AWARD 2021
JURY

Evita Goze (1984) is a curator, writer and photographer, based in Riga, Latvia. Her practice is driven by her interest in intertwining photography with other media and constructing narratives which blur the boundaries between reality and fiction and makes the personal political. She is currently a curator at the ISSP Gallery and of the photobook festival Self Publish Riga. She received a BA in Photography from University of Brighton, UK, and an MA in Visual Communication at the Art Academy of Latvia. Her most recently curated exhibitions include Falling on PHmuseum’s online platform, Annemarija Gulbe's Love re-search (ISSP Gallery, 2020) and ENTER. Photobooks from the Baltics as part of Belgrade Photomonth (2019). She has worked on the juries of several photography competitions, including Grand Prix Fotofestiwal Lodz, Art Fair Foto Tallinn, Belgrade Photo Month’s New Talents, Kassel Dummy Award and Self Publish Riga photobook dummy competition. She is also a contributing writer for Latvian weekly publications IR and “Kultūras Diena”, The British Journal of Photography and Tjej Land, focusing on photography and contemporary art.

Saara Hacklin (1978), PhD, is a curator and theorist based in Helsinki. She works at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art as a collections curator. Hacklin has studied philosophy and aesthetics at the University of Helsinki. In addition to research and curatorial work, Hacklin has been a visiting researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie, participated in discussions about art and criticism through various publications such as the online journal Mustekala and taught art theory at a number of institutions, including Aalto University. Her recent curatorial work includes (with Kati Kivinen) Kiasma’s collection exhibition There and Back Again: Contemporary Art from the Baltic Sea Region (2018) and (with Kati Kivinen and Satu Oksanen) Coexistence: Human, Animal and Nature in Kiasma’s Collections (2019).

Audrey Hoareau (1983) is a freelance curator specialized in photography. Graduated in communication, she joined the Musée Nicéphore Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône from 2003 to 2016. She helped launch in 2017 the Lianzhou Museum of Photography, the first public photography museum in China. She is in charge of the artistic direction of the 2019 (with The Red Eye) and 2020 editions of Festival Circulation(s) a major event dedicated to emergent European photography. She is also artistic director of virtual and real editions of Photo Basel 2020, Art Basel satellite and the only photography fair in Switzerland.

Valentinas Klimašauskas (1977) is a curator and writer. With Inga Lāce he curated Saules Suns, a solo exhibition by Daiga Grantina for the Latvian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019), worked as a Program Director at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2017/18), and was a curator at CAC, Vilnius (2003/13). Recent curated projects include Columnists at Editorial, Vilnius (2019); Somewhere in between. Contemporary art scenes in Europe at BOZAR, Brussels (2018); Portals or location scouting in Kaunas, presented by Spike Art Quarterly (2017); A hat trick or a theory of the plankton, Podium, Oslo and Sodų 4, Vilnius (2016); a cab, Kunsthalle Athena, Athens, and Podium, Oslo (2015). He is the author of Oh, My Darling & Other Rants (The Baltic Notebooks of Anthony Blunt, 2018), Polygon (Six Chairs Books, 2018), and B (Torpedo Press, 2014).
Photo: Visvaldas Morkevičius

Adam Mazur, PhD (1977) is an art critic, art historian, and curator. His main interests are contemporary art and documentary photography. Founder and chief editor of BLOK magazine (http://blokmagazine.com/). Recently curated, together with Lukasz Gorczyca, a show on Central European photobooks at the Cracow International Centre for Culture (MCK) and published a monograph titled Mutilated World. Histories of Photography in Central Europe 1838-2017 (Universitas, Cracow 2019).

Laura Toots (1986) is a curator and educator based in Tallinn. Toots studied photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA 2011) and at the Aalto University School of Art and Design, Finland and Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Norway. In 2013, she assisted senior curator Elena Filipovic at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels; and worked at the Education Department of International Foundation Manifesta in Amsterdam. Since 2008, she has taught at the Estonian Academy of Arts, working on numerous exhibition projects with students from various disciplines. In 2016–2019 Toots was the artistic director of the Tallinn Photomonth contemporary art biennial. Since 2017 she has been working as a curator and project manager at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) – a self-established non-profit initiative, an ex-squat, run by artists and curators, that operates from late 2006.

Elena Vaninetti (1984) is a curator, editor and educator based in Milano (IT). After her studies in Art and Cultural Heritage at Milano Statale University she started to work in the photo industry. She is managing editor of YET magazine, award winning independent publication devoted to contemporary photography. She is part of Twenty14, curatorial duo and gallery space, active in Milano since 2014. She holds workshops, lectures and teaches regularly at Officine Fotografiche Milano. She writes on commission for magazines, artists and galleries.