Foam proudly presents the work of a new generation of artists in the group exhibition Foam Talent 2022. The 20 participating photographers address the pressing problems of our times. Together, they explore and extend the boundaries of what photography is today.
As a diverse group of artists, each of them presents their own visual language. Through their works, they critically look at the world around us. They use the photographic medium to question collective affairs and ongoing issues happening in the world. At the same time, they explore how these issues have an impact on a personal level, moving between a local, historical, symbolic, emotional and bodily perspective.
This group of artists uses a wide range of photographic genres to tell their stories. With portraiture and documentary photography, digital created images and archival material, the talents create a space for the viewer to sit with situations and current events, to reflect and respond to.
Complementing the physical experience at Foam, this digital exhibition offers a deeper look at the Talents and their works. What goes on behind the surface? What is the inspiration? What techniques are used? This exhibition combines artistic context with educational perspectives. Read, see, and hear more about the themes and topics and explore, engage, and interact with the works!
The selected photographers for Foam Talent 2022 are: Marwan Bassiouni, Myriam Boulos, Olgaç Bozalp, Laura Chen, Kata Geibl, Lina Geoushy, Marvel Harris, Alexandra Rose Howland, Ange-Frédéric Koffi, Czar Kristoff, Yushi Li, Carla Liesching, Seif Kousmate, Pavo Marinović, Diego Moreno, Donja Nasseri, Ghazaleh Rezaei, Linn Phyllis Seeger, Ritsch Sisters, Donavon Smallwood.
The Foam Talent Programme and the biennial Talent issue of Foam Magazine are supported by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation.
The exhibition is made possible by Kleurgamma Fine-Art Photolab and Oschatz Visuelle Medien.
Foam is supported by the VriendenLoterij, Foam Members, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, the VandenEnde Foundation and the Gemeente Amsterdam.
In 2022 Foam receives additional support from the Mondriaan Fund and receives a contribution through the Mondriaan Fund from the Ministerie van OCW.
Foam Talent 2022
Artists shaping
the future of photography
Foam
photographers were selected for Foam Talent 2022.
of 20 talents now launched in Foam Talent Digital 2022
Dive deeper with us in the world of Foam Talent 2022.
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Carla Liesching
Good Hope
How are images we see in the media shaped by political circumstances? Carla Liesching uses collage-making and photomontage to explore the history of Cape of Good Hope. The artist employs a wide range of media to challenge the preservation of South Africa's colonial heritage. Apartheid-era trade journals, tourist pamphlets and other ephemera are pieced together, prompting us to question our preserved memory presented in archives.
*scroll down inside the frames with the collages to view them completely. Scroll down outside the frames to continue the exhibition.
"The Rhodes Must Fall (RMF or Fallist) movement made global headlines on 9 March 2015, when Political Science student, Chumani Maxwele, carried a bucket of human faeces from Khayelitsha–an impoverished 'township' or 'Black Area' designated as such under apartheid law–and threw it on a central statue commemorating Cecil John Rhodes, a nineteenth-century British imperialist and politician who 'bequeathed' to UCT the land on which it is built."
"Maxwele's act signified mounting unrest on campus, resulting in occupations, walkouts, sit-ins, barricades and various symbolic happenings. (...) One month later on 9 April, the statue was removed and its granite pedestal was boarded up with grey plywood."
"RMF mobilised widespread direct action at universities across the country, opposing institutional racism and the continued colonial structuring of education and knowledge-production. Goals were to be realised not only in the removal of colonial symbols, but also in a counter-curriculum, and tangible solutions to the problems of socio-economic exclusion and unequal access to learning along racial lines."
"The encasing of the foundation gives an impression that Rhodes has been unseated, yet more telling is the shadow of Rhodes spray-painted anonymously on the ground immediately after the removal. The painted shadow spreads 'from the base of the empty plinth, descending the full flight of stairs, ending in a stooped shoulder, a curved head resting in the crook of a fist.' This tracing hints at the remaining issues of institutional racism and financial exclusion—as a poster read the day the Rhodes statue was removed: 'Next, the invisible statues.'"
–excerpts from Carla Liesching's research
Diego Moreno
Malign Influences / The Holy Mountains
At first glance, Diego Moreno’s family photos and archival postcards seem to be transformed into an unnerving state. Eerie and sinister from the outside. Coloured pencils, graphite, Indian ink and other graphic interventions on his photographs illustrate a rebellious act, a way to construct new realities and reflect his own identity. Looking deeper, we start to question what’s so devilish about his work.
Diego Moreno is currently working on a new book in which the monstruous figures that were created by reworking photos from his family archive and an archive of Swiss postcards, return. This time he places the images from Malign Influences and The Holy Mountains in the context of a baby album, further building on the narrative of the monstruous family.
Marvel Harris
Inner Journey
Marvel Harris’s self-portraits trace the starting point of his gender transition, that would later evolve into a much larger introspective journey. Photography, for him, is a tool for self-reflection and could harness the complexity of his emotions. Intimate and vulnerable, his work can serve as a channel for the exchange of experiences and inspire our own journey of self-exploration.
Over the years, Marvel Harris also captured moving images of himself. This edit expresses the multitude of emotions that he experienced on his journey.
Lina Geoushy
مش عيب Shame Less
A Protest Against Sexual Violence
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, Lina Geoushy started tracing personal stories illustrating how Egyptian women have long internalised a culture of sexual harassment and violence. Employing a collaborative and tactile approach, she layers the complexities of every individual story, where portraits and handwritten stories come together, as one. As a result, their collective voices form a community of support and solidarity.
TW: the following texts contain stories of sexual abuse and violence.
"I am now 64 years old, when I was in university, I used to live in a hostel. At the end of each week, I used to go to my grandparents house. One day, while I was coming back from my grandfather house to the hostel, I got into a bus full of people. One of the men on the bus started moving towards me and standing very close and stuck himself to me. I felt something abnormal was happening. I felt ashamed of what happened to me."
"I was ten or eleven when this started happening. My cousin used to live with us and he is 10 years older than me. He would touch me occasionally in inappropriate ways when my mother and brothers were not around. I would wake up during the night to find him in my bed next to me touching me with his penis. As soon as I would wake up he would run away. I was too young, I couldn't process it, I felt angry and scared. I felt that I couldn't feel safe, not even at home. The hardest part was my parent's reaction or lack of reaction. I felt that I didn't matter, not even to my family".
"I was in the street bending over to pay a cab driver through the window, a man walking by touched my ass with his finger. I exploded into tears and went up to my house in silence".
“While I was in university, I was walking toward the train station with a friend heading home in the afternoon. An old man that was walking his young daughter back from school bumped into me and grabbed my chest. Instead of supporting us, people in the street started saying “let him go.. you are proving that you are not well behaved”.
“While I was walking alone in a long street, a man in his fifties started following me with his car for a long period and making hand gestures for me to get into the car with him. I was afraid so I crossed to the other side of the road, so he went around with his car and continued to follow me saying “come in and I will satisfy you and give you what you want”. In fear of him getting close to me, I tried to walk away from the car and deeper into the pavement”.
"Walking home, a man on the street walked towards me and stroked my vagina. I just froze off and continued walking home."
"Walking home from work. A teenager on a bicycle grabbed my chest and quickly cycled away before I could scream."
“Intimate relationships are private, and they should be based on mutual love and feelings. However, my ex-husband didn’t consider feelings and foreplay that preceded that.
I used to be sleeping and he would take off my clothes and get intimate as if he was raping me. I hated sexual and intimate relationships because I got hurt emotionally and physically. I used to tremble and get feverish from the psychological and emotional pressure. It was devoid of feelings and happened against my will”.
Ritsch Sisters
The Act of Sitting
From the series The Act of Sitting © The Ritsch Sisters
From the series The Act of Sitting © The Ritsch Sisters
From the series The Act of Sitting © The Ritsch Sisters
From the series The Act of Sitting © The Ritsch Sisters
What would happen if we were forced to sit in isolation for an extended period of time? During the height of the pandemic, the Ritsch Sisters, who frequently explore physical, spatial, and emotional tensions, invited individuals to collaborate on their own interpretation of sitting. The resulting photographs, which were all captured via video chats around the world, reflect on how the act of sitting is transformed into a political and performative act.
© The Ritsch Sisters
choose a sitting instruction and make your own self portrait inspired by the Ritsch Sisters.
Make your own seated portrait
Donavon Smallwood
Languor
Donavon Smallwood’s early ambitions to become an archaeologist and poet have influenced his approach to exploring themes of identity, nature, and human connection; all captured through the distinct use of black and white photography. Amidst the pandemic, Smallwood found himself retreating to Central Park. His exploration into both place and people results in a poetic series to envision black tranquillity.
From the series 'Languor' by Donavon Smallwood
From the series 'Languor' by Donavon Smallwood
No matter how estranged I become,
the luster of my gaze will never fade.
From flesh to nerve,
I love you.
Additional to his still portraits, Donavon Smallwood also created moving imagery.
From the series 'Languor' by Donavon Smallwood
From the series 'Languor' by Donavon Smallwood
Yushi Li
Paintings, Dreams and Love
Gender, desire and eroticism are central to Yushi Li’s work. In Paintings, Dreams and Love, Li muses on spectatorship in classical paintings by making Western men her subjects. She places herself into the reconstructed scenes as a way to intervene with existing representations and recreate her own portrayal of desire.
The Nightmare from the series Paintings, Dreams and Love by Yushi Li
The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, 1781
The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, 1781
Narcissus with a Mirror by Yushi Li
Venus at a Mirror, Peter Paul Rubens, 1615
The Death of Actaeon, Titian, c. 1559-1575
The Death of Actaeon by Yushi Li
The Room, Balthus, 1953
Olgaç Bozalp
Home: Leaving One for Another
from the series Home: leaving one for another by Olgaç Bozalp
Cultural identity is a key theme through Olgaç Bozalp’s work. After leaving Turkey to pursue a career in London, he was intrigued to learn what urges people to flee or migrate from their homeland. In the works he weaves together his documentary style and staged installations, using emblematic objects to reflect personal discovery and his own experience as a migrant.
From the series 'Home: leaving one for another' by Olgaç Bozalp
"I lived in the same town until I was nineteen when I left to study abroad. At the time none of my peers had seen the outside walls of our town, so for me it was a cool and exciting opportunity.
I never really had an opportunity to travel elsewhere until eight years ago when my dad offered to take me on a trip to Japan as a way of spending time together. When I got to Japan, it opened my eyes to other worlds and cultures, and the trip was the catalyst of my travel career.
After visiting new locations, and seeing the sites of where people once lived, I started to question why people wanted to move from one place to another. When I moved back to my home-country for a year, I started to understand the formative experiences from my childhood and what the concept of home meant to me. I started observing other people in their environments and questioned what home meant for them.
Thus, the idea for Home: Leaving One for Another was born. It’s part documentary, part abstract—a series of understanding our place in the world."
—Olgaç Bozalp
Olgaç Bozalp talks about his zine-making practice and inspiration for his projects.
24 Nov
Launch of the next four talents in Foam Talent Digital 2022
Foam Talent 2022
Foam
