Robert LeBlanc
location: Los Angeles, USRobert Leblanc is an artist who works primarily in photography and video. His projects capture non-traditional communities, including hotshot firefighters, hurricane survivors, and Holiness snake handlers. Through raw, unguarded images, he offers a glimpse of daily life into otherwise rarely pictured social spaces. He works from the conviction that a meaningful documentary series is made through mutual engagement, transparency, and years of trust-building.
LeBlanc is a self-taught photographer who first bought a 35-mm point-and-shoot camera in 2003 to document and share skate culture, and his experience navigating the world on a skateboard. Over the next 12 years, he created an authentic record of day-to-day life in his cohort, culminating in his debut artist book, Unlawful Conduct. Each copy of this limited edition came enclosed in a unique case, die-cut from a specially-made large-scale graffiti mural. Unlawful Conduct sold out before print and was carried in highly selective bookstores worldwide, including museums MoMA PS1 Bookstore and Frye Museum Store.
In 2017, LeBlanc became one of a handful of photographers awarded a government contract to document hotshot wildfires. Over the next four years, he documented Montana and California crews as they risked their lives to battle remote and unpredictable wildfires. This rare and intimate perspective on the proliferation of natural disasters is chronologized in his second publication, Moon Dust. In partnership with Mystery Ranch and Monster Energy Cares, book sale proceeds are donated to the Eric Marsh Foundation, U.S. Hotshot Association, and Backbone Series Scholarship.
LeBlanc's 2023 monograph, GLORYLAND, pictures not only the last Holiness serpent-handling church in West Virginia but an old mystic religious ritual on the verge of extinction. LeBlanc spent over five years with the church congregation, giving a unique and intimate view of this dying demonstration of devout faith.
LeBlanc continues to develop images that bridge the worlds of documentary and surrealism. In a time of great social upheaval and escalating environmental consequences, his work contributes to a broader understanding of the contemporary human experience.
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Tim Georgeson
location: Canada and AustraliaGeorgeson is an Australian filmmaker and artist.
Georgeson documents everything from cultural enclaves to environmental and humanitarian crisis zones, to street life across the world. His creative insight into the human condition gives his work a unique perspective inside the boundaries of art and documentary, where he captures complex dynamics in contemporary life at a time of digital change and media free-fall. His current film work merges found moments and storytelling with musical design in groundbreaking collaborations, especially with Australian indigenous communities in landscapes that have been devastated by fires and environmental crises.
Georgeson has been celebrated in the media, the arts, and the commercial world with acknowledgements and awards. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in France, UK, Japan, Holland, Canada, the US, and Australia. His work is held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, Australian Museum, Bundanon Trust Art Museum as well as in regional galleries, museums, and private collections internationally.
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Thandiwe Muriu
location: Nairobi, KenyaThandiwe Muriu's work takes you on a colourful, reflective journey through her world as a woman living in modern Kenya, as she reinterprets contemporary African portraiture, and presents a bold new vision of a woman and her autonomy. Creating surreal illusions that are not digital manipulations but rather pure photography, she confronts issues surrounding identity and self-perception while seeking to redefine female empowerment through the application of her choice of materials, such as fabric and common household items. Her work is marked by precision and intentionality from the conception of a piece through to its final printed form.
Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Thandiwe discovered photography at age 14, experimenting with her fathers old Nikon camera. Self-taught, she immersed herself in books and video tutorials, learning from every resource she could find, as Kenya did not have any formal photography schools. By age 17, she was working professionally, and by 23 had shot her first solo advertising campaign. By 2019, she was photographing campaigns for some of the largest companies in East Africa.
As the sole woman operating in the male-dominated advertising photography industry in Kenya, Thandiwe repeatedly confronted questions around the role of women in society, the place of tradition, and her own self-perception. These experiences inspired her first work, the Camo series, a project of cultural reflection. Camo was the catalyst for her to push new boundaries in her photography, leading her into a deeply personal artistic journey.
Since the start of her artistic career in 2020, Thandiwe’s works have been acquired by numerous public and private collections. She has been commissioned to create works for Apple, Dior, the United Nations, Lavazza and Swiss Red Cross among others. Thandiwe opened her first solo-show in Paris in October 2023. This year, she launched her book, Camo, and presented at the collateral event of the Venice Biennale, Passengers In Transit, presented by the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (CCA Lagos).
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Phillip Toledano
location: New York, USToledano was born in 1968 in London, to a French Moroccan mother and an American father. He grew up in London and Casablanca.
He received a BA in English literature from Tufts University in Boston.
Toledano considers himself a conceptual artist: Everything starts with an idea, and the idea determines the execution. Consequently, his work varies in medium, ranging from photography to installation, sculpture, painting and video.
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Brigitte Diez
location: Mexico City, MexicoBrigitte Diez is a Venezuelan photographer based in Mexico. With a degree in Communications, she specializes in portrait, fashion, and commercial photography. Brigitte's unique creative expressiveness, sensitivity, and meticulous attention to detail allow her to transform projects into stunning artistic creations. Guided by her intuitive vision and refined technique, she brings concepts to life with captivating artistry.
She has worked for the last 10 years with numerous magazines and brands in Europe, US and Latinoamérica. Some brands she has worked with are: Dior, H&M, Audible-Amazon, Coca Cola, Puma, Corona, T Mobile, iPhone, Telcel, Uber, AT&T, Converse, Nescafé, Quacker, Bohemia, Hennessy, Levis, Barefoot Wines, Coors Light, Skechers, Cotton, Pure Insurance, Ciel, Klar, NU Bank, Embecta, Moneygram, Plata Bank, Buick automotive, La Villita, Nescafé, Cultivate BSWH, Liverpool, Ilusión Perfumes, VIPS, DiDi, Neo City, Bissú, Walmart, Coppel, among others.
¨Photography is more than just work; I approach every project as an opportunity to surpass surface ideas. It is a journey of self-exploration, capturing the subtleties and complexities of humanity. Through the diverse forms of human expression, photography becomes a medium through which I explore and reveal the vast and intricate world, including my own¨.
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