Poladarium 2017 jury

Ester Vonplon
Born 1980 in Zurich, lives and works in Castrisch, Switzerland. Ester Vonplon’s photographs are infused with a deep, subdued melancholy. The artist privileges the highly charged atmospheres conveyed by pictures of rain, snow, and fog. She is sensitive to a mysterious, primitive quality which she finds in nature. Yet she is not in search of a paradise lost. In her work nature is austere and at times threatening, imposing itself on a humanity evoked by ghostly silhouettes and fragile traces. The motif of the ruin runs across all Ester Vonplon’s series. It reveals an acute awareness of the fleetingness of beings and things and an obsession with disappearance.
www.estervonplon.com

Joachim Baldauf
His pictures tell all. The German photographer Joachim Baldauf creates pictures of captivating clarity and subtle irony. They are more than just photographs or fashion shots, more than just youth culture or lifestyle. Due to Baldauf’s very personal approach, his pictures always present the human subject as an individual. Baldauf is the unchallenged number one among Germany’s fashion and portrait photographers and an influential leader in matters of style; his work has appeared in most renowned magazines. In 2004, together with the graphic designer Agnes Feckl, Baldauf founded the publishing house Printkultur, which publishes the magazine Vorn as well as a variety of books. Since 2009, he has worked as a lecturer and guest speaker at various universities, including the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design, the University of the Arts Bremen and the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft in Berlin.
www.joachimbaldauf.com

Gözde “Mimiko” Türkkan
Mimiko is an artist and photographer living and working in Istanbul. Besides mostly producing photography series, she also makes use of artist’s books, text-based works and videos. Her work focuses on gender identities & roles and socially constructed identities while attempting to shed light to some of the deepest drives, desires and fears of the human being through a subjective documentary approach. There is also an ongoing emphasis on the human body as the most common outward manifestation of the sexual, psychological, emotional and sociological identity. One of her initial inspirations is japanese photographer Araki: “Well, photography is a tricky occupation. After all, what you’re doing is betraying people by releasing the shutter. You really are. It’s not all like this, but this certainly is one side of the photographer’s job.” Following her Photography & Video BA degree in 2008 in Istanbul, she continued her education in the University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, where she received her MA Fine Art degree in 2010. Besides solo shows, !f Istanbul Independent Film Festival (2007), Dissecting & Patching (Vol de Nuits, Marseille, 2011), Art HK11 (Hong Kong, 2011), Close Quarters (Istanbul Modern Museum of Modern Art, 2013), Unseen Photo Fair (Amsterdam, 2013), Landskrona Fotofestival (Sweden, 2014) and Every Inclusion is an Exclusion of Other Possibilities (SALT, İstanbul, 2015) are some of the significant the group shows, festivals, art fairs and screenings she participated in.
www.mimiko.net

Laia Abril
(Barcelona, 1986) is a photographer, bookmaker and creative editor. After graduating in journalism and attend classes at ICP in 2009, gets residency FABRICA - Benetton Research Center; working for five years as a photographer and photo editor at COLORS Magazine. For the past six years she has been developing a multi-chapter on Eating Disorders together with a documentary research on sexuality. Her work has exhibited in Switzerland (Musée de l’Elysée, Winterthur PhotoMuseum), Netherlands (Fotodok), London (Getty Galery), New York (NY Photofest, Sous les Etoiles, CUNY), Montreal (Mois de la Foto), Italy (Studio la Città, 001), Spain (PhotoEspaña, IvoryPress, Docfield, Arts Santa Mònica), Poland (Fotofestiwal) or Hamburg (Triennale). She has been recognized by CENTER Award, Burn EPF and FotoVisura Grant finalist; and nominated at Magnum Foundation, Joop Swart Masterclass and Foam Paul Huf. In 2012, she self-published ‘Thinspiraton’, followed by ‘Tediousphilia’(Musée de l’Elysée, 2014) and ‘The Epilogue’ (Dewi Lewis, 2014) finalist in the Aperture-Paris Photo First Book Award and Best Award nominee PhotoEspaña book and Kassel fotobookfestival. Her ongoing new book ‘Lobismuller’ has received the Images Book Award.
www.laiaabril.com