter and Grenade 2024

#1 2025

My father's wallet

The Doom of Chiron 2022

Farren 2024

Untitled 2025

13.homeless

301 Chinese boy on duty

The quiet sound of war A sound that cant be turned off

The Zuljanah is ready 2018

Foam Talent 2026

Hajar Benjida – Atlanta Made Us Famous 

, the first solo exhibition by artist Jasmijn Vermeeren. From a deeply personal perspective, Vermeeren sheds light on living with an invisible disability. In conversations about diversity and inclusion within society, the position of people with hidden mental and/or physical disabilities often remains underexposed. 

 offers an intimate experience, inviting visitors to step into the everyday reality of those for whom this life is the norm.

Through photography, video, and sculptural work, Vermeeren reflects on her own encounters with chronic pain and societal assumptions surrounding health and identity. Idenitifying as 

: a term encompassing various forms of disability, including physical, mental, sensory and learning differences, Vermeeren challenges conventional ideas of functionality and normality. 

 invites viewers into her world,  creating a space where emotions are welcomed and reflection is invited. In doing so, she prompts a rediscovery of what it truly means to be

You Don't Look Sick, Self-Portrait No. 5, 2025

Jasmijn Vermeeren - You Don't Look Sick

Front cover of What Lee Wore

Book Club: Gisela Torres - What Lee Wore

This Christmas break, children can let their imaginations run wild during a special workshop at Foam! 

 have developed a singular visual language. Their work invites viewers to reconsider what they see and how they see it. 

Inspired by the exhibition and the working methods of artist duo Blommers & Schumm, children will discover how everyday objects can be used to create surprising works of art.

By looking closely, shifting and combining, they learn how simple things can come together to form a completely new image, a face, a flower, or perhaps something completely unexpected. Using illusion and imagination, the children create their own artwork that shows how differently you can look at the world around you.

This workshop is for children between 6 and 12 years old. Parents and caretakers can join the workshop for free.

Rose wearing Bottega Veneta, Middle Plane, 2021

Foam Studio's

David wearing bodega Veneta for Middle plane magazine David Hockney special 2022

Discover the World of Blommers & Schumm: Become a Surrealist Artist

Verena Blok - Love Shit 

Hajar Benjida - Atlanta Made Us Famous

Julia Kochetova - War is Personal

Martin Parr - Very Modern and Rather Ugly

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

see more

Hiền Hoàng - Garden of Entanglement

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

Dine Dine Khasiya Paribe

 is a visual folktale, following the tunes of local songs from the Rajbanshi community in Assam and Bengal, India. Historically, this community has continuously been mis-identified and culturally erased through the crushing weight of colonial bureaucracy. The series documents Akshay Mahajan’s journey in search for what ‘identity’ truly is.

Growing up in Mumbai as a child of the Indian partition, without any knowledge of his own heritage, Akshay Mahajan attempted to construct a new identity: not by birth, but through love. Folksongs, sung by his wife, drew him to north-eastern India, to the Rajbanshi people—bringing back to live a cultural tradition on the brink of obscurity. 

The resulting works are an intuitive and associative exploration about the meaning of ‘identity’. The use of the collaging technique refers to the constructed nature of identity, as something that is continually challenged and reassembled. Mahajan explains: “We are all people of clay, our identities constantly changing, not chained by the borders we have inherited.”

Listen to "Dine Dine Khasiya Paribe" by clicking the play button at the bottom of the exhibition.

From the series People of Clay

Akshay Mahajan

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.

Waves from the Web, 2009

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 Jaya Pelupessy & Felix van Dam in 2014. The artwork is displayed at 95 x 76 cm.

In how many ways can you create a photographic image? From the complicated chemical procedure in the medium’s early years to the advanced technology that underpins digital cameras: besides being an art form, photography can also be seen as a consistently evolving science. The artist duo Jaya Pelupessy and Felix van Dam became intrigued by the idea that a silkscreen print is, in principle, also light sensitive and hence can serve as a photo negative. Despite being told by others that the idea was ‘impossible’, the duo was determined to create their own unique ‘silkscreen’ camera. Eventually they managed to coat a silkscreen with a light-sensitive emulsion and to expose this to direct sunlight for two hours. You might wonder what this story has to do with the white sculpture wearing sunglasses. The point is that, in an attempt to reduce the required exposure time, the duo decided to experiment with ultraviolet light. The required amount of UV light forced Pelupessy and Van Dam to wear sunglasses, to protect their eyes against the intense light.  

Glasses, 2016 from the series Traces of the Familiar

Glasses - Traces of the Familiar

Created by Peter Puklus in 2015. The artwork is a inkjet print and displayed at 68 x 48 cm.

One day, during his daily online search for photographs, Peter Puklus came across a black and white image of the sculpture of a male head. This early cubist sculpture, titled 

, was made in 1913 by the Hungarian avant-garde sculptor Joseph Csaky. Just a single image remains of 

, showing only the front side. Peter Puklus reinterpreted this photograph of the bust, which bears some resemblance to Puklus himself, by modelling his self-portrait in clay and photographing the result in different settings.  

, it won’t come as a surprise to discover that this Hungarian artist often seeks to push the boundaries of the medium of photography. Not hindered by any conventions, in his own unique way Puklus merges different art forms to create this absurdist self-portrait. With a sharp eye for the interplay of lines, geometrical shapes and vivid colours, he creates a sense of order within a playful chaos.

Painted plaster head (Self-portrait of a man in orange), 2015 from the series The Epic Love Story of a Warrior

Painted plaster head (Self-portrait of a man in orange), 2015

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

 in 2016. Using burned inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 150 x 220 cm.

White Charcoal, 2016

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

visible in

Borges experimented with the destructive power of fire in relation to imagery. She burned the photographic surface of a large-format print, a way of exploring what happens to the meaning of an image when it is burned. Does the piece lose its signification by being damaged or does it acquire a different sense?

Borges portrays objects and artefacts to free them from their specific meaning, to let them stand by themselves. She strives to show us that even photography, a medium bound up with reality by definition, can let go of reality, as happens in a painting or sculpture. In her work, she investigates what representation is, and what a photograph can be. Myths, fabulous creatures and philosophical questions about representation, mimicry and imitation play a major part in her work.

White Charcoal

Created by Nerhol (Yoshihisa Tanaka & Ryuta Iida) in 2015. Using stacked inkjet print as the medium, the artwork is a sculpture displayed at 23 x 20 x 4,5 cm.

w Face, 23 March, Tokyo, Japan, 2015

Nerhol (Yoshihisa Tanaka & Ryuta Iida), 2015

Nerhol is a collaboration between graphic designer Yoshihisa Tanaka and sculptor Ryuta Iida since 2007. Together they explore the concept of the photographic image. Traditionally, a photograph presents a depiction of a person’s three-dimensional face on a flat plane. The work 

, however, is a time-lapse portrait consisting of numerous photographs taken over a three-minute period, a process which captures each and every small, involuntary movement of the subject. Subsequently, Nerhol meticulously scoops out and carves the faces in their photographs, combining a layering of the multiple images with reductive carving. By merging many images into a single picture, the artists unveil the small, ever-present alterations within a photograph. In an ingenious way, the duo questions the genre of photographic portraiture and photography as a snapshot of 'reality': every single, minimal movement can already produce a different representation of the sitter.

w Face, 23 March, Tokyo, Japan

. The artwork uses C-type digital photo, wood, paper, ink and pigments as the medium.

The Crossroads from the series My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, 2014

Using unorthodox materials, Paul Bogaers tries to avoid the conventions imposed by photography: the flat surface and documentation of reality. He combines various media in an attempt to push the absolute limits of photography as an artistic medium. At first glance, the sculptural form of The Crossroads seems to suggest real, three-dimensional depth but is, in fact, a photograph. This work is part of the series 

 (taken from the acclaimed 1981 album by Brian Eno and David Byrne, who in turn borrowed it from a novel by Nigerian author Amos Tutuola written in 1954), with which Bogaers refers to the ‘Bush of Ghosts’ that he visits in his studio daily.

The Crossroads

Still from the On Earth video tour: Mark Dorf

On Earth Video Tour - Mark Dorf

For more information and visual material please contact the Press Office of Foam via pressoffice@foam.org.

Announcement Winner Foam Paul Huf Award 2024

Foam Magazine #64 Extremes - The Environmental Issue. Cover: Abundance, 2023

Foam Magazine #64 Extremes - The Environmental Issue Cover: Scarcity, 2023.

Image from the series Theatre of Authenticity

From the series Waste Identity Passport for Plastics & Bola Bola Living

"The portfolios and essays on this side address the growth, excess, overproduction, overconsumption, and greed that drive the Anthropogenic engine to continue grinding."

Presenting Foam Magazine #64: Waste Identity: Passport for Plastics & Bola Bola Living by Aàdesokan

Waste Identity: Passport for Plastics & Bola Bola Living

PORTFOLIO – Waste Identity: Passport for Plastics & Bola Bola Living by Aàdesokan

Presenting Foam Magazine #64: Crisis of Storytelling by Gem Fletcher

LONG READ – Crisis of Storytelling by Gem Fletcher

Presenting Foam Magazine #64: Theatre of Authenticity by Natacha de Mahieu

PORTFOLIO –  Theatre of Authenticity by Natacha de Mahieu

Page 144-145 in Foam Magazine #64: EXTREMES

From the series The Eyes of Earth

From the series Master Rock

"This side shows the impact, the disintegration, and the lack of connection to native knowledge, capturing the decrease in different ways."

Presenting Foam Magazine #64: Master Rock by Maria Fusco

PORTFOLIO –  Master Rock by Maria Fusco

Presenting Foam Magazine #64: Radical Inclusivity, Relationality and Indigenous Photography by Wanda Nanibush

LONG READ – Radical Inclusivity, Relationality and Indigenous Photography by Wanda Nanibush

Presenting Foam Magazine #64: The Eyes of Earth by Solmaz Daryani

PORTFOLIO –  The Eyes of Earth by Solmaz Daryani

Foam Magazine #64 Extremes - The Environmental Issue Cover: Abundance, 2023

EXTREMES – The Environmental Issue: New ways of visualising climate change in Foam Magazine

From the Archive: Medium of Exchange by Sheida Soleimani

Support Foam and get unlimited visits to the museum with a plus one. Foam Friend members also get access to exclusive member activities and receive discounts for programming, the magazine and in the Foam Bookshop.

The red bags are used for the seeds, 2021

New Western Views

Nike See, Nike Do, 2019

Opening Liz Johnson Artur & Foam 3H 

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For more information and visual material, please get in touch with the Foam press office via pressoffice@foam.org.

Sculpture

In Search of Perfect Orange
About the work of Benjamin Li

Gigapedia: Hate Symbols and Online Codes
Exhibition Glossary

Foam Talent 2026

Jasmijn Vermeeren
You Don't Look Sick

What Lee Wore by Gisela Torres

Kids workshop:
Becoming a Surrealist Artist

Hiền Hoàng - Garden of Entanglement

Marisol Mendez

Akshay Mahajan

Foam Talent 2026

Tandem Rose, 2014

Glasses - Traces of the Familiar

Painted plaster head (Self-portrait of a man in orange), 2015

#4 / Red

White Charcoal

w Face, 23 March, Tokyo, Japan

The Crossroads from the series My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Foam Talent 2026

Hinde Haest talks about

Mark Dorf in the exhibition On Earth

Announcement Winner Foam Paul Huf Award 2024

EXTREMES – The Environmental Issue:
New ways of visualising climate change in Foam Magazine

Medium of Exchange by Sheida Soleimani

Foam Friend

Club Foam

Foam 3h: Benjamin Li - In Search of Perfect Orange

Sculpture

In Search of Perfect OrangeAbout the work of Benjamin Li

Gigapedia: Hate Symbols and Online CodesExhibition Glossary

Foam Talent 2026

Jasmijn Vermeeren You Don't Look Sick

What Lee Wore by Gisela Torres

Kids workshop:Becoming a Surrealist Artist

Hiền Hoàng - Garden of Entanglement

Marisol Mendez

Akshay Mahajan

Foam Talent 2026

Tandem Rose, 2014

Glasses - Traces of the Familiar

Painted plaster head (Self-portrait of a man in orange), 2015

#4 / Red

White Charcoal

w Face, 23 March, Tokyo, Japan

The Crossroads from the series My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Foam Talent 2026

Hinde Haest talks about

Mark Dorf in the exhibition On Earth

Announcement Winner Foam Paul Huf Award 2024

EXTREMES – The Environmental Issue: New ways of visualising climate change in Foam Magazine

Medium of Exchange by Sheida Soleimani

Foam Friend

Club Foam

Foam 3h: Benjamin Li - In Search of Perfect Orange

In Search of Perfect Orange
About the work of Benjamin Li

Gigapedia: Hate Symbols and Online Codes
Exhibition Glossary

Jasmijn Vermeeren
You Don't Look Sick

Kids workshop:
Becoming a Surrealist Artist

EXTREMES – The Environmental Issue:
New ways of visualising climate change in Foam Magazine