FORMAT ONLINE PORTFOLIO REVIEW

Alexa is Contributing Editor for photography and art books for Kehrer Verlag, a Germany-based publisher founded in 1995. After earning her Master’s in Art History from the University of Heidelberg, she started her career at Kehrer in 2003, where she is responsible for selecting and acquiring new photography-related projects.

Alexa provides artistic and marketing advice for photographers concerning the content and style of their work at several international portfolio reviews. She enjoys helping photographers and others appreciate the special qualities present in their work, in particular discovering novel, genuine visions of the world.

She offers the point of view of a European art book publisher and is familiar with the overall art and photography market.

Alexa is also a freelance consultant, advising and coaching photographers independently.

Ângela a.k.a “Berlinde” is an artist and independent curator, with PHD studies in photography from Universidade do Minho, Portugal and Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Ângela is Co-Founder of the Portuguese PhotoFestival Encontros da Imagem, an International Photography Festival in Braga Portugal. She has commissioned contemporary photography throughout Europe and Latin American countries, particularly in Brazil. Currently she is artistic advisor of the FotoFestival SOLAL and counselor of the Photography Program at the Secretary State of Culture of Ceará, and curator member of  Photographic Museum of Fortaleza, Brazil.

She is especially interested in documentary and photo essays as well artists working on the intersection of photography and other media to include in the European and Latin American institutions and festivals.

** Anna will be reviewing with Stella Nantongo **

Anna is the director of FOTEA Foundation and the Uganda Press Photo Awards, a photography platform and annual competitions for East African photojournalists and photographers. Through their activities both the UPPA and FOTEA offer a broad annual programme of trainings, talks, exhibitions and publications.

With a background in Cultural Policy and Film and Photographic Studies, she has collaborated with prominent galleries and has curated and assisted many exhibitions as well as working as a consultant on innovative visual storytelling initiatives. She is passionate about photography and developing alternative educational models for photographers and visual storytellers, and about developing new networks between visual professionals on the African continent and beyond.

She is a frequent nominator and jury member for initiatives including the Joop Swart Masterclass, The International Prize for Contemporary African Photography (CAP) and FORMAT. She is based in Kampala.

Anna and Stella are open-minded but particularly interested in work originating from or engaging with the African continent. They are also keen on seeing work responding to topics of resistance, authoritarianism, marginalized communities and diverse viewpoints.

** Anna will be reviewing with Jennie Anderson **

Anna is an independent photography curator, collections consultant and researcher. She currently contributes to the curatorial programming of Argentea Gallery in Birmingham, advises photographers about their projects and archives and is Co-Director of an emerging Community Interest Company Developed in Birmingham.

Since graduating in photography from Nottingham Trent University in 2001, Anna has worked with diverse photographic collections and active photographers. The vast majority of her work has been within the museum sector, including 13 years as Curator of Photographs at the Museum of London.

Anna has extensive knowledge and experience in caring for and acquiring historic and contemporary photographs for a museum audience. She curated several exhibitions at the Museum of London, including London Street Photography (co-curated 2011), Soldiers and Suffragettes: The Photography of Christina Broom (2015) and London Nights (2018) and created publications with Hoxton Mini Press, Dewi Lewis and IB Tauris. Anna has independently delivered and chaired talks at the Barbican, V&A, LCC, The Photographers Gallery and Photo London.

Anna is keen to view a wide range of photographic projects that are underpinned with research, a strong concept or narrative to include conceptual, documentary or landscape genres. She is less interested in portraiture or fashion.

Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger, PhD, works as a Professor of Exhibition Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. She is responsible for the MA-program for curatorial studies, Praxis. She is also is an artistic director and co-founder of The Festival of Political Photography. Anna-Kaisa is on the leave of absence from her position as the Chief Curator at The Finnish Museum of Photography, where she worked 2009–2016. She has extensive experience in exhibition projects, curating practices and the international exhibition scene of the contemporary arts. She has published widely about contemporary photography. Recently she co-edited a book Why Exhibit? Positions On Exhibiting Photographies, 2018, FW:books. Her special interests are exhibition as critical practice, feminist curation and running.

Anna-Kaisa is looking for images, which challenges the stereotypical photographic representations. I am also curious to see pictures, which make spectators think how photographic images function in the contemporary world.

Anne is a creative director and editor whose interests lie at the intersection of art, culture and innovation.

Currently an independent creative consultant, Anne’s background includes the creative and content leadership of platforms such as Magnum Photos, where she launched magnumphotos.com as a new platform for visual storytelling as well as print sales and photography education projects, NOWNESS and Culture Trip. Anne has also held roles as Photo Editor of Vanity Fair France and Photography Director of Forward Publishing (now Bookmark).

She is currently looking for accomplished visual storytelling portfolios, photojournalism and commercial projects with a defined visual style, and innovative photographic works-in-progress. Please, no nudes, and no travel photography without a clear project in mind.

Anne is a creative director, photo historian and lecturer. As an award-winning editorial art director, she worked in Amsterdam, Paris and London before joining the National Portrait Gallery as an independent consultant invited to commission themed group portraiture. Between 2009-2012 she developed the creative approach and produced the Gallery’s largest ever commission The Road to 2012. This included three annual exhibitions, public realm national touring exhibition, and accompanying social engagement projects.

Her previous major project, the multimedia touring exhibition SIXTEEN, asked ‘what it’s like to be sixteen years old now?’ She curated an exhibition that included over sixty portraits with accompanying interviews, which was shown at FORMAT 2019.

Anne would like to see portraiture and whatever personal projects the photographer is developing with enthusiasm and excitement.

Arianna is a freelance professional working with photography at a wide range. Since 2012 she is the artistic director of Cortona On The Move, the international photography festival in Tuscany, Italy. She is also curator of photography for PhEST, a new festival for contemporary photography and art focused on the Mediterranean, in Monopoli, Italy.

Arianna’s relationship with photography started in 1998 in New York, as Archive Director at Magnum Photos. Based in Milan from 2004 to 2011, Arianna has been a freelance curator for exhibits and book projects, and a photo consultant for publications. She was the director of OjodePez magazine, the bilingual documentary photography quarterly published by LaFabrica, Madrid, for 7 years. Based in Barcelona, Arianna continues to develop photography projects at an international level, and teaches workshop, explores photo festivals, and is intrigued by amazing stories told through photography.

Arianna is interested in contemporary storytelling, experimental documentary. Stories of our world and visions of mankind living on this planet, and beyond.

Photo by Piero Martinello.

Azu is the Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non- profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. He was elected as the Interim Director/ Head Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa from June 2018 to August 2019. He also serves as Founder and Director of LagosPhoto Festival, an annual international arts festival of photography held in Lagos. He is the creator of Art Base Africa, a virtual space to discover and learn about contemporary African Art. Azu served as a juror for the Dutch Doc, POPCAP Photography Awards, the World press Photo, Prisma Photography Award (2015), Greenpeace Photo Award (2016), New York Times Portfolio Review (2017-18), W. Eugene Smith Award (2018), Photo Espana (2018), Foam Paul Huf Award (2019), Wellcome photography prize (2019) and is a regular juror for organisations such as Lensculture and Magnum.

For the past 20 years, he has curated private collections for various prominent individuals and corporate organisations in Africa. Nwagbogu obtained a Masters in Public Health from The University of Cambridge. He lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria.

Azu is only ever interested in work made with conviction and thoroughly researched even when the artist is dealing with the self.

Since 1990, Beate has curated numerous group and solo exhibitions by Danish and international artists and organised exhibitions in Europe, South Korea, China and India. For many years she has also participated as a portfolio reviewer at different international festivals of photography around the world. Galleri Image is a public gallery aiming at spreading knowledge of high quality photo-based art by showing Danish as well as international art photography and camera based art. Founded in Aarhus (Denmark) in 1977, Galleri Image is the oldest non-profit exhibition space for photographic art in Scandinavia. In fact, for many years it was the only photo art gallery in Denmark. Over the last 40 years Galleri Image has achieved international reputation thanks to its exhibitions and has contributed considerably to the recognition and understanding of photography as an important and independent genre in the world of visual art.

Since 2014, Galleri Image and the Aarhus School of Architecture have collaborated in organizing Photobook Week Aarhus. PWA focuses on the rapidly growing international interest in photobooks in recent years and represents a continuous study of the evolution and role of the medium. Galleri Image is the founder of PWA festival.

As a reviewer, Beate is interested in seeing contemporary art works made by artists working with photography and camera based art.

Ben is the Director of Stills: Centre for Photography, a gallery with production facilities that was established in 1977 and is based in the heart of Edinburgh. His curated exhibitions for Stills have included presentations of work by Anna Atkins, Kate Davis, Margaret Watkins, kennardphillipps, Lewis Baltz, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman and Jo Spence. Each year, Ben curates exhibitions highlighting new talent in photography from Scotland. He has also developed an annual series of displays showcasing photographic objects from rarely seen public and private archives and collections.

From 2003-13, Ben was Curator of Contemporary Art for Glasgow Museums where he curated numerous temporary exhibitions and collection displays for the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). From 2007-12, he was Lead Curator on Glasgow’s Art Fund International collecting project.

Ben is interested in all work, particularly in: content raising awareness to social and political issues; innovative practice and approaches to content, technique and display; links to Scotland; content that draws upon the history of photography, archives and collections.

Photo by Flannery O’Kafka

Bindi is an artist, curator and Curatorial Projects Manager at Autograph, London. Her recent curatorial project Poulomi Basu: Centralia was jointly awarded the Rencontres d’Arles – Louis Roederer Discovery Award jury prize 2020. Since joining Autograph, Bindi has co-curated solo exhibitions including Lola Flash: [sur]passing and Maxine Walker: Untitled.

Her writing has appeared in Loose Associations: Vol.2 Issue II, Lee Bul: Crashing; most recently initiating a new series of artist conversations for Autograph which have included multidisciplinary artists such as Monica Alcazar Duarte, Maryam Wahid and Tobi Alexandra Falade amongst others. Vora has contributed to public programmes at London Art Fair, GRAIN Photography Hub and The Photographers’ Gallery where she was most recently in conversation with renowned transmedia artist and activist Poulomi Basu.

Photo by Laura Hensser.

Bridget is a senior picture editor based in London, where she has worked for national newspapers and magazines.

In addition to her editorial experience, Bridget has curated a number of exhibitions, including Residual Traces, a photographic response to the 2012 Olympics at Photofusion in Brixton and in 2009 was Director of the Hereford Photography Festival where she presented the photography of European photographers working with the image of the child in “Seen But Not Heard” and curated the retrospective show of photojournalist and filmmaker John Bulmer.

Bridget has been a guest reviewer at international photography festivals including, Photoespania, Spain; Daegu Photography Biennale, South Korea; Contact International Photography Festival, Canada; Fotofest, US and Format International Photography Festival, UK. In 2015 Bridget was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Photography, UK.

Bridget would prefer to see projects that are either nearly finished or completed. Could be on any subject or genre.

Camilla is a curator, writer and lecturer on contemporary art, specialising in photography based in Derbyshire. For ten years she was Senior curator at The Photographers’ Gallery, London previous to which she was Exhibitions Curator at Tate Liverpool. She is on the steering group for FORMAT Photography Festival. She holds a number of academic posts and has been Senior Lecturer in Creative Industries at Middlesex University and more recently started teaching MA photography and Fine Art at the University of Derby. She is Associate Curator for GRAIN, a West Midlands based arts organisation dedicated to commissioning high quality photography projects, events and exhibitions.

She is a regular contributor to the webzine Photomonitor writing book and exhibition reviews as well as longer essays on UK based photographers.

Area of work interested in: She is curious about a range of practice and has specialised in exhibiting photography and moving image work. She has areas of research looking at self – portraiture and also rural / landscape projects and work around social justice.

** Caroline will be reviewing with Dewi Lewis **

Caroline has been a partner in Dewi Lewis Publishing for most of its 25+ year history. Her father and grandfather, both known as Bill Warhurst, were, for many decades, press photographers with The Times, London.

Caroline began working in photography at Manchester Studies Photography Archive, where in addition to her role as a researcher she also programmed a photographic gallery at Manchester Polytechnic. As a key member of The Documentary Photography Archive she was involved in the commissioning of several contemporary photographers including Martin Parr, Clement Cooper and John Darwell. In the early 1990s she set up Photofile, a company publishing photographic postcards and greetings cards.

Charlie is the Programme Director (Adults) at Signal Film and Media in Cumbria, the Community Engagement Manager at Manchester Histories and also has an independent curatorial and producing practice.

At Signal Film and Media, she is responsible for the contemporary digital arts programme including the West Coast Photo Festival, and the major heritage photography project, Seeing the North with Sankey.

Recently she was the Interim Curator for Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, where she worked on exhibitions including Visual Rights. For four years before that she worked for Redeye, the Photography Network managing their programme of professional development events and conferences.

She uses her experience and insight in the arts to work with multiple photographers to advise, co-fundraise and produce exhibitions. In 2019 Charlie began her independent curatorial and producing practice with Elizabeth Wewiora under the name of Wewiora & Booth to produce Quinn – a journey by Lottie Davies that opened at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry last year.

As Community Engagement Manager for Manchester Histories she helped deliver the award-winning project Peterloo 2019. Focusing on the delivery of hundreds of public events across Greater Manchester including the BFI Film Academy in partnership with HOME. She developed her curatorial practice at the Hepworth Wakefield and South Square Gallery in Bradford as a Curatorial Fellow.

Charlie is hoping to see new work by photographers that are open to working collaboratively to co-produce exhibitions and artwork that is either socially engaged or socially motivated. She is also looking for photographers interested in developing their practice to incorporate digital arts. Topics for projects that are of particular interest include work that looks at the environmental climate crisis. She is not interested in seeing fashion photography or architectural photography.

Cheryl is an artist and independent curator of photography living in London. She recently completed an MA in Photography Arts at the University of Westminster (Distinction). Her personal practice explores her history through archive and family images and the environment of memory.

For the past three years, she has been working with the Gaia Foundation to commission and curate We Feed the World, a photographic global adventure documenting the lives of family and peasant farmers for an exhibition which premiered at the Barge house Gallery, London, in Autumn 2018. She curated 209 Women, one of the highest profile exhibitions of 2018 in which all the female MP’s in the UK Parliament were photographed by women photographers to celebrate 100 years of suffrage, which moved to Open Eye Gallery Liverpool in February 2019 and is now part of the Parliamentary Art collection. For more than fifteen years, she was the Photography Director of the award-winning Telegraph Magazine where she raised the profile of the magazine and commissioned intelligent and inventive photography worldwide. She is a nominator for the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize Foundation and has served on juries globally, was the chair of the RPS Photography Awards 2017-2019. She is co-curating a show of feminist photography for PHOTO WIENS 2022. Cheryl is also an educator and runs the Dartington Workshops with artist Sian Davey and an ongoing mentor programme in Oslo, Norway.

Cheryl is interested in seeing work that addresses family, history and local environment such as farming. She is very keen to work with photographers who have perhaps lost their direction and need support and a fresh perspective.

Christiane is the founding editor of the online photography magazine Photomonitor which has published more than 1,200 features online in the past decade. In 2020 she co-founded Hapax Magazine, currently working on its first issue. Christiane is also a freelance curator, lecturer, artist mentor, and serves on the Board of Photofusion, on the steering committee of Fast Forward, Women in Photography, and as a trustee of The Hyman Foundation.

She is interested in seeing all types of lens-based work, particularly bodies of work that would be suitable for presentation online, in a gallery or in a publication. At the reviews she would most enjoy discussing work that is in-progress, unresolved or otherwise benefitting from conversations on different strategies and outcomes.

** Cindy will be reviewing with Skinder Hundal **

Cindy is a Curator and Special Projects Producer at the New Art Exchange, the largest contemporary art space in the UK focusing on underrepresented practices in the arts. Alongside the CEO, Cindy leads on the Here, There & Everywhere – Africa/UK: Transforming Art Ecologies project which partners with Biennale International Casablanca 2020. She also curates critically engaged exhibitions and delivers events. In addition, partly manages the national and international touring of NAE’s exhibitions and coordinates ExperiMentor – NAE’s artist development and mentoring scheme for local emerging artists.

She is a cultural producer, curator and young writer with a specific interest in intellectual, political and artistic aspects of decoloniality within the arts and feminist movements and writings. Specifically, decolonial artistic practices, curatorial and institutional methodologies from a Black women perspective and her embodied knowledges informed by lived experiences. She is passionate about the dissemination of epistemologies and new cultural production from the ‘Global South’, as a political space.

She studied Communication, Media & Cultural Mediation at University Paris 8, France (2014), including a fully funded year Erasmus studying at Panteion University in Athens, Greece. She also did a Master’s in Cultural Events Management (2015) at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Cindy previously worked at Nottingham Contemporary in the Exhibitions and Public Programmes departments (2017-2018). She is also part of a Nottingham-based collective, SheAfriq, a group of creative Black women that programme a diverse range of events in and out of institutions to reclaim their space within the city.

Photo Credit: Richard Chung

Claire is Festival Director at Photo Fringe and co-director of Corridor. With over 15 years experience of working freelance with a portfolio of artists, commissioning organisations and visual arts festivals, her passion for photography is shared by supporting lens-based artists and curators. Her portfolio includes: Black Country Stories (Multistory, 2010-2014); Open for Business (Multistory and Magnum Photos, 2011-2012); Pictures from America: Rochester (Magnum, 2012); Ex-offenders with David Goldblatt (Multistory, 2012-2013); HOUSE Biennial (2014 – 2017); Brighton Photo Fringe (2016); two editions of the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards (Photoworks, 2017-19); Brighton Photo Biennial (2018); Peckham 24 (Photoworks, 2019); In Focus with Anna Farley (2019); Photo Fringe (2020); @curatedbymums (current).

Photo by Zoltan Borovics.

Clare Strand is an artist, working with and against the photographic medium. Over the past two decades she has worked with found imagery, kinetic machinery, web programmes, fairground attractions and most recently, large scale paintings. She was one of the four nominated artists for the Deutsche Börse prize 2020. Her work is the collections of, amongst others, MOMA, SFMOMA, V&A and The Center Pompidou. Clare has had a prolific career exhibiting in group and solo shows worldwide.

Clare is interested in work that is based strongly in concept from people of any age or background. Clare is particularly keen to discuss the development of projects.

Clare will be reviewing on Friday morning only.

Dagmar is the UK Photo Editor of the German weekly stern magazine. She proposes story and feature ideas, commissions and buys work for stern and writes features about culture and photography for this renowned publication. Dagmar also contributes to the magazine’s associated titles such as the monthly VIEW, the bi-monthly stern CRIME and others, and runs K&R Media, a photo agency and correspondents’ service for various German and Swiss media clients such as Die Zeit, Brigitte, the Swiss broadsheet NZZ and the broadcaster ARD. She is passionate about discovering and developing new talent and has held workshops and talks about editorial photography and its role in storytelling in the UK and abroad. Dagmar is also Director of K&R Media, a photo agency for German and Swiss media.

Dagmar would like to see work from a wide range of photographic genres, especially if it has a strong narrative which may appeal to a more mainstream international readership. Photojournalism, documentary, street photography and portraiture are her main focus. She is interested in conceptual and fashion photography too, though generally not in architecture.

Daniel Boetker-Smith is an educator, writer, curator, publisher, and photographer based in Melbourne. Daniel is the Dean of Studies at Photography Studies College (Melbourne) and is a regular contributor to GUP Magazine, The British Journal of Photography, Voices of Photography, Vault, Photoeye, Paper Journal, Heavy, Source, and other Australian and international publications. Daniel is also the Director of the Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive, a not-for-profit library of self-published and independent photobooks. Daniel is on the Advisory Panel for the PHOTO Festival in Melbourne, and has also recently co-curated a major exhibition of documentary photography at the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne. Daniel regularly speaks at festivals and symposia internationally on the subject of photobooks, photographic publishing and self-publishing in the Asia-Pacific area. He has been a judge and nominator at numerous international and national photographic competitions. He has curated a number of large international photobook events for the major institutions in Australia and internationally.

Interested in: photobook projects – at any stage (shooting, editing, layout, published). Documentary or conceptual storytelling photo projects.

Born in Milan, after graduating in Fashion Marketing from St Martins School in London, Daria started working for Contrasto and Grazia Neri Photo Agency in 2004, where she represented several international agencies and photographers and she selected new talents for the Agency.

In 2008, she went to New York to work as the agent of documentary photographer Donna Ferrato and representing Grazia Neri’s photographers all through the US, while collaborating with the major publications. In 2009, Daria came back to Milano and started her own Agency, DB, where she represents a few selected documentary, fashion photographers, film directors and illustrators for fashion, advertising and digital campaigns. She is a producer and independent visual editor for editorial projects and digital content.

Daria has been invited as a portfolio reviewer at several festivals, like Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles and as a member part of the Jury of many International Photography Awards and a nominator for the Prix Pictet.

Daria is interested in seeing reportage, documentary, fashion, travel, portrait, wildlife, sport, underwater, interior, lifestyle and still life. She is not interested in seeing automotive pictures, artistic pictures (like abstract), digitally enhanced and architectural images.

Photo by Grazia Ippolito.

David Drake is the Director of Ffotogallery, the national development agency for photography and lens-based media in Wales, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2018. Ffotogallery’s work involves exhibitions, print and online publishing, and an extensive education programme. Ffotogallery has been the lead agency for two pan-European cooperation projects, European Prospects and A Woman’s Work. David is also Director of the biennial Diffusion – Cardiff International Festival of Photography, this year in its fifth edition, and was Project Director for Wales’ pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2015. In 2017/18, Ffotogallery collaborated with the Nazar Foundation on a project called Dreamtigers, as part of the UK-India programme. Building on relationships formed with Indian photographers and curators, five artists have been commissioned during lockdown to create and present new work for a follow-up programme in partnership with Chennai Photo Biennale, funded by the British Council India.

David was Curator of The Place I Call Home, a major UK-Gulf photography exhibition commissioned by the British Council which toured ten venues in seven countries in 2019/20.

As a portfolio reviewer, David offers participants curatorial feedback and guidance on how to present their work to galleries and publishers, including Ffotogallery, how to pitch for art commissions, and advice on their development as a professional artist. He is most interested in viewing cohesive bodies of work with conceptually driven themes that have been or are near completion. He welcomes reviewing contemporary image-based work across a wide range of practices, including fine art and documentary photography, video, installation and digital media work.

As Ffotogallery does not present purely commercial, fashion or stock photography, he would prefer not to review such work.

Deborah Robinson is Head of Exhibitions at The New Art Gallery Walsall.  She has been responsible for the contemporary art programme since the opening of the gallery in 2000.  The programme includes exhibitions, a studio programme, artists’ projects, events and a professional development programme delivered in partnership with New Art West Midlands.

Deborah has curated many solo and group exhibitions.  These have included major exhibitions by Mat Collishaw, Mahtab Hussain, Idris Khan, Hew Locke, Martin Parr, Ged Quinn, Chiharu Shiota, Joana Vasconcelos and Zarina Bhimji.

Deborah sits on the Advisory Panel for New Art West Midlands, she is a member of the Acquisitions Advisory Panel for the British Council Collection and is a Board member of Meadow Arts.

In 2019, Dewi celebrated 25 years of independent publishing. His publishing house has an international reputation with books by leading British and international photographers as well as by emerging photographers. Many of its titles have been shortlisted for various international prizes and several have won awards. 
In 2018 the company won both the Paris Photo / Aperture Foundation Photobook of The Year Award and the Rencontres d’Arles Author Book Prize.

Dewi Lewis is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. In 2009 he was awarded the inaugural Royal Photographic Society Award for Outstanding Services to Photography and, in 2012, the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Publishing.

Other than illustrative travel photography and nude photography, Dewi Lewis is interested in seeing any work suitable for publication in book form which has the potential to generate reasonable interest from a book buying audience.

Duncan Wooldridge is an artist, writer and curator. He is the Course Director for BA (Hons) Fine Art Photography at Camberwell College of Art. Curatorial work includes the two-site group survey exhibition, Anti-Photography, at Focal Point Gallery and Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend, in 2011, and John Hilliard: Not Black and White, at Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, in 2014. A parallel book, ‘John Hilliard: Not Black and White’, is published by Ridinghouse. In 2019 he curated the exhibition ‘Moving The Image: Photography and Its Actions’ at Camberwell Space, as part of the Peckham 24 Photography Festival.

Duncan writes regularly as a critic and essayist, for magazines including Art Monthly, Artforum, Source, FOAM, Elephant, and 1000 Words Photography Magazine. Four essays were included in the recent 10-year anniversary edition of 1000 Words Magazine ’10 Years: 2008-2018′.

Elina Heikka is Museum Director at The Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki since 2007. The Museum, founded in 1969, is the national special museum for photography and puts on exhibitions of Finnish and foreign contemporary photography, and presents the diverse history of photography. Museum has recently opened a new space K1 in Helsinki City centre. Elina Heikka holds MA in art history. She was editor and editor-in-chief in Valokuva – Finnish Photography magazine from 1994 to1998. After that she worked as a researcher at the Finnish Museum of Photography and as a special researcher at the National Gallery / Central Art Archives from 2001 to 2007. She has published widely on contemporary photography, history of Finnish photography, contemporary art and visual culture.

Elina is widely interested in all kind of photography.

Erik Vroons (1976, The Netherlands) is Editor-at-large for GUP, the international platform for creative contemporary photography, and as Chief editor for the print edition of GUP Magazine. Furthermore, since 2012, he is closely involved with the production of, and the selection procedure for, the annual catalog GUP New (previously titled New Dutch Photography Talent) and its European version, Fresh Eyes since 2019. In recent years, he also initiates exhibitions with emerging artists based in The Netherlands, in the form of group shows at festivals and galleries around the world (e.g. Artsalon Taipei/2017; BredaPhoto/ 2018 and Paraty em Foco, Brazil/2018).

As a freelance writer/critic Erik has also contributed texts to several other international print magazines (e.g. British Journal of Photography, 1000Words, Archivo) and blogs (e.g, World Press Photo’s ‘Witness’). He is closely involved in the editing of various photobooks and contributes essays to several monographies. His collaborations within projects by award-winning photographers also include elements of research and curatorial conceptualization.

As a freelancer, Erik is furthermore active for World Press Photo (leading a fact-checking team for the annual awards) and several Dutch organizations concerned with the stimulation of photography. He is also a mentor in the field of creative authorship and the development of (documentary) projects, in the form of workshops. He is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and holds an MA in Photographic Studies (University Leiden) and an MA in Media Studies (University of Amsterdam).

Erik is looking forward to seeing the kind of photography which demonstrates smart and original approached to art- and documentary related subjects, by means of creative and convincing artistic authorship.

Photo Credit: Diane van der Marel

Based between Paris and Tuscany, Federica is a writer, curator, lecturer and editor specialising in photography and literature. She has just completed her PhD on the history and theory of photo-texts at the University of Westminster, under the supervision of Professor and artist David Bate.

She explores the relation between photography, fictions & words through her platform Photocaptionist, collaborating with institutions such as Jeu de Paume, Aperture and Fotomuseum Winterthur. She recently contributed to the 10×10 book ‘How We See: Photobooks by Women’ (2018) and to ‘The Routledge Companion of Photography and Visual Culture’ (2018). Previously, she co-curated the festival Jaipur Photo (2017) and the exhibition ‘Invisible Stratum’ at T3 Tokyo Photo Festival (2017) and was the Art Fund Curatorial Fellow of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she curated the exhibition and symposium ‘P.H. Emerson: Presented by the Author, at Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery’ (2015-2016). Her book ‘Amore e Piombo’ (with Roger Hargreaves; AMC Books, 2014) won the Kraszna-Krausz 2015 Best Photography Book Award. Her writings have appeared in Foam, IMA magazine, The Eyes, and Photoworks, among others. She holds an MA in Comparative Literature from the University College of London and a MSc in Book Publishing & Literature from the University of Milan. She gives lectures on Photo-Text Intersections at various international universities such as Paris College of Art, ECAL, and Image-Text-Ithaca (NY).

Federica is interested in seeing research-based artistic projects that ideally mingle fictional and documentary strategies.

Photo by Oliver Eglin.

Gordon MacDonald is currently the co-founder and editor of Hapax Magazine. In recent years he was the Co-founder of GOST Books and the founding editor of Photoworks Magazine. He was guest curator of Krakow Photomonth’s main programme 2017 and, more recently, co- curator of Tish Murtha: works 1976-1991 with Val Williams and was curator of Divisive Moments, both shown at the Photographers’ Gallery, London.

Gordon in interested in work that is based strongly in concept from people of any age or background. He is interested in discussing taking finished projects forward to dissemination.

Gordon will be reviewing on Saturday morning only.

After 6 years of experience in museum industry, Gwen Lee went on to pursue her first love for photography as the co-founder of Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF), a biennale international photography platform. For her vision for photography, she is awarded by award from Japan Chamber of Commerce & Trade for her contribution to the Singapore arts community in 2010. In 2013 she embarked on curatorial research in Germany supported by Goethe Institut Singapore & National Arts Council.

In 2013, SIPF receive grants from the arts council to further develop public photography education in Singapore. In 2014, Gwen and team built an independent art space call “DECK” to provide all year-round platform and residency programme for photographers in Singapore. DECK received the Singapore President’s Design Award 2015 for its innovative architectural design. Since 2016, DECK has been a recipient of NAC Major Company Grant as a gallery for art photography in Singapore.

Gwen has curated & organised over 60 photography exhibitions both in Singapore and overseas. Such as Flux: Contemporary Photography from China at Art Science Museum (2016, photobook exhibition with Steidl publishing at DECK (2016), and solo exhibitions of Daido Moriyama and Araki Nobuyoshi at DECK. She has also served as jury member and portfolio reviewer at various platform including FORMAT, KL PHOTO Award, KG+, DIPE China, Houston Fotofestival, Daegul Photo Biennale, Recontres d’ Arles and Ballarat International Foto Biennale.

Helen Starr is a Afro-Carib curator and producer who moved to the UK from Trinidad in the early 90’s. She founded The Mechatronic Library in 2010, to enable artists and museums to create artworks using new media technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). She has worked with award winning public institutions such as the South London Gallery, FACT in Liverpool and QUAD in Derby.

Helen is interested in how Virtual, AI and digital systems no longer simply model physical reality, but also shape the way we behave and act with or without our knowledge and consent.  These digital artworks are showcased in thought provoking multimedia exhibitions accompanied by insightful public programmes. Community, healing and learning are the core of her practice.

Helen prefers portfolios which are personal, political and futuristic. Helen can advise on story-telling, project development and how to integrate new media into your practice.

Image credit: Anna Bunting- Branch still from META 2019, (360 degree film, 15mins)

Holly is a Swiss/American independent curator, museologist, and researcher with in-depth knowledge of photography and contemporary art from East Asia. Roussell served as coordinator of the worldwide traveling exhibitions program and photography prize, the Prix Elysée, for the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, from 2013 to 2017. In 2017, she co-founded the Asia Photography Project, a non-profit curatorial collective for photography from East Asia. As an independent curator, some recent projects include Pixy Liao: Your Gaze Belongs to Me at Fotografiska, New York (upcoming 2021) ; acting as curator for the 4th Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale (2018) under the direction of Li Zhenhua; Pixy Liao Experimental Relationship at the Rencontres d’Arles (2019); Dai Jianyong Judy Zhu at the Shanghai Centre of Photography (2019), Jimei x Arles Foto Festival (2018) and Lianzhou Foto Festival (2019) and the major publication and travelling exhibition project, Civilization: The Way We Live Now (co-curated with William A. Ewing) that travels to the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, KR (2018), UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing. CN (2019), NGV, Melbourne, AUS (2019), Auckland Art Gallery (2020), MUCEUM, Marseille, FR (upcoming 2021) and other venues. Holly Roussell is a regular expert to international portfolio reviews and has contributed as author to a number of exhibition catalogues and magazines on photography. In 2022, Roussell joins the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, South Korea as International Curatorial Researcher in residence.

Holly is particularly interested in conceptual photography, digital art, experimental photographic processes, textural works and representations of landscape or environmental issues. She is keen to support artists with editing and strategic advice for projects at all stages.

Photo by Eugene Hyland.

Jae-hyun was born in Daegu, Korea. He completed his graduate studies at Ohio University majoring in Visual Communication. His career can be summarised as a photographer, educator and curator. His experience from working as a photographer—for New York Times, International Herald Tribune and Korean GEO—in the past has brought him where he is now.

Jay-hyun has curated many international exhibitions including Imaging Asia in Documents (2006) and Women in War (2014) for Daegu Photo Biennale and has been involving several Photo Festivals such as Dali International Photo Festival, Jimei x Arles Photo Festival in China and Foto Istanbul as a foreign curator. He received the Best Curator Award twice from DIPE in China, 2015 & 2017.

After profiling 30 established photographers from other countries on VON photography magazine, he is working as an associate editor for Photo Dot magazine in Korea. He has also participated in many international photo festivals as a portfolio reviewer such as FotoFest in Houston, Format Photo Festival in Derby, England, Koytography in Japan, Singapore Photo Festival, Festival de la Luz in Buenos Aires and etc.

He is interested in seeing bodies of works on documentary and fine art photography with concept.

James Estrin is a New York Times staff photographer and writer. He was a founder of Lens, The New York Times photography blog. Estrin was part of a team that won a 2001 Pulitzer Prize for “How Race Is Lived In America.”He is also the co-executive producer of the documentary film “Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro” which appeared on HBO in November 2016. He is also an adjunct professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

James is happy to see anything. He is most interested in documentary and journalistic work that employs innovative approaches to storytelling.

Created in 2010, the Guernsey Photography Festival brings together major names in international photography with a host of emerging talent, for a packed month of exhibitions, projections, talks, educational workshops and community events on the island. The festival is now firmly established as one of the most important and successful cultural events in Guernsey and has positioned itself amongst the best festivals of photography in Europe.

The festival concentrates mainly on contemporary photography including documentary and conceptual work. Jean-Christophe can offer various platforms for photographers through the festivals range of exhibitions, talks series and artist in residence programmes. The festival has developed close relationships with other major international festivals, galleries, agencies and publishers so JC can recommend people when appropriate.

For JC, a strong portfolio has to be coherent, innovative with a strong sense of artistic integrity. He is particularly interested in individuals who keep developing and maturing their work and strive to keep producing high quality projects over time. Reviewing a portfolio is above all about opening a dialogue with the artist. It is about creating an environment of attentive listening in order to deliver clear guidance and advice.

Photo by Peter Franklin/Guernsey Press

** Jennie is reviewing with Anna Sparham **

Jennie is a curator, photographic consultant and founder of Argentea Gallery. She holds a first-class degree in photography and, to enhance a scholarship of art history and collections, a Master’s degree in the history of photography from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. Alongside curating the gallery’s exhibition programme, she participates in portfolio reviews, jury panels and international art fairs and festivals such as Unseen, Amsterdam and Voies Off, Rencontres d’Arles. She is passionate about mentoring the photographers she works with and works closely with collectors and curators to place their work in both private and public collections.

Jennie is interested in seeing a broad range of fine art photography, particularly emerging practices with an original and creative approach. As it doesn’t fit with the gallery’s scope, she is not interested in fashion, advertising or photojournalism. Projects can be either completed or still in progress.

Jeong is editor-in-chief of IANN, the contemporary art magazine in Asia and founder of IANNBOOKS launched in 2007. In order to exchange contemporary arts and to activate a networking community among the countries of Asia, she opened a publishing-new media platform called THE REFERENCE ASIA in 2018 and co-founded UNIT CIRCLE, a non-profit international group centered around editors to enhance the Asian art-book network. Serving as the chief coordinator of DAEGU PHOTO BIENNALE 2012 and curator of SEOUL PHOTO FESTIVAL 2010, she has been widely involved in curatorial activities within the field of photography. In an effort to introduce the contemporary photography scene of Asia, she continues to publish numerous art and photo books. Meanwhile, Jeong has been engaging in collaborative art projects commissioned by commercial corporations such as Leica Korea, LG electronics, HDC I-Park Mall and so on.

Her major interest is to look for young talented, emerging artists who try to push at the boundaries of contemporary art and new technologies.

John is one of the editors of Source magazine. He studied Documentary Photography at Newport and Fine Art Photography at Glasgow School of Art and still makes his own work. In each issue Source publishes three personal projects by photographers on its ‘portfolio pages’. His role is to be on the look out for new work for this section of the magazine. This includes work by photographers in the early stages of their careers, recent graduates as well as more established photographers.

To give us editorial focus work needs to made by photographers from or based in the UK or Ireland. Source has quite a broad remit in terms of what they publish. In general its personal projects resolved over an extended series of images. The archive section of their website gives you a sense of what they do. He is happy to look at longer edits of work in progress or completed work.

Julia is the Curator at Photoworks, responsible for developing Photoworks Festival (formerly Brighton Photo Biennial) and other curatorial programmes such as the Jerwood/Photoworks Awards and the Photoworks Annual, an influential journal on photography and visual culture.

Having obtained her MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, Julia previously worked as the Assistant Curator of the Triennial of Photography where she was responsible for the festival hub including exhibitions of international and national artists. Prior to that, Julia was curatorial assistant at Deichtorhallen House of Photography, one of Germany’s largest exhibition spaces for photography.

In her current role at Photoworks, Julia is interested in work that engages with timely social, political and postcolonial issues through a range of documentary and conceptual approaches. Her recent curatorial project includes ‘Photoworks Festival: Propositions for Alternative Narratives’ (2020).

Julia will be reviewing on Friday morning only.

Julia is the Public Participation Director, Auckland Festival of Photography in New Zealand. In 2004 she founded the annual Auckland Festival of Photography in New Zealand, and started a 24 hour people’s competition, Auckland Photo Day. The Auckland Festival of Photography is the longest running photography festival in Australasia.

She played a key role in Auckland becoming a founding member of the Asia Pacific Photoforum in 2010, a regional grouping of international photography festivals across New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Julia initiated the Annual Commission for Fine Arts Photography in 2011 and 33 works have since been created.

As a Festival director, Julia enjoys seeing most types of photography. The preference for her areas of interest would be documentary projects and ones with a body of work/long term series.

** Please note, as Julia is in New Zealand, some of her reviews will take place on Friday late evening (BST) and not at the times listed, on Friday. We will email you about this after you have made a booking **

Karen is the Creative Director of Shutter Hub, the UK based photography organisation providing opportunities, support and networking for creative photographers worldwide. She founded the organisation to create a supportive community for photographers and to provide a platform for the development of ideas and careers.

She is dedicated to creating fair access to photography and opening up opportunities for everyone. She’d love to see work by creative photographers who are looking for support and direction, who want to exhibit their work, develop their networks, and connect with others.

Karen has spoken at industry events and locations such as FOAM Museum, London Art Fair, FORMAT Festival, and the Festival of Creative Industries; curated exhibitions at London Photomonth, Cambridge University, and St Bride Foundation, to name just a few in the UK, and taken shows to Belgium, Denmark, France, Israel, Portugal, Romania and The Netherlands. She’s reviewed portfolios in the UK, Europe, Canada, the US and Israel; at Unseen Amsterdam, FORMAT International Photography Festival, Belfast Photo Festival, London Photomonth, The Photographers’ Gallery, Getty Images Gallery, Exposure Photo Festival, Griffin Museum of Photography and the Photographic Resource Center, and more.

Karen is a consultant, curator and collaborator who works to bring innovative ideas and fundamental kindness to every project. She has won awards for photography, writing and community development. In 2019 she was named the Digital Influencer of the Year at the Holland Press Awards. Karen is experienced in working with museums and galleries, developing exhibition spaces, and collaborating with organisations such as The National Archive, English Heritage and Cambridge University. She also founded and co-directs the charitable organisation Toiletries Amnesty.

Karen is Senior Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery. She has curated exhibitions including Jim Goldberg, Open See (2009); Fiona Tan, Vox Populi, London (2012); Andy Warhol, Photographs: 1976 – 1987 (2014); Lorenzo Vitturi, Dalston Anatomy (2014) and Rosângela Rennó, Río-Montevideo(2016). She has co-curated Geraldo De Barros, What Remains (2013) with Isobel Whitelegg, Made You Look, Dandyism and Black Masculinity (2016) with EkowEshun and Shot in Soho (2019) with Julian Rodriguez. Karen has curated external exhibitions at The Moscow House of Photography and The National Gallery of Kosovo. She regularly participates in international workshops, writes for photography publications, guest lectures across the UK and edits artists books. Karen also facilitates TPG New Talent, a programme and exhibition for UK based emerging practitioners.

Karen is happy to view work from many genres including that which falls under an expanded definition of photography and image making. Work in progress is welcomed, as well as finished projects. Karen is less interested in viewing advertising or heavily commercial work.

Malcolm is a curator, writer and organiser. He is the Director of Street Level Photoworks, a leading photography arts organisation in Scotland that provides artists and the public with a range of opportunities to make and engage with photography. He co-ordinates a programme which embraces different genres of photography and is extended through a network of local and community venues, regional art galleries, and through national and international partners. Recent exchange residencies have included cities such as Quebec City, Berlin, and Marseille. He runs the Photography Networks in Scotland platform which profiles exhibitions and events in photography across Scotland. Street Level is a lead partner in Scotland’s Season of Photography.

A former Senior Research Fellow at Dundee University, recent writings include the chapter ‘Slender Margins and Delicate Tensions: Projects by European Video Pioneers Stansfield/Hooykaas’ in the book ‘European Women’s Video Art’ (John Libbey Publications 2019).

Interested in viewing bodies of work in their early stages which impartial advice may help  AND substantially developed bodies of work from artists and photographers, which blend experimental approaches, conceptual or issue based themes; social landscape work and new documentary; work that tells a compelling story; lyrical and narrative or abstract and non-narrative; photography based work that intersects with other media. Advice will be given on the basis of the work seen. No fashion, commercial or classical modes of documentary. No students (please seek advice from experienced tutors, your peers and from existing resources available online).

Marina Paulenka is an artist, curator, art consultant, and educator in photography. She was Artistic Director of UNSEEN Foundation and UNSEEN, an Amsterdam based platform for contemporary photography that presents the latest developments in the field of photography and amplifies the careers of boundary-pushing artists.

Prior to her role at Unseen, she worked as a curator and Artistic Director of the Organ Vida International Photography Festival and the non-for- profit Organ Vida Photography Organization, the leading institution for contemporary photography in Croatia.

Currently she is involved in FUTURES, an international photography platform and she is the guest curator for FORMAT21 International Photography Festival.

Marina is the recipient of the Lucie Awards 2018 for best curator/exhibition of the year for the exhibition “Engaged, Active, Aware: Women Perspectives Now”. So far she has curated numerous exhibitions and work with artists such as Tabita Rezaire, Dana Lixenberg, Zanele Muholi, Hannah Starkey, Roger Ballen, Pieter Hugo, Nina Berman, Amalia Ulman, Laia Abril, Katrin Koenning and many others.

Marina nominates photographers for The Joop Swart Masterclass, the Prix Pictet, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize and she is an international juror and portfolio reviewer at many institutions, awards and festivals.

Photo by Denis Butorac.

Markéta is the Creative Director of Fotograf Gallery, Festival and Magazine based in Prague. Fotograf Magazine is a twice-yearly periodical, special-themed issues dedicated to photography, visual culture and contemporary art. Fotograf Gallery is a space dedicated to solo exhibition projects of contemporary photography. Fotograf Festival is an annual occasion to meet special-themed and curated photographic exhibitions in Prague as well as professionals, theoreticians and artists passionate about the medium.

Markéta is doctoral candidate in a fine art program at Fine Arts at Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague. She has studied at the Department of Photography, Faculty of Art and Design, Ústí nad Labem.

Markéta is most interested in reviewing conceptual art projects, experimental projects, public art projects, documentary photography crossing borders of its classical attitude. She is also interested in independent publishing, artists books and zines. As a magazine editor and festival co-founder she is interested in a wide range of approaches in sense of depicting the world around us in a distinctive way.

Michael Itkoff is a Cofounder of Daylight Books, a non-profit organisation dedicated to publishing art and photography books.  For over a decade, Daylight has been dedicated to publishing art and photography via its print and digital publishing programs. By exploring the documentary mode along with the more conceptual concerns of fine-art, Daylight’s uniquely collectible publications work to revitalise th relationship between art, photography, and the world-at-large.

Michael has been deeply involved in the publishing industry in both print and digital media and has written for the NYTimes Lens blog, Art Asia Pacific, Nueva Luz, Conscientious blog and the Forward. Before starting Daylight, Michael spent time at the Annie Leibovitz Studio, Aperture Foundation and Rizzoli International Publications.  His monograph, ‘Street Portraits’, was published by Charta Editions in 2009.

Mirjam is an art historian and curator at Foam Photography Museum Amsterdam, where she was responsible for shows including Ai Weiwei – #SafePassage, Daisuke Yokota – Matter, Awoiska van der Molen – Blanco, and the traveling Foam Talent exhibitions of 2015 and 2016. In 2017 she also initiated a series of collaborations with photography platforms in Mexico, Nigeria and Indonesia in Foam’s project space Foam 3h, in order to create an exchange of cultural knowledge on photography discourses worldwide.

Mirjam is currently researching how photography can relate to virtual realities, gaming and online experiences. Mirjam holds a BA in Art History and a MA in Museum Curating from the University of Amsterdam, with a special interest in postcolonial approaches in the arts and museum studies. She has written for L’Internationale and she is a regular contributor to Foam Magazine.

Mirjam is interested in work that relates to techniques such as photogrammetry, VR, CGI, 3D-rendering and in-game photography. And all genres of photography except for fashion photography, photojournalism or traditional documentary photography. Unconventional approaches within these genres are also welcome, however. Specifically looking for strong autonomous artistic visions, interdisciplinary work and new media.

Monica Allende is an independent curator, consultant and educator. She is the Artistic Director of LandskronaFoto Festival, and was GetxoPhoto International Image Festival Artistic Director from 2017 to 2019. She has also collaborated with WeTransfer as a Consultant and Creative Producer, as well as the director of FORMAT17 International Photography Festival.

She has worked with Screen Projects and produced and curated Blue Skies Project, a multidisciplinary project with artist Anton Kusters and Ruben Samama exhibited during PhotoLondon 2019 and currently showing at USHMM. It was also recently shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.

Monica was the Photo Editor at the Sunday Times Magazine, where she launched Spectrum, the award-winning photography section. She is a visiting lecturer at the London College of Communication, London & EFTI in Madrid.

She has also produced and taught creatives labs including for FIFV in Chile, ScreenLab in London and WPP JOOP Masterclass in Saudi Arabia. Along with the University of Sunderland’s Mentorship Business Programme, Festival Internazionale a Ferrara, WPP workshop Angola, Magnum Professional Practice Workshops, among many others.

She is dedicated to nurturing new and established talent and nominates photographers for prizes including the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Prix Pictet andThe Joop Swart Masterclass/ WPP.

She has served on juries across the world including the Center Awards in  Santa Fe, Perth  Center for Photography,  Vogue Festival, Bar Tur Photobook Award, La Fabrica/Photo London dummy award and LandskronaFoto.

She has also been the recipient of the Amnesty International Media Photojournalism Award, the Picture Editor’s Award, the Online Press Award and Magazine Design Award for Best Use of Photography.

Photo by Carlos Alba.

Nicola works as a Producer, Curator, Project Manager, Mentor and Consultant, specialising in photography, and is co-founder and Director of GRAIN Projects. She trained as an art historian, has an MA in History of Art, and a background in the visual arts, including in commissioning, exhibitions, collections, public art, artists education and professional development.

As Director of GRAIN Projects she leads on commissioning new work, curating exhibitions, developing artist’s and photographer’s training, development and networking opportunities and producing events and symposia. She is interested in working with emerging and established artists and photographers.

Recent projects include collaborations with Photoworks, Creative People & Places – Appetite, New Art Gallery Walsall, Herbert Art Gallery, FORMAT International Photography Festival, Redeye Photography Network, Brighton Photo Fringe, Library of Birmingham and The Hive Arts Centre. She has worked with artists and photographers including Anthony Luvera, Edgar Martins, Indre Serpytyte, Tom Hunter, Mark Power, Helen Marshall, Sam Laughlin, Kate Peters, Arpita Shah and Maryam Wahid.

Nicola is interested in seeing fine art photography and bodies of work that have a clear subject or story to tell, which the photographer explores in an original way. This could be within documentary, portraiture, still life or fine art. She is interested in a wide range of photographic genres including emerging practices. She is not interested in seeing fashion photography, photojournalism or architectural photography.

Dr. Nina Heydemann is currently the director of the Maraya Art Centre and the 1971 – Design Space in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Established in 2010, the Maraya Art Centre is a non-profit art space that is also home to the Maraya Video Archive and the Maraya Art Park. The 1971- Design Space, launched in Sharjah in 2015, is a non-profit platform for local as well asinternational designers and houses the 1971 -Design Store.

Before her appointment, Nina worked as the Senior Manager – Visual Arts heading the Department of Visual Arts at the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) in Abu Dhabi from 2014-2018. She received her PhD degree in Art History from the University of Leipzig, Germany, and the University College London (UCL), United Kingdom. Her dissertation “The Art of Quotation. Forms and Themes of the Art Quote, 1990-2010”, examines inter-pictorial referentiality of contemporary artworks. Previously, she worked as an exhibition manager for the Deutsche Bank Art Collection in Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

Nina studied Art History and Cultural Sciences at the University of Leipzig, the Università Ca’ Foscarì Venice and Venice International University, Italy. She was awarded scholarships from the University of Leipzig, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschenVolkes).

Since 1990, Nuno has worked as a creative producer and project manager for several institutions in the cultural industries. He has developed projects related with visual arts (photography), festivals, performing arts (theatre), multimedia (cinema, video and television), music, creative markets, international cultural networks and conferences.

PARALLEL is a platform that brings together creative European organisations committed to promoting cross-cultural exchanges and mentorships in order to set new standards in contemporary photography. The platform consists of 18 partners from 16 countries ensuring a wide geographical spread. With its large and diverse network, PARALLEL aims to establish a wide and effective platform for the exhibition of European emerging artists and curators and to promote a more fluid and functional link between them and the exhibitors (museums, galleries and festivals).

Nuno is also Artistic Director of Procur.arte, a Lisbon based organisation that specialises and produces International photography projects.

Nuno is interested in working with a good story, and always looking for new photographers to work with.

Peggy Sue is Artistic Director for East Wing, a platform for international photography founded in Doha, Qatar. As a curator, writer, strategist, mentor and photographic consultant, Peggy Sue has collaborated with numerous emerging and established photographers, festivals and publications internationally. Before beginning her position at East Wing, Peggy Sue was Artistic Director of Sirius Arts Centre in Ireland (2001 – 2014) where she headed a multidisciplinary visual arts and residency programme. Peggy was also a board member of the Belfast Photo Festival in Northern Ireland (2012 – 2016). She is presently based in Berlin.

Peggy is most interested to in reviewing works that are well researched with an innovative point of view. As a curator, producer and consultant, Peggy Sue can help artists consider strategies for developing their projects through editing and sequencing, but also she can suggest ways to grow their professional practice and promote their work to a larger audience internationally. She is not interested in most fashion, nudes or commercial photography.

Dr. Pippa Oldfield is Head of Programme at Impressions Gallery, one of the UK’s leading public-funded spaces for contemporary photography. She has curated numerous touring exhibitions including The Home Front by Melanie Friend; Bringing the War Home: Photographic Responses to Recent Conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan; The Factory of Dreams: Inside Mexico’s Soap Operas by Stefan Ruiz; and co-curated Once More, With Feeling: Recent Photography From Colombia. A regular contributor to journals, books and exhibition catalogues, Pippa is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Durham University.

Raquel Villar-Pérez is the Assistant Curator at Photoworks. She has been instrumental in the development of Photoworks Festival, and alongside the director, she leads on Photoworks x The Ampersand Foundation Residency, Photoworks x Liverpool Biennial, and Photoworks x Ballarat International Foto Biennale. She also contributes to Photoworks’ online magazine Photography+. Prior to Photoworks, Raquel worked for Tate Modern as an Exhibitions Assistant.

Raquel is a researcher, writer, and curator whose practice focuses on post and decolonial discourses within contemporary art and literature from the ‘Global South’ as a constructed political space. She is passionate about expansive epistemologies that transcend the homogenising trends set by Globalisation and create spaces for solidarity and interconnectedness. She is particularly interested in women’s experiences and notions of transnational feminisms.

As a freelancer, Raquel has curated the exhibitions of contemporary African photography Mohau Modisakeng: Beyond the Liminal Space and Regarding Ourselves at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, University of London, Más Morena by Javier Hirschfeld at the Cambridge African Film Festival, the public programme of Migration: Traces in an Art Collection at Tensta konsthall in Stockholm, and others. She regularly contributes to publications such as C&, C& América Latina and Africanah.

Having graduated in Cultural Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2017, she is now a PhD candidate at Birkbeck’s School of Art and has been recently appointed member of the research group ‘Art and Identity Politics’ at the University of Murcia, Spain.

Photo by Almudena Romero.

Raquel will be reviewing on Friday afternoon only.

Sarah Gilbert is a photo editor at the Guardian with specific responsibility for features. She spent the previous three years based in NYC as the US picture editor, and is highly experienced in commissioning and producing all types of photo shoots including portraits, news, reportage, fashion and lifestyle across print and digital platforms.

Previously she was a freelance editor working with various publications and a stint as picture editor for Conde Nast.

Sarah’s specific areas of interest are reportage and projects based around reportage, social issues, and above all, human stories.

She is NOT interested in fashion or fine art photography.

Sean is an artist, writer and editor based in London, UK. He is a member of the editorial team at frieze magazine and sits on a board at Tate. In 2020, with Davide Meneghello, he established an independent curatorial and publishing platform to celebrate queer artists working in print. His work is interested in how social/LGBT+/nightlife histories live in present-day belief systems and behaviour.

He is currently editing a new publication by the Dutch artist Sico Carlier and developing a film project in his home city, Birmingham, UK.

‘I believe in the transformative potential of art. And I want to support artists to find confidence in their work. I like it when people are unapologetically pursuing their vision, guided more by feeling than convention or status’.

Sian is a UK based artist and curator. She is currently Reader in Photography at Manchester School of Art, part of Manchester Metropolitan University. In 1999 she established TRACE, the curation and publishing project. She curated the first ever showing of UK student photographic work for the 2014 Pingyao International Photography Festival and has continued each year since.

Sian regularly reviews portfolios at international photography festivals and has judged major competitions including The Jerwood Photography Prize in 2006 and the Taylor Wessing Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in 2009.

She is interested in seeing all forms of photography apart from glamour. Reviewing at FORMAT previously, she has seen many bodies of work that she has taken to exhibit in Pingyao Festival, and is happy to see student work.

** Skinder will be reviewing with Cindy **#

Skinder Hundal was previously Director at New Art Exchange, one of UK’s leading contemporary arts spaces, representing diaspora and international contemporary art in the UK.

He recently joined the British Council as their Director of Arts. British Council is UK’s leading cultural relations charity and agency operating across all continents in over 100 locations. Skinder is also a board member at Artist News, who celebrate their 40th birthday and mentors several UK creative professionals and artists.

Sophie Wright is an independent photography & art consultant with over 20 years’ experience in creative programming and strategy, artist and collections management and sales within the photography market.

She has a BA in Modern History at Oxford University and an MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute. She worked on Cork Street, London and at Penguin books in picture research before joining Magnum Photos in 2003, working for the Cultural Department on exhibitions, books, print sales, commissions and talks programmes.

Global Cultural Director at Magnum Photos 2015-2020, Sophie oversaw an international team running cultural programmes in the Middle East and China as well as Europe and the USA. She has managed the publication of books such as Magnum Contacts, Magnum China and Magnum’s Book of Books and conceived Magnum’s Live Lab in 2017 – a programme of experimental residencies for contemporary photographers, held in Moscow, Shenzhen, Paris, London and most recently Atlanta, Georgia. She is a contributor to numerous publications including FOAM, Elephant, British Journal of Photography and magnumphotos.com and is on the Board of the Journal of Photography and Culture.

Alongside her consultancy work, Sophie has run Photochat mentoring for curators and practitioners of photography via her Instagram account since May last year.

** Stella will be reviewing with Anna Kućma **

Stella is the programme coordinator at the Uganda Press Photo Award, where she manages the Awards and oversees a busy calendar of talks, workshops and discussions.

As part of this role she also collaborates with the FOTEA Foundation, which is the organiser of the UPPA, and oversees the Award’s integration with FOTEA’s broader educational programme and its strategic aims.

As well as her role with UPPA, Stella has assisted in the production of independent photography exhibitions as well as grants and other activities. She also occasionally serves as a reviewer for photography competitions such as Market Photo Workshop’s JUSTPHOTO contest.

A former magazine employee, Stella is passionate about helping emerging photographers in Uganda and the broader region to expand their technical skills and broaden their understanding of the medium in order to tell better stories.She believes that continued learning and conversations around photography is key to giving diverse voices a role in shaping the region’s socio-economic and political discourse.

Stella and Anna are open-minded but particularly interested in work originating from or engaging with the African continent. They are also keen on seeing work responding to topics of resistance, authoritarianism, marginalized communities and diverse viewpoints.

Steven is a curator, writer, artist and executive director of the award-winning arts organisation FotoFest International, which created the first and longest running international Biennial of Photography and New Media Art in the U.S. Appointed in 2014, he is responsible for exhibitions, art programs, administration and FotoFest Biennial directorship.

Steven co-curated the FotoFest 2018 Biennial central exhibition INDIA: Contemporary Photographic and New Media Art and the 2016 Biennial central exhibition CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES: Looking at the Future of the Planet. He co-edited the related hardcover books INDIA and CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES. He represents FotoFest at photography events around the world, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Great Britain, India, Latvia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, and South Korea.

Prior to FotoFest, Evans worked with a wide range of artists and collaborators as managing director of the Dia:Beacon Museum in New York State and as director of the Linda Pace Foundation in San Antonio, Texas.

Steven is looking for bodies of work with well-defined purpose, fully formed or near completion, either in still photographs, video or new media.

Steven is the founder-director of Kuala Lumpur International Photoawards Portrait Prize, and co-founder of KL20x20 and EXPOSURE+ PHOTO festivals in Malaysia. He is an active supporter of photography education and personal development especially in South East Asia and has participated in portfolio reviews in several international photo festivals. He is based in the UK and has been holding online workshops in recent months.

Steven is keen to see work that has strong connections about local and personal issues from all over the world and believes in the inclusive and informative power of photography.

Tanvi is a Delhi-based photo editor and curator. She currently works as the Creative Director of The Caravan, a journal of politics and culture published out of Delhi. She is part of the photo-editorial team of PIX, a South Asian publication and display practice. In 2013 and 2015, she was part of the Delhi Photo Festival team in India and was a guest curator at the second edition of Photo Kathmandu, held in Nepal in 2016. She occasionally writes on photography and her work has been published in FOAM Magazine, Transformations—Exploring Changes in an Around Photography, The Caravan, amongst others. She has served on various juries, including World Press Photo 2020 and the Hindu Photojournalism Awards 2019. She is a nominator and was on the jury panel of World Press Photo’s Joop Swart Masterclass. She was a curatorial collaborator for the Greenpeace Photo Award 2018 and is a mentor for the 2019-20 Women Photograph program.

Tanvi is interested in seeing all kinds of work, but her particular interest lies in work related to social justice, collective action and activism. She is also particularly interested in those that use photography as a tool of resistance, and explores the boundaries of the personal and the political. Apart from that, in terms of form all are work — reportage, documentary, fiction, text collaborations, post-photography or work that challenges the traditional notions of the medium to communicate these ideas.

Ute works internationally in the broad field of photography as photo director, editor, publisher, curator, author and university lecturer. She offers her extensive expertise and her long-term experience under the one roof of her project Agency ON PHOTOGRAPHY & ILLUSTRATION, based in Stuttgart. Her gallery UNO ART SPACE focusses on international photography. Since 2013, she is also the photo director at Du Magazine, Zurich and also responsible for putting together the entire Magazine.

Ute founded her gallery UNO ART SPACE in Stuttgart 2007. Since then she has shown about 40 shows with international photographers, also Fotofest discoveries.  Recently, she has been a judge for competitions such as Lianzhou Punctum Photography Award & Jury Special Prize, 2016; Unicef Photo of the Year Award 2017, 2018; Swiss Press Photo, 2018. Krasnodar Photovisum Prize, 2018.

With her diverse background, Ute can offer profound, individual and in-depth feedback for completed projects as well as for works in progress. She is not interested in seeing commercial, nude or landscape photography. She is most interested in fresh and contemporary approaches, documentary and fine art and prefers work, which is strong in concept and/or narrative and also in careful and aesthetic execution. If appropriate, Ute considers work for exhibitions, gallery shows and publications. However, she makes no commitments during the reviews on site but comes back to these artists later.

Wang is the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Chinese Photographers magazine, part of China National Academy of Arts based-in Beijing. He has worked as a Photographer, Picture Editor and Commissioning Editor for magazines across Asia, he is often invited to be a speaker at international conferences including- China and Spain, 1936-39: Robert Capa and the Global Popular Front, organised by Columbia University (USA) and International Center of Photography, NY.

A member of several international juries including of Visa pour l’Image (France), Dali International Photography Festival, Yunnan (China), FORMAT Festival Open Call (UK) and International Photo Awards (China region, Lucie Foundation). Wang has published A Journey to East: China through Lens of Important Western Photographers since 1840s (SDX Joint Publishing Company 2015) and Essays on Photography (Beijing Time Publishing House 2016).

Wang is looking for work to feature in his magazine and is interested in seeing emerging and established photographers.

Yining graduated from LCC, University of the Arts London and is a curator and writer of photography. Her work is principally focused on the way in which photography is able to freely straddle the boundaries of art, responding to and raising questions about contemporary and historical social issues through effective, diverse, and interdisciplinary means. Yining’s exhibitions have been held in museums, art spaces, and photography festivals in China and Europe including: the 3rd Beijing Photo Biennale (2018, CAFA Art Museum, Beizhen Cultural Industries Center), The Port and The Image: Documenting China’s Harbor Cities” (2017, China Port Museum), A Fictional Narrative Turn (2016, Jimei Arles International Photo Festival) and 50 Contemporary Photobooks from China 2009-2014 (2015, FORMAT15 Festival, UK).

Her publications include Photography in the British Classroom, and The Port and the Image.

In the last five years, Yining has been looking into the effectiveness, diversity and interdisciplinary of practitioners’ use of photography as a medium when responding to and proposing social issues related to history and the present. As a reviewer, she is good at discussing the works with practitioners who encounter problems in the project progress and helping them push the project forward. As a curator, Yining is happy to find photographers from all over the world to expand her research framework and hopes to provide opportunities for photographers to show in China. She is looking forward to seeing artists from all disciplines, both emerging and established. She is not interested in seeing fashion and commercial work.

Yumi Goto is an independent photography curator, editor, researcher, consultant, educator and publisher who focuses on the development of cultural exchanges that transcend borders. She collaborates with local and international artists who live and work in areas affected by conflict, natural disasters, current social problems, human rights abuses and women’s issues. She often works with human rights advocates, international and local NGOs, humanitarian organisations and as well as being involved as a nominator and juror for the international photographic organisations, festivals and events.

She is now based in Tokyo and also a co-founder and curator for the Reminders Photography Stronghold which is curated membership gallery space in Tokyo enabling a wide range of photographic activities.

Yumi is more interested in visual story-telling, the work created with good research, with multiple layers to visualise the subject matter. She is interested in looking at images and talking about how they could develop the work, new approaches or alternative ideas for doing more, so all are welcome if the artists are open for the input. Some might be interested in photobook making, that Yumi could only talk about from her experience but not from the photobook industry in general.