EI Talks
Shaping the Future
On visual arts and imagining a better world
Curated by Ana Catarina Pinho
The EI TALKS of the current edition of the Festival Encontros da Imagem proposes to reflect on possible imaginaries of a future time, presented through the work of artists whose gaze focuses on pressing contemporary issues. Questioning the political, socio-cultural, technological and environmental transformations that have molded our reality, the guest artists of this series provide a critical view of different current issues, considering the possible consequences of the various crises that the 21st century has been going through. In this context, the conversation series "Shaping the Future" promotes the gathering and dialogue between artists from different geographies and will be presented in three thematic sessions that intend to explore and conceptualize issues such as the politics of representation and social identity; the effects of the Anthropocene and sustainable alternatives for the planet; and the widespread social and cultural anxiety that technological progress has established.
In this series of conversations, the idea of the future will be thought in an articulation of different temporalities that intersect and relate, contradicting a perception of time and linear narrative of events. Through different artistic proposals, the potential of the image in raising awareness of problems and crises of our time will be debated, in order to foster discussion and collaborative effort to build a better future.
Link to enrol on the online session: https://www.archivoplatform.com/ei-talks
Ana Catarina Pinho
Ana Catarina Pinho is a researcher, editor and visual artist. She holds a PhD awarded by the University of South Wales, in the United Kingdom, and is currently affiliated with the Instituto de História da Arte (IHA), at Nova University of Lisbon, and the Global Art Archive (GAA), at the University of Barcelona. In her visual practice, Pinho works across still and moving image, exploring the visual discourses embedded in technical images in regard to history, memory, and knowledge production. Since 2012, she is the founder director of ARCHIVO, a research platform on photography and visual culture.
Session 1
Future, identity and the politics of representation
16.09.2023 · 10am -11.30am
Biblioteca Lúcio Craveiro da Silva – Auditorium
Pauliana Valente Pimentel
1975. Lisbon. As a visual artist, Pauliana has held regular exhibitions since 1999, in several European countries - Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, England, Germany, Greece, but also outside Europe, in the USA, China, Tukey and Africa (Marrocos, Cabo Verde). In 2005, she participated in the photography course “Criatividade e Criação Artística” by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. She was part of the collective (Kameraphoto) from 2006 until its extinction in 2014. Paulia is a photography teacher. In 2009 she published her first authors book “VOL I” (Pierre von Kleist), “Caucase, Souvenirs de Voyage” (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian) in 2011, in 2018 “Quel Pedra” (Camera Infinita), in 2019 “Narcisismo das Pequenas Diferenças” (Arquivo Municipal da Câmara de Lisboa) and in 2021 "Rub Al`Khali (Empty Quarter)" by Kioskzine. Pauliana is also a movie director "Diz-se que Portugal é um bom país para se viver", 40 min, Portugal 2011; "Jovens de Atenas ", 13 min. Athens, Greece, 2012, "Entre Nous", 51 min. Portugal, France, 2014, "Quel Pedra", 3min, loop, S. Vicente, Cabo Verde, 2014; "Al Bidayer", 12min, loop, Emirados Arabes Unidos, 2017. In 2015 she received the award “Prémio de Artes Visuais” by Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores. In 2016 she was nominated for the Prémio NOVO BANCO Photo. During 5 years she was represented by the Galeria 3 + 1 Arte Contemporânea and 7 years by Galeria das Salgadeiras in Lisbon. At the moment she is represented by Galeria Cisterna in Lisbon and collaborates with international galleries. Part of her work belongs to private and institutional collections, such has Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Partex, EDP Foundation, Maat, Novo Banco and Coleção do Estado Português.
Davide Degano
Davide Degano is an Italian artist who graduated with a BA in Visual Arts, specialization in photography, from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), in The Hague. Since his academic years, his work has been part of several groups and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally and featured by prestigious platforms such as PhotoVogue, Urbanautica, British Journal of Photography, ItsNiceThat, Icon Magazine, and The Photographic Journal. Degano focuses on story-telling and long-term projects where the medium of photography becomes a tool with which he explores and reflects upon contemporary issues related to his own experiences. Degano’s work revolves around the concept of “local” as he investigates his identity and the Italian identity in a post-colonial world. He creates visuals and stories influenced by his family background. At the same time, they want to relate and connect to a broader audience. Degano’s work can also serve as an anthropological study. He creates engaging connections with his subjects while exploring themes of identity, geography, past, and traditions. He uses portraiture, landscapes, environmental details, archival material, and video documentation to present the story using an interdisciplinary approach. He has recently published with Penisola Edizioni his first photo book, Sclavanie, in collaboration with Urbanautica Institute.
Colin Delfosse
Born in 1981, Colin Delfosse grew up in Brussels, Belgium where he is currently based. Graduated in journalism, he turned to documentary photography in 2006, cofounded a photographic collective then worked with different agencies. As a freelance photographer, Delfosse keeps a strong focus on personal long-term projects in Central Africa. After his first assignment in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) covering the elections in 2006 he keeps going back to DRC frequently, focusing on social and contemporary issues in the region. His work on Kinshasa’s voodoo wrestlers is the starting point of the international recognition of his work. For the last five years, Delfosse has collaborated with the UNHCR to cover the flow of incoming refugees in Central Africa and West Africa. His work has been shown in different festivals — Łódź Fotofestival, Prix Bayeux, Lagos Photo Festival, les Rencontres d’Arles, Visa pour l’Image — and published in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, Le Monde, L’Internazionale, Society, The International Herald Tribune and Jeune Afrique. Since 2015, Colin Delfosse also works as a photo editor for the Belgian investigative magazine Médor that he cofounded.
Matthieu Croizier
Matthieu Croizier (1994) is a freelance artist and photographer based in Lausanne, Switzerland. He graduated from the Bachelor Photography at ECAL. His work focuses mainly on queerness and the representation of the human body and seeks to evoke the tension between opposing notions, such as the beautiful and the ugly, fascination and repulsion, the ordinary and the spectacular… He has been nominated as a British Journal of Photography's Ones to Watch 2021, as well as a Futures Talents 2021. He is also a laureate of the Paris Photo's Carte Blanche Students 2020 and is now working on publishing his first photobook with Mörel Books, "Everything goes dark a little further down". Besides his personal projects, he gets commissioned to shoot editorial, portraits or still life.
Session 2
Projecting sustainable futures
07.10.2023 · 2.30pm - 4pm
Online
Chrystel Lebas
Chrystel Lebas is a French visual artist based in London. She is best known for her Photography and Film works that explore and illuminate the often-complex relationships between human beings and the natural world. Her work has been exhibited and published widely internationally and is held in major collections. Among them a major solo exhibition at Huis Marseille Museum for Photography Amsterdam (2016-17) with the accompanying publication ‘Field Studies: Walking through Landscapes and Archives’ recipient of the Kraszna Krausz Best Photography book award 2018. Her immersive installation ‘Regarding Forests’ is currently exhibited at The German Hygiene Museum in Dresden in collaboration with the Wellcome Collection London where it was first shown in 2021-22.
Amy Balkin
Amy Balkin's projects combine participation, action, and documentation to create large-scale, public, and long-term works. They include climate archive A People's Archive of Sinking and Melting (Balkin, et al.), clean-air park Public Smog, and Invisible-5 , an environmental justice audio tour along California’s I-5 freeway. She brings data into public space in projects like Philadelphia essay-billboard Area of Interest and in Reading the IPCC, a series of durational public and video readings of IPCC climate reports. Her work has been exhibited widely, including in The Overview Effect, Anthropocene Monument, and dOCUMENTA (13), and discussed in Decolonizing Nature (Sternberg), Public Servants (MIT Press), Materiality (Whitechapel), and Critical Landscapes (UC Press), among other publications.
Lucas Foglia
Lucas Foglia (b. 1983) is a fine art photographer engaged in environmental activism. His photographs of people in nature are hyperreal, lyrical, and often inexplicable. He received his BFA from Brown University in 2005 and MFA from Yale University in 2010. He has numerous international publications, including four monographs: A Natural Order, Frontcountry, Human Nature, and Summer After. Foglia has had over 30 solo exhibitions at galleries, festivals, and museums, including Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago. His prints and public installations are represented by Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in New York, Micamera in Milan, and Michael Hoppen Gallery in London.
M’hammed Kilito
M'hammed Kilito was born in Lviv in 1981. He graduated with a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Montreal and an M.A. in Political Science from Ottawa University. He is a National Geographic Explorer, a Magnum Foundation grantee, a 6x6 World Press Photo global talent, and a Prince Claus Fund Grantee. M'hammed’s practice focuses on the relationship between groups or individuals and the environment where they live. He is interested in capturing narratives that facilitate an understanding of this relationship, covering issues related to cultural identity, the sociology of work, and climate change. He has received a Contemporary African Photography Prize, a National Geographic Award, a Misk Art Institute Grant, François Schneider Foundation's Contemporary Artist Prize, and is the winner of the national photographic commission "Regards du Grand Paris" and The Hopper Prize. His work has been shown at festivals and venues including Sharjah Art Foundation (Sharjah), 1:54 Art Fair (Paris), Tate Modern (London), National Museum of Photography (Rabat), Beirut Image Festival (Beirut), Photo Vogue Festival (Milan), Helsinki Photo Festival (Helsinki) and Breda Photo Festival (Breda) amidst others. His photographs have been featured in magazines and newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The British Journal of Photography, Vogue Italia, L'Express, Liberation, and El Pais.
Session 3
The future is now
21.10.2023 · 2.30pm–4pm
Online
Alicja Rogalska
Alicja Rogalska is a Polish-born interdisciplinary artist based in London and Berlin and working internationally. Her practice is research-led and focuses on social structures and the political subtext of the everyday. She mostly works in specific contexts making situations, performances, videos and installations in collaboration with other people to collectively search for emancipatory ideas for the future. She recently presented her work at National Gallery of Art (Vilnius, 2023), Scherben, Berlin Art Prize (2022, winner), Manifesta 14 (Prishtina, 2022), Temporary Gallery (Cologne, 2021-22), Kunsthalle Bratislava (2021), Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna, 2020-21), OFF Biennale (Budapest, 2020-21), Art Encounters Biennale (Timișoara, 2019), Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2019), Biennale Warszawa (2019), Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw, 2019), Kyoto Art Centre (2019) and Muzeum Sztuki (Łódź, 2019). Rogalska was a fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program (2020-21) and is currently undertaking a practice-based PhD at Goldsmiths College in London.
Tony Fouhse
Tony is a photographer based in Ottawa, Canada. His work has attracted international attention and been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The British Journal of Photography, American Photography 26, CV Photo, Time magazine, Wired and Vie des Arts. His photographs have been exhibited internationally, most recently at the Noorderlicht International Fotofestival in Groningen, The Netherlands; Cortona On The Move photo festival, Italy and, as part of the Beyond Addiction/Reframing Recovery exhibition, in NYC and Rochester, N.Y. Images from his personal projects have been acquired by institutional collections including The National Photo Collection of Belgium; the Art Collection of Global Affairs, Canada; the Ottawa Art Gallery Collection; the National Photo Collection, Canada and the Archives.
Carlos Barradas
Carlos Barradas (Figueira da Foz, 1978). Photographer with a PhD in Anthropology e a Master in Contemporary Photography by the Istituto Europeo di Design, in Madrid. My artistic work consists of an articulation between anthropological practice and deeply personal and idiosyncratic experiences, using photography, ethnography and the co-production of narratives. I produce photographic and textual essays on themes like territory, colonialism, and post-colonialism, disability, new masculinities and sustainability. Considered by GUP Magazine as one of the European Photographic Talents (2020). My work has been exhibited in Brazil, France, Portugal, Italy, and more recently, in a collective exhibition at the Rencontres d'Arles (Open Walls, promoted by the British Journal of Photography and Der Greif) and at the International Center of Photography, in Nova Iorque. I was also one of two winners of the “Cities in the City” initiative, promoted by the Photography Biennial Porto’21 and PhotoEspaña and in 2022 I won the Labasad award at ArtPhotoBCN. I’m a co-founder and a co-editor of SOPA Magazine, an online photography magazine, and editor of the contemporary photography platform LENSCRATCH.
Gabriele Cecconi
Gabriele Cecconi is an Italian documentary photographer interested in cultural, political and environmental issues. He approached photography after a law degree and in 2015 he was selected by Camera Torino and Leica for a masterclass with Magnum photographer Alex Webb. Since then he made several reportages until 2018 when he started working on long-term projects. His project on the environmental impact of Rohingya migration in southern Bangladesh has received numerous international awards including the Yves Rocher Photography Award at Visa pour l'Image, POY, Andrei Stenin Grand Prix, PX3 Photographer of the Year and the LUMIX Sustainability Award among others. His work has been exhibited internationally in museums, festivals and galleries including the Hermitage State Museum, the United Nations Headquarters, Photo Vogue Festival, Festival della Fotografia Etica and it has been published by Italian and international newspapers and magazines including National Geographic, The Guardian, GUP, Internazionale, L'Espresso, Newsweek and Courrier International. At the same time he carries out research on the relationship between culture, power and representation and on the spiritual and pedagogical aspects of the visual arts.