We are very pleased to introduce the jury who will select the two artists from the applications for the June 2022 ‘Passage’ residencies.

Heike Beck co-founded the Kultur- und Kunstverein Kemberg e.V. (Kemberg Culture and Art Association) and has been chairwoman of the association since 2020. She studied History and German Language at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. Since 1985 she has been working at the primary and secondary school Ernestine Reiske in Kemberg and since 1993 she has been deputy headmistress at this school. In 1994, she was elected to the town council of Kemberg and held various positions there until 2019 (chairwoman of the culture committee, deputy mayor, local mayor). Among other projects one main focus of the association is the establishment of the centre for cultural-historical activities ‘Altes Museum / Knabenschule’ in cooperation with the city of Kemberg and the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments and Archaeology.

Milena Carstens is Director of Photography at ZEITmagazin Germany. Since completing her degree at the University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld in photography, Milena has worked on numerous projects and magazines in the capacity of image consultant and photo editor. As gallery manager of the Robert Morat Galerie she oversaw the opening of the Berlin showroom space. Starting in 2012 she began working at ZEITmagazin as photo editor and in 2014 took over as Director of Photography. Milena Carstens is responsible for all image and graphic related content for the weekly ZEITmagazin, as well as for the regional issues and the biannual magazines ZEITmagazin Mann and ZEITmagazin International.

Instagram: milena_carstens

Brazilian-born filmmaker, writer & art director Carlos Vin Lopes completed an MA in Visual Communication at the Weißensee Academy Of Art Berlin. He is one of the founders of GRUPPPO – Design, Film & Visual Art Studio together with Valerio Nicoletti and Lucia Sgrafetto. Carlos Vin Lopes lives and works in Berlin since 2012.

His work has been featured in festivals (among others: Cannes Film Festival; European Independent Film Festival; Chicago Screenplay Awards; New York International Screenplay Awards; Caminhos Film Festival) and cultural and editorial events (First Prize at the International Art Poster Biennial exhibition BICEBE in Bolivia). He was invited by the publishing company Hesign from Germany/China to be part of the book ‘One by One’ – a registration of contemporary visual artists. Furthermore his work was featured in the magazine Print Mag from USA and on the prestigious platform ‘Free The Work’. He exhibited his graphic projects at the 10th International Poster Triennial in Toyama (Japan). Carlos Vin Lopes works on cultural and artistic projects with a focus on multidisciplinarity between design, filmmaking and storytelling.

https://carlosvin.com
Instagram: carlosvin_lopes

Laura Pannack is a London based photographer. Renowned for her portraiture and social documentary work, she seeks to explore the complex relationship between subject and photographer. Her work has been extensively exhibited and published worldwide, including at The National Portrait Gallery, The Houses of Parliament, Somerset House and the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Her artwork has received much acclaim and won numerous awards, among which are the John Kobal Award, Vic Odden prize, World Photo Press Awards, Juliet Margaret Cameron award and the HSBC Prix de la Photographie prize.

Driven by research-led, self-initiated projects, Pannack seeks to fully understand the lives of those she captures on film in order to portray them as truthfully as possible. Perceiving “time, trust and understanding” to be the key elements to achieving this, many of her projects develop over several years, helping her achieve a genuine connection between herself and her sitter and allowing her to capture the intimacy, shared ideas and shared experiences of this relationship. Laura Pannack was ‘Passage’ Artist-in-Residence artist in 2021.

https://laurapannack.com
Instagram: laurapannack

Jule Schaffer is Head of the Photography Collection at the Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale). She studied Art History, English Philology, Theater-, and Film- and Media studies in Cologne and Seville. In 2015, she finished her PhD on concepts of sacredness in contemporary photography at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities in Cologne. Until 2018 she worked as a Research Associate for Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne. As a curator and art historian, her main research areas are photography of the 1920s as well as contemporary documentary and conceptual photography, photobooks and interdisciplinary art criticism.

Instagram: jule__schaffer

Bert Villa is a Ghent-based phenomenological artist-architect. With his installations, photography and architectural structures, Villa engages with the codes of (human-made) environments and our perception of those environments. Often departing from a specific location and the narratives it embodies, Villa engages with the highly recognisable phenomena that populate our surroundings. By isolating or decontextualising them, he questions the way our environment is culturally, historically and socially constructed. Bert Villa builds contextual installations: assembled structures triggered by common (architectural) elements that abstract or reframe elements of real environments in order to generate an alternative reality.

Villa is part of the artist-run collective 019 and of the global collaborative network ConstructLab for which he co-found the Belgian association Constructlab Belgium VZW. He currently teaches at KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture at Campus Ghent and LUCA School of Arts.

Recently a first book ‘Assembly’ was published by MER. Paper Kunsthalle and Borgerhoff Lamberigts presenting his first photographic works and a hidden interwoven bundling of sculptural works of the past five years. Bert Villa was ‘Passage’ Artist-in-Residence artist in 2021.

https://villa.works
Instagram: bert.villa

Published: 14th March 2022