Foto Tallinn’s jury highlights the quality of this edition

The participants of the art fair Foto Tallinn 2024, taking place September 6—8 at Kai Art Center, are selected by a jury of international photography professionals. The fair’s open call received 94 applications and the list of participants will be announced in late June. 

 

The jury was led by the fair curator Isabella van Marle and its members are:

 

Brendan Embser, Senior Editor at the US-based Aperture: I am thrilled to join the jury for Foto Tallinn 2024. The artists selected for this year’s edition show an inspiring range of themes, formal ingenuity, and new directions for the medium.

 

Embser has edited books by photographers including Arielle Bobb-Willis, Chloe Dewe Mathews, Ethan James Green, Deana Lawson, Philip Montgomery, Wendy Red Star, Ming Smith, and Zhang Xiao.

 

He was the co-curator of the Aperture Summer Open exhibitions from 2018 to 2020, and he has served on the jury for the Addis Foto Fest, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Changjiang International Photography and Video Art Biennale, Chongqing, China; Sony World Photography Awards; and WMA Masters, Hong Kong; and participated in the Jakarta International Photo Festival; Portfolio Review, Seoul; and Solar Fotofestival, Fortaleza, Brazil.

 

Embser is the curator of the traveling exhibition Tyler Mitchell: Wish This Was Real, and he has contributed essays and interviews to Apartamento, Aperture, Contemporary And, n+1, Objektiv, and The PhotoBook Review.

 

Giuseppe Oliverio, the Founder and Artistic Director of Bologna-based PhMuseum and PhMuseum Days International Photography Festival: It’s been a pleasure serving the Foto Tallinn 2024 open call selection process. The team is very professional and their positive open-minded approach creates a nice ground for sharing opinions and discussing the artists’ work. After having appreciated the care for details and the quality of the submissions, I am really looking forward to seeing the results in September! 

 

Since 2012, Oliverio has led the PhMuseum to develop their renewed Grants and Education Programs.

 

He has further conducted workshops in Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and in the Middle East. He has been a juror of awards such as Lucie Photo Book Prize, Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward, Blow Up Press Book Award, LensCulture Critics’ Choice, United Photo Industry The Fence, and Cortona Happiness OnTheMove.

 

He has worked as a portfolio reviewer for Futures Photography, Unseen, Photo Vogue Festival, Fotografia Europea, Verzasca Foto and Visa Pour L’Image. He has written for TIME magazine and L’Uomo Vogue.

 

Karin Laansoo, the Executive Director and board member of the Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center (ECADC) and Artistic Director of Kai Art Center: The quality of the candidates’ works was once again very high, and the competition was tight. Foto Tallinn 2024 focuses on outstanding international and local artists to be presented to the audience here. Compared to previous editions, we can see a stronger focus on documentary photography, which is also understandable considering the current global events.

 

Laansoo has a substantial background in contemporary art leadership roles with 15 years of international experience in curating, programming and fundraising for art institutions and nonprofits, and fostering collaborations, projects, and networks between the private and public sectors in the U.S. and Europe. Recent curatorial projects include Leviathan: the Paljassaare Chapter by Shezad Dawood (2020), Soil will not contain our love by Merike Estna (2022), Cyanoceans by Tuomas A. Laitinen and Kristina Õllek (2024), and As Long As the Blood Beats in Our Fountains by Kris Lemsalu and Kitty Florentine for Performa 2023.

 

From 2006 to 2013 Karin worked in New York City as gallery manager of a nonprofit art gallery and director of an international artist residency.

 

She published an award-winning book 22+ Young Estonian Artists in 2005 and produced Piibe Kolka’s documentary film Look a Little More. Katja Novitskova’s Art in Six Episodes in 2018.

 

Foto Tallinn introduces the latest contemporary photography and creates an opportunity for the art audience to see, buy, and collect fresh photographic art. For professionals in the field, Foto Tallinn offers a platform for collaboration and discussion, meetings with the art audience, and the presentation of their work to art enthusiasts. Curated tours, meetings with artists, lectures and seminars, book presentations, and much more will take place within the framework of the fair.

 

The curator of Foto Tallinn 2024 is Isabella van Marle, and the main organizers are Helen Melesk and Kadi-Ell Tähiste. The fair is organized by Foto Tallinn, the Estonian Union of Photography Artists and the Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center.