OPEN PROGRAM 2025 – Akshay Mahajan, Carlos Idun-Tawiah, Claudia Fuggetti, Emilia Martin, Hannes Jung and Massimiliano Corteselli

Akshay Mahajan,
People of Clay

The Rajbanshis – so-called People of Clay – have long inhabited the borderlands of Assam and Bengal, where India meets Bangladesh. Through marriage, this landscape became part of the photographer’s inheritance. In quiet moments, Akshay’s wife would sing in a language he did not understand—folk songs of forgotten people.

Using these local melodies as a guide, Akshay Mahajan attempted to sculpt a new, personal psychogeography of his identity based on love and his own will, rather than birth. He traveled, he studied colonial documents as well as ethnographic materials, and made a poetic assemblage of text, archival material, photographs, and lyrics – creating a world of what can be seen on the other side of the rabbit hole – if you only find in your heart a part from clay.

» Get to know more about Akshay «

Carlos Idun-Tawiah
Hero, Father, Friend

Carlos Idun-Tawiah brings his childhood memories of his father to life — both those he cherishes and those he longed for but never had the chance to experience. He does so with a cinematic sensitivity and visual boldness that has become his signature and earned him global recognition as a creator of Ghanaian culture and visual heritage.

Hero, Father, Friend allows the author’s core memory to come back to life and fill the void, while inviting us to reflect on the vital and often misrepresented role that fathers play in their sons’ lives. If this were a film, it would be a beautiful coming-of-age story.

» Get to know more about Carlos «

Claudia Fuggetti
Metamorphosis

Using a palette of vibrant psychedelic colours, Claudia Fuggetti produces an enchanted reality, of what seems to be a new imaginary, that arises from a deep personal concern with the present transformations of the natural world. 

To the artist, photography is a means to connect both the digital and the natural realm: by integrating digital elements in each image, technology acts as an alert for the human harmful behaviours, and as a means to enrich our appreciation of nature, rather than pulling us away from it. Metamorphosis is an invitation to take a contemplative look and reflect on our present and future role, in order to establish a new and healthier connection with earth. 

The project emerged during a residency in a location near the artist’s hometown, where she had the opportunity to reflect on nature’s capacity for regeneration as the area was suffering from severe fires.

» Get to know more about Claudia «

Emilia Martin
I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears

In some beliefs meteorites were sent to Earth by Satan, in others – it was a medicine coming from the sky from the overpowering gods, that was later thankfully powdered and consumed by the believers. Some of those cosmic rocks took on central roles in the communities becoming places of worship, grief, sacrifice. Nevertheless, Western science only recognised meteorites as a scientific fact at the end of the 18th century.

What was dismissed by science was preserved, though, as stories passed down on for generations that carried truths in their own revolutionary way. 

 I saw a tree bearing stones in the place of apples and pears is a fantasy in which a rock – a symbol of muteness and inability to express itself, finds its voice and speaks thousands of stories, in the act of reclaiming them back. It is an exploration on who has the right to claim the truths and who – tales.

» Get to know more about Emilia «

Hannes Jung
Men don’t cry

During the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, male prisoners of various nationalities were sexually tortured, raped by soldiers and guards, and forced to commit sexualised violence against each other. The aim was to humiliate them and break them emotionally, so as to stigmatise these men and their families. 

These atrocities might not be visible, but the trauma remains within the people. Men don’t cry is an attempt to confront and engage with the history of these men, being the artist’s personal intention to bring social recognition for what happened.

» Get to know more about Hannes «

Massimiliano Corteselli
Contrapasso

Many of the wildfires in the Mediterranean are often connected to real estate speculation, agriculture, personal revenge or corrupt local politicians. Due to the obscure nature of these fires it is often difficult to determine their causes, hence people spread rumours and create tales. What is common in them is biblical and archetypal themes, which gives a key on how to read the story. 

Massimiliano Corteselli finds the imagery of Dante’s Inferno in the Mediterranean: people being punished according to their sins, either in a way that resembles the sin or contrasts with it, in a process of punishment known as ‘contrapasso’. His photographs reflect on the cyclical causality of our actions.

» Get to know more about Massimiliano «

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Did you know this?

Art_Inkubator is located in the former factory of Karol Scheibler II, son of the greatest factory owner in Łódź.

Every firstborn son in the Scheibler family was named Karol.

The factory is a part of Księży Młyn, also called a “town in town” or “Polish Manchester”. Scheibler Senior built the largest textile factory in this part of Europe, as well as an estate of workers’ houses, many palaces, hospitals, schools, and parks. Karol Scheibler’s legacy was later developed by Karol Scheibler II, who erected factories at Tymienieckiego and Milionowa Streets.

The factory still has the original Russian gauge railway tracks! You will find them near the passage to the new “Fuzja” estate.  

These spaces, recently renovated and well preserved, are venues of Fotofestiwal.