Ročník: 2020

Kateřina Konvalinová (*1991, Pardubice, CZ). Her work can be characterized as autobiographical fiction, based on personal experience and amateurish research of interpersonal / interspecies processes and relationships, seeing the personal as political. She focuses on the so-called small life revolutions (life changing experiences such as falling in love, first LSD experience or a bad trip, etc.), as well as on the physical and mental symptoms of our times (pain, anxiety, fatigue, depression) and on psychological-therapeutic tools such as cracks, which can be used to reassess the current situation and deconstruct the status quo. Video and performance are the yin and yang of her artistic practice. In the years 2014-2020 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Her work was exhibited in Galerie AVU, 2017, Prague, City Surfer Office Gallery, 2017, Prague, Gallery Display, 2018, Prague, or etc. gallery, 2019, Prague.

Susanne Keichel (*1981, Dresden, DE) studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. At the 56th Venice Biennale 2015 her ongoing work Fluchtlinien (Lines of Flight) was shown in the group exhibition Dispossession as part of the official Venice supporting program. In the same year the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen purchased her work geb. 7. Oktober 1977, Alexandria, gest. 1. Juli 2009, Dresden (ein Kommentar). This was followed by participation in exhibitions in HALLE 14 Leipzig, Kunstraum Düsseldorf and Rundgang 50Hertz in cooperation with the Nationalgalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin. In 2017 Susanne Keichel received a grant from Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen.

Bernadette Keating (*1976,  Dublin, IR) is visual artist whose multi-disciplinary practice incorporates still photography, video, text, and installation. Working between a conceptual and documentary approach to image-making, she explores notions of space, place, and belonging in urban spaces, corporate developments, and border territories, and the sociopolitical forces that shape them. In 2018 she completed her postgraduate studies in Photography & Media at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. She holds a Masters (Distinction) in Documentary Photography from University of the Arts London. Her work was recently shown exhibitions as: Picturing Realities, Beck & Eggeling International Fine Art, Dusseldorf (2018); Waiting for the Blast, Galerie Kontoret, Oslo (2017); Open, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Colorado (2015) and others.

Christian Kasners (*1983, Bottrop, DE) studied photography at Folkwang UdK in Essen. In 2014 he completed a one-year study and work stay in the USA. In 2017 he received the Wüstenrot Foundation’s award for documentary photography “Dokumentarfotografie Förderpreis”. In the context of this award, he realised the photographic project “nová europa” in the Czech Republic. Since 2019 he is working on a new project on Polish-German history as part of his postgradual studies at HGB Leipzig. He holds a scholarship from Cusanuswerk.

Peter Janáčik (*1966, Liptovský Mikuláš, SK). The backbone of Peter Janáčik’s work is a reflection on intimate experiences confronted with the complexity of human relationships. Formally, he draws on cinema language rather than the language of photography. Rapid edits take us from shots of young boys – fallen angels, to small, expressive still lifes. The rawness of photographed scenes, where it is unclear whether they are natural or staged (but what difference does that make today?) is intensified by attaching the photographs directly to the walls of exhibition rooms. Janáčik’s path towards photography commenced in the 1990s, when in parallel to photography he also dedicated himself to painting and drawing, employing all three media in installations. He combined drawing (with wax) with photography, transposed photography onto canvasses, or painted fragments from photographs. Janáčik developed his conceptual approach during studies at AVU in Prague and later at V·VU in Bratislava.

Nina Hoffmann (*1980, south of Germany, DE). She is a photographer and artist. At the moment Hoffmann is training as an occupational therapist.

Pavel Hečko (*1951, Černá Voda, CZ) shares the fate of a generation of young artists born in the 1950s, one that “did not want to take part in the construction of official Czechoslovak post-normalisation artistic culture and which simply felt a need for generational self-mutilation and communication with the public.” His work from the 1980’s deserves special attention. Hečko mainly deals with portraits. In his pictures he records not only the external appearance of the photographed, but also many elements of their nature and feelings. He is interested in searching for physiological and character similarities and differences – for example, the series Sisters, Twins, Inverse Portraits, in which he used the possibility of comparison on the basis of side-inverted images.

Jolana Havelková (*1966, Kolín, CZ) In addition to photography, she often uses other means of expression, including video and music. Her work includes conceptual and experimental projects. She also deals with social and artistic events. She graduated from the Institute of Creative Photography at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the University in Opava. Between 1993 and 2009, she was a co-organizer and one of the curators of the Funke Kolín Photography Festival. She worked at the Faculty of Applied Arts and Design UJEP in Ústí nad Labem. She currently lectures, leads workshops (including for example FAMU in Prague) and teaches photography at the Secondary School of Design in Lysá nad Labem.

Pavlína Fichta Čierna (*1967, SK) originally devoted herself to graphics. In the early 1990s, she shifted to multimedia art, in which she connects digital and electronic media. She exhibits in major cultural institutions at home and abroad, as an exapmle her work was featured in exhibitions at the Galeria Arsenal, Bialystok, Poland and the Galeria lokal_30, Warsaw, Poland.