Online Portfolio Reviews - 19 October

Location: Zoom (online)

Date: 19 October

Costs: €5,-

We connect professionals in the field with talents, students and amateur photographers who already have an advanced practice. As reviewers, we have invited a selection of curators, editors, publishers, and photographers.

Nina Venus

Nina Venus is a painter; she lives and works as an artist and independent curator in Hamburg. Following an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Roman Philology from LMU in Munich, she completed her studies 2000 with a Master of Fine Arts in painting from TUFTS University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston (USA). 

Her works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in independent galleries and institutions and are represented in private collections. In 2020, for example, she exhibited work from her current body of work, the cloud paintings, at renowned Hamburg. gallery Melike Bilir. In 2023, the city of Kiel commissioned Nina Venus to paint a portrait of outgoing city president Hans-Werner Tovar; this painting was ceremoniously unveiled and is now part of the historic “Ahnengalerie” of the Kiel City Hall. 

She also works as an independent curator. Namely, in 2018 she directed the OFF TRIENNALE for the Deichtorhallen Hamburg as part of the International Triennial of Photography, in 2022 she curated “hello.again” for the Kunsthalle Lüneburg as part of the retrospective of photographer Volker Hinz, most recently she curated the comprehensive exhibition “Art on the Dancefloor” for the International Fotofestiwal Lødz, Poland in 2023. 

She taught as lecturer and visiting professor at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Kiel between 2015 and 2022.

Raquel van Haver

Born in 1989 in Bogota, Colombia, Raquel van Haver nowlives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Van Haver graduated from the HKU University of the Arts in Utrecht, in 2012. More recently she has spent long periods abroad, gathering source material in both West Africa and South America but continues to return to her own diverse community in the South-East of Amsterdam. Solo exhibitions include ‘Spirits of the Soil’ at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, November 2018 – April 2019. Van Haver’s work has also been exhibited at the Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands; Lagos photo festival, Nigeria and BOZAR Centre for Fine Art, Brussels, Belgium. Winning the prestigious Dutch Royal Prize for Painting in2018, Van Haver has gone on to win the Amsterdam award in 2019, both prestigious accomplishments in theNetherlands 

Femke Rotteveel

Femke Rotteveel (1971) is since 2017 the director of FOTODOK. FOTODOK is an institution in Utrecht (NL) where photography exhibitions are curated around social themes to broaden
perspectives or provide new insights.
In addition, FOTODOK is organizing in depth programs, i.e. on photobooks, and is guiding makers in their development FOTODOK is actively involved in (inter)national talent programs such as Lighthouse, FUTURES, Talent Embassy and Blurring the Lines. With the major role of images nowadays in information provision, it is FOTODOK’s mission to include the educational program Learning to See in the fixed curriculum of education for all children Femke is a connector with a large (inter)national network of cultural institutions, photographers, social organizations, funds, (impact) investors and entrepreneurs. She studied social-economic history at the University of Amsterdam and Exeter University. At the start of her career Femke worked for 8 years as head of World Press Photo’s exhibition department where she was responsible for organizing and financin
the 100 exhibitions that take place worldwide every year. She subsequently was 8 years the Head of Allocations at the Charity Lotteries, where she was responsible for the distribution of the
proceeds of the Postcode Lottery and Friends Lottery to cultural institutions, charitable organizations
and social enterprises. She distributed more than 2.5 billion euros in this role. 

Astrid Hulsmann 

Astrid Hulsmann works as a curator and communication manager at BredaPhoto. Previously she has been working at Kunstmuseum & Fotomuseum Den Haag. She’s a guest tutor at art academies, writes on contemporary photography and organises photography talks as a board member of PictureThis. She holds a Master’s degree in Art History. 

Farren van Wyk

Farren van Wyk (1993) is a South African and Dutch Photographer and Educator. She holds a BA in Photography and an MA in Cultural & Visual Anthropology—her research-based work centres around decolonial methods of changing historical and cultural misrepresentations of people of colour. Through portraiture, she unravels the intertwined narratives that span continents and centuries, exploring shared histories and identities between South Africa and the Netherlands. In her work, van Wyk draws lines between people, places, movements, personal history and memories. 

With Merit Scholarships, she attended the Charcoal Bookclub Chico Hot Springs Portfolio Review in 2022 and the Portfolio Review in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2023. She is part of the 2024 Fotodok Talent Embassy Program and an emerging artist with the European-based FUTURES. 

Farren received the Women’s Photograph Grant with PG Museum in 2022. Van Wyk is a member of the African Photojournalist Association with World Press Photo, Black Women Photographers, PH Museum and Women Photograph.

Marga Rotteveel 

Marga Rotteveel is the co-founder and director of Docking Station, a platform for visual storytelling. After studying photography at AKV|St.Joost in Breda, she began her career as a curator at Photofestival Naarden, eventually becoming its creative director. 

In 2010, Marga founded Photorevolt, curating and organizing exhibitions both in the Netherlands and internationally. She has been a member of the supervisory board of the Dutch Photomuseum and has taught photography at AKV|St.Joost and the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), where she currently teaches in the master’s programs. Since 2021, she has been a researcher at Avans University of Applied Sciences, focusing on sustainable artistic innovation and systemic change. Starting in 2024, her research expands to alternative value models for visual storytellers. She also serves as a jury member and advisor at photography events and is dedicated to supporting visual storytellers in reaching diverse audiences.  

Alex Avgud

Alex Avgud is a Russian-born photography artist based in The Netherlands since 2015. His autonomous visual works explore degrees of autonomy of a human body in shifting political contexts and address such issues as migration, queer sexuality and relativity of freedom through merging photography with choreographed performances. For commissioned work, he embarks on fashion & theatre assignments.  

In 2019 Alex has graduated from Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague with a BA degree in Photography, winning Photo Talent Award at ‘Best of Graduates’ exhibition in Amsterdam at Galerie Ron Mandos. Alex has exhibited, amongst other venues, at Les Rencontres d’Arles in France with FOAM Photography Museum, at UNSEEN Photo Fair (Amsterdam), EYE Film Museum (Amsterdam), at 37th Hyéres Festival of Fashion and Photography (France), with Atla Platform in Copenhagen (Denmark), and at Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo (Norway).  

Alex is a Laureate of Dior Photography Award 2020, was shortlisted for Dummy Book Award (Cologne, Germany) & OD Photo Prize (London, UK). His works are a part of private and corporate collections across Europe & USA.  

As an educator & mentor he’s currently a guest teacher at KABK and has been involved in programmes encouraging young talent in Denmark (Copenhagen Photo Festival) & Russia (a creative laboratory for teenagers of underprivileged backgrounds in a small mining town).  

Dr. Ileana L. Selejan

Dr. Ileana L. Selejan is a writer, researcher and curator, currently Lecturer in Art History, Culture and Society at the Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. A member of the PhotoDemos research collective and of the experimental arts collective kinema ikon, she has held curatorial, research and teaching positions at various institutions including the Department of Anthropology at University College London, the Decolonising Arts Institute at UAL, Central Saint Martins, The Davis Museum at Wellesley College, New York University, Tisch School of the Arts and the Parsons School of Design. 

Marloes Heineke

Marloes Heineke (46) is a self-taught documentary and portrait photographer.
Working in photography since 1999 as a photo editor, she currently works for NRC and Het Parool as a freelancer.

Mohamed Somji is a curator and the Director of Gulf Photo Plus (GPP), a Dubai-based gallery and community organization cultivating visual practices in photography in the UAE, and across the wider MENASA region since 2004. As part of GPP’s commitment to developing visual and critical literacy, the organization engages the community with regular educational and art programming, exhibitions of work from and about the region and providing resources for photographers from film developing and processing to fine art printing, a photobook store and more. Mohamed is also a practicing documentary photographer whose practice locates and probes schisms in contemporary life, challenging the status quo with sensitive, critical commentary on the politics of representation.