A meeting with Belarusian photographers, offering an opportunity to discover their latest artistic projects. During the presentation, ten artists selected through an open call will showcase their work. They will speak about their practice, research processes, and the contexts behind the images they present.

The event forms part of a broader project organised by Fotofestiwal, which also includes an online publication (September–October) and an artist residency programme (October). The open call was addressed to photographers of Belarusian origin working on photography projects at an advanced stage of development—completed within the last three years, currently in progress, or nearing completion.

The call received 35 submissions from across the international Belarusian photography community.

The selected projects were chosen by a jury comprising: István Virágvölgyi (artistic director of the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in Budapest, curator, editor, and lecturer), Anna Karpenko (curator and writer), and Emmanuelle Halkin (independent curator and editor, and member of the artistic committee of the Circulation(s) festival in Paris).

The meeting will be held in English.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Maria Elena Bonet – multidisciplinary artist whose ritual-like practice explores transition, personal freedom, and intimate experience in dialogue with layered historical contexts.

Kaciaryna Kryž – a mixed-media artist exploring the architecture of family memory and the symbiosis between humans and nature through a synthesis of installation and photography.

Pasha Kritchko – a documentary photographer who turned to photography in response to the 2020 presidential elections and political repression in Belarus, and has since intensely documented displacement, exile, resistance, and the wider consequences of the Belarusian crisis.

Katerina Kouzmitcheva – a photographer whose work moves between documentary and art photography to explore identity, memory, political systems, and human relationships.

Katsiaryna Miats – an artist, feminist and queer activist working primarily with analog photography, super 8mm film, field recordings, and archival materials. Her practice engages with the right to opacity, mimicry, belonging, and the vulnerability of bodies within shifting political, social, and ecological conditions.

Lesia Pcholka – research-based artist. Founder and curator of the VEHA archive. Pcholka’s artistic practice combines archival methods, social engagement, collective memory and historical continuity to explore how the past influences contemporary life in Belarus and beyond.

Maxim Sarychau – a visual artist  working on long-term visual projects at the intersection of photography, journalism, and art, exploring violence, vulnerability, and collective memory.

Maryja Sazonava – a documentary photographer.

Julia Szablowska – a documentary photographer, journalist and educator. She works on political transformations and migration in Eastern Europe and is the founder of the New Home Project.

Palina Turko – a photographer working primarily in portraiture.