Portfolio
reviews

Bindi Vora is a British-Indian artist working with expanded photography and Curator at Autograph, a London-based non-profit arts charity that explores issues of identity, representation, human rights and social justice through photography. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Another Country: British Documentary Photography Since 1945; FOAM Magazine and British Journal of Photography. She participated in public programmes for Tate, Peckham24, The Photographers’ Gallery among others. She currently serves on the Curatorial Advisory Board for Amber-Side Gallery, Newcastle. As an artist her works have been exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery (UK); Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood (UK); Cultural Centre of Belgrade (RS); Benaki Museum (GR) among others. Her works are part of collections such as the Franklin Furnace Artist Book Collection / MoMA (US), Guy’s & St Thomas Foundation (UK), Self-Publish Be Happy at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (FR) and The Women’s Art Library at Goldsmith’s University (UK) among others.

Writer, curator, and publisher Bruno Ceschel is the founder of Self Publish, Be Happy (SPBH), an organisation established in 2010, which publishes, collects and discusses contemporary photobooks. His research focuses on issues relating to identity, with an emphasis on gender, sexuality and racial formation. Ceschel regularly writes for various international publications, such as FOAM and Aperture. Ceschel has also published and edited numerous photography books, and participated in events at many UK and international museums and galleries, including the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and Whitechapel Gallery in London), as well as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and PS1 in New York.

Elisa Medde edits, curates and writes about photography and visual culture. With a background in Art History, Iconology and Photographic Studies, her research reflects on the relationship between image, communication and power structures. She has been nominator for a number of prizes and chaired various juries. She loves collaborating with educational programs as lecturer and jury member, such as KABK, ECAL, Brera Academy, Fotofilmic and many more. Next to curating paper and physical spaces, she regularly writes for Foam Magazine and various publications such as Something We Africans Got, Vogue Italia / L'Uomo Vogue, YET Magazine and many artists’ books. Elisa is Editor-in-Chief of Foam Magazine, Amsterdam, where she has based large part of her activities since 2012.

Francesca Marani is Visual Editor of Global PhotoVogue and co-curator of PhotoVogue Festival (2016-2021), the first conscious fashion photography festival dedicated to the common ground between ethics and aesthetics. In 2018, she curated a series of talks on contemporary photography for the Affordable Art Fair (Milan), co-curated the exhibition "Italian Panorama" at Armani/Silos, and was a juror of the Ooshot Award (Paris). She was a portfolio reviewer of the Blink Portfolio Review (New York, 2018-2019), juror of Photolucida's Critical Mass (2018-2022) and Fresh Eyes (2019-2021). In 2019 she took part in "Scouting for India" (Mumbai), Vogue Talents' project in collaboration with FAD International Academy, co-curated the exhibition "Future Shock" and was guest editor of Personne magazine (ISSUE 02). In 2020 she was a juror of the PHmuseum 2020 Mobile Photo Prize, Photoville FENCE and did portfolio reviews for Eddie Adams Portfolio Review, Perimetro Collective Review and Italy Photo Award. In 2021 she was a member of the jury of LensCulture Portrait Awards. Francesca regularly collaborates with several photography festivals and schools as portfolio reviewer and lecturer.

Giangiacomo Cirla is a gallery director, art director and researcher working in the field of contemporary art and visual culture. His research focuses on the study of the production, fruition and communication of artistic projects, with particular attention to the analysis of the dynamics and linguistic-communicative strategies developed within the emancipation of digital languages and new technologies. He is the director of PHROOM, an international research platform in the field of photography and visual culture, is gallery director at OPR Gallery (Milan) and collaborates as a consultant in various international projects. Through his practice, he works daily on the design and production of exhibition projects, their dissemination and the sale and valorisation of the work of the artists with whom he collaborates. He has also collaborated with international companies such as MARNI, FUTURES, MACK books, Getxo Photo, VOID, Odesa Photo Days, The Independent Photographer, Featureshoot and many others.

Director and photographer, In 2011 Giovanni Troilo directed his first feature length film, Fan Pio, and between 2012 and 2015 he directed several documentaries among which Fotografi, Casanova Undressed, Caravaggio Criminale. Between 2016 and 2019 Troilo directed William Kentridge, Triumphs and Laments (Rome International Film Festival), Coeurope (IDFA), The Mystery of the Lost Paintings, broadcasted by Sky in 2018, Le ninfee di Monet, and his last film Frida Viva la Vida for Nexo Digital. Three new projects are being released in 2022: Vesuvio, produced by Dazzle and distributed by I Wonder Pictures, Power of Rome, produced by IIF, Vision and Sky and Borromini, the Dark Side of Baroque produced by Sky Hub. He’s the artistic director at PhEST, International Festival of Visual Arts in Monopoli, since 2016. Troilo is currently working on a new series of docs and on his second feature film.

Marina Paulenka is the Director of Exhibitions for Fotografiska Berlin. She has 15 years of experience in artistic direction, curating, education, leadership, management and development in culture and art institutions and organizations. She was Artistic Director of the Amsterdam-based UNSEEN Foundation. She worked as Artistic Director and Curator of the Organ Vida International Photography Festival from 2008 to 2019 in Croatia. Paulenka is a member of the Creative Committee at the Bristol Photo festival, a guest curator at FUTURES Photography, and a keynote curator for FORMAT21 International Photography Festival. So far she has curated numerous exhibitions, she 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 worldwide. As an educator, she has taught at several academies and works closely with emerging photographers and visual artists in developing their personal work/projects and professional practice.

Paolo Woods was born of Canadian and Dutch parentage. He grew up in Florence, Italy and has lived in Paris and Haiti. He is devoted to long-term projects that blend photography with text. He is the author of six books, including “Chinafrica” (with Serge Michel), which deals with the spectacular rise of the Chinese in Africa, “STATE” (with Arnaud Robert) on the uniqueness and universality of Haiti and “The Heavens” (with Gabriele Galimberti) that for the first time investigates tax havens photographically. His books have been published in eleven different countries and acclaimed as an exemplary melding of art and documentary photography. He is one of the founders of RIVERBOOM and deeply believes in collaborative projects. His work is regularly featured in major international publications. He has had solo exhibitions in more than a dozen countries and his pictures are in private and public collections. He has received a number of prizes, including two World Press Photo Awards. Currently he is the artistic director of Cortona on the Move festival.