Ilvy Njiokiktjien

Ilvy Njiokiktjien is a photojournalist, filmmaker, podcast host and educator who has been creating and sharing stories for almost two decades. She is based in Utrecht, the Netherland, is represented by VII Photo agency and is a Canon Ambassador.
Njiokiktjien is committed to documenting the social and political issues that shape our world. Her work is characterized by a sensitive eye and a compassionate and personal relationship with her subjects.
For 12 years, she chronicled South Africa’s first post-apartheid generation. Njiokiktjien became intrigued by these young adults and portrayed them in her own, personal and intimate style. “Equality is there on paper, but a majority of young people believes white South Africans still have better chances, as the legacy of centuries of inequality is still there.” The result is the project "Born Free – Mandela’s Generation of Hope", which sparked a documentary, an interactive website, a book, feature articles, and a traveling exhibition.
Her work with Urkraine’s LGBTQ community in March 2022 tells the tale of people’s loves and fears – and their resolve in the face of Russian aggression. Njiokiktjiens latest project on co-housing follows people who opt to live in non-traditional groups or who welcome extended family members into a shared home. Njiokiktjien has consistently been at the forefront of new methods of visual storytelling. Way ahead of time, she started combining photography and film. She also has experimented with VR to bring the stories closer to the audience. Years ago she discovered the value of podcasts to share stories, which has resulted in hosting various podcasts and online interview programs for VII Insider and Canon.
Since 2017 Ilvy is represented by VII Photo, an international collective of leading photojournalists dedicated to exposing and reporting on issues around the world throught photography and multimedia, and has served as a Canon ambassador since 2012. She’s the first woman to win the Dutch Silver Camera Award for photographer of the year and was named the first ever Photographer Laureate of the Netherlands in 2013. In addition to numerous awards from international organizations such as World Press Photo and POYi, Njiokiktjien’s images have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, The Guardian, Stern, Der Spiegel, TIME, and other major outlets. She has exhibited at Visa pour l’Image in France, New York’s Photoville, and museums and festivals around the world.

ilvynjiokiktjien.com

Mary Gelman

Mary Gelman is a Russian photographer and visual storyteller.
After getting a degree in sociology, she got involved in photography. She often explores themes of identity and trauma, vulnerability and resilience, seeks to challenge stereotypes and prejudices. She also focuses on life and the ideology of alternative communities and different social groups facing discrimination. The most important part of her practice is diving deeper into the topics and interactions with people, where empathy, trust, and understanding are significant.
Mary has been a winner of different competitions. She's the recipient of the World Press Photo, Leica Oskar Barnack Award, Pictures of the Year, Istanbul Photo Awards, and so on. She was published in the Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, UNICEF, and many others.

marygelman.com

Maude Bardet

Maude Bardet is a French photographer currently living in the Netherlands. After studying engineering, she first worked in Berlin and then ended up in Holland. She always had fernweh, as the Germans say, and invariably construed her jobs as mere tools to finance her travels. She discovered street photography in 2017 during a workshop with Nikos Economopoulos in Ghana, and felt like this was exactly what she had been looking for. Guided by light and textures, she tries to portray a slice of the human condition. She likes to use strong colors to emphasize the compositional elements in her pictures. She was featured in various Street Photography festivals (Miami, Brussels, Arles, San Francisco, Sydney, Trieste, Rome, Gothenburg, Istanbul, Częstochowa) and in Women Street Photographers exhibitions in New York (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), Kuala Lumpur (2019, 2020), Brussels (2019), Trieste (2020), Chelyabinsk (2020), Hyderabad (2020) and Paris (2021). She is the winner of the Independent Photographer "street photography" competition 2020, as well as the 3^rd prize (2021) and Jurors’ pick (2022) of the LensCulture street photography Awards. 

maudebardet.com