Digital Manipulation

Foam Talent Digital 2024-2025

center

Foam proudly presents the work of a new generation of artists in the group exhibition 

. The 20 participating photographers address the pressing problems of our times. Together, they explore and extend the boundaries of what photography is today.   

As a diverse group of artists, each of them presents their own visual language. Through their works, they critically look at the world around us. They use the photographic medium to question collective affairs and ongoing issues happening in the world. At the same time, they explore how these issues have an impact on a personal level, moving between a local, historical, symbolic, emotional and bodily perspective. 

This group of artists uses a wide range of photographic genres to tell their stories. With portraiture and documentary photography, digital created images and archival material, the talents create a space for the viewer to sit with situations and current events, to reflect and respond to.   

Complementing the physical experience at Foam, this digital exhibition offers a deeper look at the Talents and their works. What goes on behind the surface? What is the inspiration? What techniques are used? This exhibition combines artistic context with educational perspectives. Read, see, and hear more about the themes and topics and explore, engage, and interact with the works! 

 are: Marwan Bassiouni, Myriam Boulos, Olgaç Bozalp, Laura Chen, Kata Geibl, Lina Geoushy, Marvel Harris, Alexandra Rose Howland, Ange-Frédéric Koffi, Czar Kristoff, Yushi Li, Carla Liesching, Seif Kousmate, Pavo Marinović, Diego Moreno, Donja Nasseri, Ghazaleh Rezaei, Linn Phyllis Seeger, Ritsch Sisters, Donavon Smallwood.

Talent issue of Foam Magazine are supported by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation.

The exhibition is made possible by Kleurgamma Fine-Art Photolab and Oschatz Visuelle Medien.

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

In 2022 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and receives a contribution through the Mondriaan Fund from the Ministerie van OCW.

The Feast Inside, from the series Paintings Dreams and Love

Graphic Foam Talent 2022

How to...

Czar Kristoff

Audio fragment for To Destroy Is To Build

from the series To Destroy is To Build

The momentary monument 'To Destroy Is To Build' is not only a web-to-print project but web-to-print-to-monument-to-publication-to... It leaks and flows like new media, like the flood, like the architecture of future society.

from the series To Destroy Is To Build

Myriam Boulos

Audio fragment for Tell the Trees to Smile by Myriam Boulos

Tell the Trees to Smile

from the series Tell the Trees to Smile

I remember Andrea's tears while we were walking towards his destroyed house that he was seeing for the first time since the explosion.

“All the war memories rushed back...
We
rushed to the corridors to hide which was exactly our moves and practice during the Lebanese civil war when the bombing would start.”

Zeina
worked on a rescue mission with a Chile team for 3 days.
The Chile team thought that someone was stuck under the ruins of a building.
“During these
3 days, the hope of finding someone was controlling us.”

Michel lost
his hearing aid during the explosion.
When he wants to listen to music, he puts the radio against his ear.

On August 4, Walid was at home with me. He was on this same balcony when the explosion happened. (...) (I cried in his room and in his arms every day for a few months after the explosion.)

When I gave her this tiny flower, my grandmother told me “Dis aux arbres de sourire”, which means tell the trees to smile.

Marwan Bassiouni

Audio fragment for New Western Views by Marwan Bassiouni

from the series New Swiss Views

from the series New British Views

from the series New Dutch Views

Ghazaleh Rezaei

'Lamentation' from the series The Martyrs

'The Pieta' from the series The Martyrs

'Carrying of the Martyr's Portrait' from the series The Martyrs

Bringing to Light

'Burial' from the series The Martyrs

Kata Geibl

from the series See Daylight

from the series Nothing New Under the Sun

Audio clip for Kata Geibl - There is Nothing New Under The Sun / See Daylight

from the series There Is Nothing New Under the Sun / See Daylight

Donja Nasseri

from the series Woman, who would be King

Audio clip for Donja Nasseri - Woman, who would be King

Alexandra Rose Howland

Audio clip for Alexandra Rose Howland - Leave and Let Us Go

from the series Leave and Let Us Go

Pavo Marinović

Audio clip for Pavo Marinovic - Marble Ass

Marble Ass

Talent Digital 2022

Maryam, 2020, Leave and Let Us Go

Twenty years ago 9/11 took place, leading the United States to announce its 'War on Terror' and involving Iraq in an ongoing conflict. This war was deemed as the first 'smartphone war' due to the introduction of the smartphone as an object of mass consumption in 2007. The widespread use of digital cameras enabled millions of users to capture the conflict from angles which had previously been out of sight. What formerly had been the domain of photojournalists and governmental agencies, became a limitless stream of images shared on the internet. This gave digital media a vital role in portraying the confrontation's countless layers.

Digital Layers of War - Alexandra Rose Howland & Wafaa Bilal

Podcast

Foam 3h: Alexandra Rose Howland Leave and Let Us Go

Digital Layers of War with Alexandra Rose Howland & Wafaa Bilal

Join us on 26 - 27 August as we celebrate the launch of Foam Talent 2021 | Digital 2021. With a festive online programme, we will launch the new online exhibition with a series of tours and screenings.

The award-winning Foam Talent Digital is back this year on 26 August with Talent 2021.&nbsp;<a href="/museum/programme/foam-talent-2021-digital">Foam Talent 2021&nbsp;|&nbsp;</a><a href="/museum/programme/foam-talent-2021-digital">Digital</a>&nbsp;is a&nbsp;multi-media platform showcasing the work of 20 artists that were selected through the annual Foam Talent Call. Their projects are translated&nbsp;into the digital realm, supported by audio, video and interactive elements. Liberating the photographs from their frames and taking them beyond the museum walls, the exhibition pushes the boundaries of the medium and explores the outlines of its future form.&nbsp;
<a href="https://talent.foam.org/?utm_source=foam.org&amp;utm_medium=programme_page"><img src="/userfiles/ft-digital-button-en-2.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="55" /></a>
Join us for the launch festival, debuting personal messages, tours and screenings.<iframe width="560" height="314" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&amp;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FFoamAmsterdam%2Fvideos%2F615872126064518%2F&amp;show_text=false&amp;width=560&amp;t=0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
&nbsp;
PROGRAMME
18.30 hrs CET on Thursday 26 August
We will launch Foam Talent Digital | 2021. Join the FB Livestream in which the featured Foam Talents introduce the exhibition and their work with a personal message. In addition, Foam curator Hinde Haest will give a tour of the online exhibition.
13.00 hrs CET on Friday 27 August
The launch of the online exhibition is followed by a live screening of five video interviews with Foam Talents Sarker Protick, Silvia Rosi, Daniel Castro Garcia, Hajar Benjida and Leonard Suryajaya.
<a href="https://fb.me/e/3G1xMMF4k">-&gt; Join the Facebook Live Event to get a notification as soon as the festival starts.</a>
&nbsp;
Foam Talent is supported by the Deutsche B&ouml;rse Photography Foundation and the VandenEnde Foundation. &nbsp;
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.
&nbsp;

<div class="sidebar__content">LAUNCH FESTIVAL 
PROGRAMME
&nbsp;
18.30 hrs CET 26 August⁠
Introducing Foam Talent 2021
Scrolling with... virtual tours
 ⁠ 13.00 hrs CET 27 August⁠ Live screening of video interviews with Foam Talent 2021
&nbsp;</div>

Launch Festival: Foam Talent 2021 | Digital

Following the award-winning first edition in 2020, Foam presents a brand new online exhibition celebrating a new generation of image-makers.

Image from the series Quarantine Blues

From the series Atlanta Made Us Famous

From the series Wish You Were Here

From the series Encounter

From the series If Spring Could Feel Ache

From the series The Mind is a Voice, the Voice is Blind

From the series Portraits in Madness

From the series Last Letters A Photographic Investigation of Taiwan White Terror

From the series Ghost Island

From the series Oil and Moss

From the series Golden Boy

From the series Heimat (in Quarantine)

From the series I Peri N Tera

ARTIS Zoo, the Netherlands, 2019

From the series Neuromantic

From the series Study of Cyclical Thoughts on My Leg

from the series Rasmi

From the series Turunç

From the series Facades

From the series Family Album

Foam Talent 2021 | Digital

The Foam Talent programme and the annual Talent issue of Foam Magazine are supported by The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, the VandenEnde Foundation and the Niemeijer Fund.

Foam Talent is made possible by Kleurgamma Fine-Art Photolab, Starframe, Oschatz Visuelle Medien and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Foam Magazine is sponsored by Igepa Netherlands BV, supplier of excellent paper.

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.

Foam presents an all-access online exhibition celebrating the works of young artists shaping the future of photography.

 Foam Talent 2020 | Digital

Students of Tsinghua University showing their prestige with an a4 white paper.

Xin Li

Created by Betty Ras in 2006. Using inkjet on FinArt Baryta by Hahnemühle as the medium, the artwork is displayed at 50 x 50 cm.

Betty Ras is one of the photographers who took part in 

, a long-term project recording the construction of the financial district of Amsterdam, De Zuidas, in the early 2000s. Each year different photographers were invited to give their own interpretation of the continuously changing construction side. De Zuidas is characterised by high-rise buildings, housing the offices of large multinationals and top accounting and law firms.

 shows the outline of one of the first high-rises in the area as seen from a nearby park. Ras worked with black-and-white photography, giving the image a timeless feel. The bright cut-out in contrast to the dark surroundings of the park stands out. Through this intervention, Betty Ras emphasises how the high-rises from De Zuidas form a new skyline, fundamentally changing the scenery of this area. 

Beatrixpark

 is the well-known Photoshop selection tool of the same name. For Xin Li, the tool is much more than a handy feature to edit images. It becomes a means to draw parallels with societal control and censorship during the COVID lockdowns in China.  

The magic wand tool selects areas of images based on colour and hue—allowing smart selection and quick manipulation of images. Enforced with machine learning, it nowadays easily predicts which objects a user would like to see selected. Xin Li uses the tool to distort images, obscuring their original meaning behind layers of other images, often of other artworks.  

For Xin Li, this process symbolises the mechanisms of hiding and revealing facts and fake news, regulating the flow of information and controlling the dominant narrative. Metaphorically captured in the overwhelming fusion of shapes and colours, the visually explosive works tempt the viewer to look what lies beneath the apparent chaos. 

 weaves together several historical routes: that of his mother, growing up in Botswana after escaping the Apartheid regime of South Africa with her parents. That of his great-uncle, Zephania Mothopeng, the anti-Apartheid activist, imprisoned on Robben Island. And that of his grandfather, and his love for music, inspiring Makepe to pursue a creative career.

What at first glance may appear as a personal family narrative, in fact reveals the painful, racist and discriminatory political history of South Africa and the remnants of its colonial regimes. The series unfolds as a multi-dimensional, visual journey along these historical paths, touching on land dispossession, activism and colonialism.

includes striking portraits of his close relatives, sometimes re-enacting historical scenes, documentary photographs of important landmarks, as well as documents from Makepe’s family archive. Accompanying the visual material is a playlist of music, curated by the artist himself—connecting the work beautifully through the shared love for music. 

Sentlhane, 2022, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Monna Wa Mmino III, 2020, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Re A Hlopela Tombstone Unveiling from the series We Didn’t Choose to be Born Here, 2019

Archival footage from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Hippolytus Mothopeng [left] (1958), from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Hippolytus Mothopeng Citizenship, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

The Metronome Swing Orchestra in Botswana (1966), from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Garden, 2022, from the series We Didn't Choose to Be Born Here

The Aunt I Almost Had, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Wait, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Kgomo Tsaka Deile Kae, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Kereke, 2019, from the series We Didn't Choose to Be Born Here

Sello, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Martha and Hippolytus Mothopeng (1982), from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Robben Island University, 2020, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Mama Mo Metsi, 2019, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Under Surveillance, 2021, from the series We Didn't Choose to be Born Here

Thero Makepe

Stuck at home during the COVID-19 lockdown, Shwe Wutt Hmon was unable to visit the hospital for her regular check-ups and scans, necessary because of a life-long health issue. Coming to terms with this limitation, she started scanning her body, as well as flowers and medical records, by herself with an ordinary at-home scanner, creating a variety of abstract self-portraits. 

 that emerged from these experiments, reveal a poetic and symbolic documentation of the ongoing assault of medical procedures and operations on her body. Hmon’s image-making practice strongly ties together process and concept: the withering flowers symbolise the decay of the body and dark colours reflect somber emotions experienced right before scheduled operations.  

Another dimension was added when she moved from Myanmar to Thailand in 2022. Printing her work on local Saa paper, the works received an almost skin-like texture. Again, restrictions–this time due to the delicate paper type–required her to improvise, causing her to print the works small scale at home. The final accumulated process turned out to present a healing capacity: by carefully printing, cutting and sewing her works together, Shwe ultimately was also mending herself.

From the series I Do Miss Hospital Visit

Shwe Wutt Hmon

From the series (Inter)Faces of Predictions

, Sheung Yiu looks into different practices of face reading, facial prediction and facial recognition. For this multi-medial series, consisting of a video essay, a series of self-portraits and an extensive research notebook of visual references, he submitted his own face as a test case: scanning, screening and analysing his features in order to understand the processes behind it. 

In his practice, Sheung Yiu combines East-Asian traditions of facial readings, promising to predict one's future based on facial features, with contemporary facial recognition technologies, drawing a striking parallel between Eastern and Western practices around facial studies.  

On a deeper level, the project questions the way different technologies, whether digital or analogue, algorithmic or esoteric, shape the perceptions and biases connected to our faces. Through this, he recognises that a face is never just a face: it is what we, or the systems we use, want to read into it. 

Animation

Notebook scan, from the series Interfaces of Prediction

Facial landmarks (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Twisted Face (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Fortune in My Thirties from the series Interfaces of Predictions, 2023

Faceless (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Scan (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Between Two Charts (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Old and new moles (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Face Mesh (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Ancient Prediction (2023), from the series Interfaces of Predictions

Sheung Yiu

How does a photograph shape our understanding of the past? 

 is a series of A.I.-generated images, combined with archival images, questioning the construction of memory and masculinity through our image culture. 

In an attempt to grasp the full story of his deceased grandfather and his Indonesian heritage, Sander Coers turned to the artificial intelligence programme 

Feeding archival family photos into its system, he asked the programme to describe them, specifically listing their technical details such as dominant colour tones and type of camera, film and lens. Altering these descriptions allowed Sander to prompt the programme to create new images, yet maintain the exact visual look and feel of the family snapshots. Finally, by blending multiple A.I.-generated images together with the originals, he created a surprisingly intimate, genuine, yet completely fictional family album. 

The way the photos are cropped stands out. Coers used an element of collaging when assembling the final images, in order to emphasise the constructed nature of the photographs, and ultimately, the constructed nature of one’s memory, too. 

 alludes to the ‘afterlife’ of his grandfather, through the photo albums he left behind, as well as to the realm of post-photography: a space where images can be generated without the use of a camera.  

Adobe Stock image

From the series POST, 2023

Image from the series POST, 2023

From the series POST

Sander Coers

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

In search for a sense of belonging, Rehab Eldalil traced back her family roots to the Bedouin community of South Sinai, Egypt. This confirmed a spiritual connection she long felt towards the region and sent her on a ten-year long collaboration with the locals of St. Catherine, guiding herself through the lands of her ancestors. 

The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken (

شوق الغريب للي تقطّع سبيله)

 Rehab closely participates with community members during this longstanding encounter, weaving together photographs with sound, video, and local Bedouin traditions of poetry, embroidery and plant medicines in a truly collaborative effort. 

The works emphasise the strong connection of the close-knit Bedouin community to their land, as its protective keeper. At the same time, the project reveals the hardships and constant struggle against displacement, violence, and governmental power, to which the community continues to be subjected. Recent plans for urban developments in the region stress the urgency of the project, becoming a testament of and protest to protect the natural state of the lands and its indigenous keepers. 

Oh Valley

From the series The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

From the series The Longing Of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

From the project The Longing of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

Allaseeq (The Sticker)

From the Series The Longing of the Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

Alrabel (Mountain Tea)

From the series The Longing of The Stranger Whose Path Has Been Broken

Rehab Eldalil

records the artist’s personal search for her heritage. With little to no information about her family history, MAryam Touzani sets off on a journey tracing the story of her Moroccan ancestry and multicultural upbringing. 

Using her teeth—carriers of one’s unique genetic encoding—as a starting point, MAryam Touzani photographs and assembles all the pieces of evidence she can collect: from dental X-rays and passport images, to her father’s death certificate and colonial maps omitting her ancestor’s region of origin. In her investigation where answers do not seem to come straightforward, photography becomes a poetic tool, allowing Touzani to reconstruct her past, in order to imagine her future.  

The title refers to the scientific name of the argan tree, one of the oldest existing trees growing in the Sous valley in southwestern Morocco. Traditionally, the fruits are processed into argan oil by women from the local Amazigh community. As an Amazigh woman, but born and raised in The Netherlands, MAryam Touzani uses the symbol of the argan tree to trace back her roots and honour her female ancestors. 

digital

Digital Manipulation

Foam Talent Digital 2024-2025

Talent Digital 2022

Digital Layers of War with Alexandra Rose Howland & Wafaa Bilal

Launch Festival: Foam Talent 2021 | Digital

Foam Talent 2021 Digital

Foam Talent 2020 Digital

Xin Li

Beatrixpark

Xin Li

Thero Makepe

Shwe Wutt Hmon

Sheung Yiu

Sander Coers

Ricardo Nagaoka

Rehab Eldalil

MAryam Touzani

Marisol Mendez

Jaclyn Wright

Issam Larkat

Florian Braakman

Eleonora Agostini

Cristóbal Ascencio

Cansu Yıldıran

Andrea Orejarena & Caleb Stein