Alexa Becker

Acquisitions Editor at Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg

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Alexa Becker studied art history at the University of Heidelberg. Since 2006 she has been employed at Kehrer Verlag in Heidelberg as Acquisitions Editor in the field of acquisition and programme management. She advises young artists and photographers when preparing their publications. She regularly takes part in portfolio reviews at photo festivals in Arles, Houston, Paris and Portland and sits on juries.
Alexa Becker is interested in independent photographic positions.
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Prof. Peter Bialobrzeski

Photographer and professor of photography at University of the Arts, Bremen in the Art and Design Faculty, Hamburg

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Peter Bialobrzeski studied politics and sociology before working in his hometown of Wolfsburg as a local reporter. Following his studies in communication design, with a major in photography, in Essen (Folkwangschule) and London (LCP), he worked first for international magazines before beginning, at the end of the 1990s, to publish his projects in book form. Since 2002 Bialobrzeski has been employed as Professor of photography at University of the Arts, Bremen within the Art and Design faculty. In 2003 and 2010 he won a WorldPressPhoto Award. In 2012 he was distinguished with the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize by the German Photographic Society. His books have been widely acclaimed, among others with the German Photo Book Award as well as the distinction, “one of the most beautiful German books”. His photographs have been displayed in solo and group exhibitions on all five continents. The Lothar Albrecht Gallery in Frankfurt am Main, Robert Morat Gallery in Hamburg and Laurence Miller Gallery in New York, along with m97 in Shanghai, represent his large-format works on the international art market. Peter Bialobrzeski lives in Hamburg.

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Milena Carstens

Photo editor and management of the photo editing team at ZEITmagazin, Berlin

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Milena Carsten studied photography and media studies at the University of Applied Sciences in Bielefeld. From 2010 to 2012 she worked as a free photo editor and was in charge of the showroom oft he Robert Morat gallery in Berlin. Since 2012 she has been the executive photo editor oft he ZEITmagazin. Milena Carstens is interested in compelling photographers of a new generation and tries to integrate unknown talents into the professional daily life. In addition to her editorial work she regularly published her own free work.

Marguy Conzémius

Curator of the photography department at the Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA), Dudelange, Luxemburg

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Marguy Conzémius studied art history and Italian philology in Trier and Bologna. From 1999 to 2000 she worked as an independent art historian before, in 2001, joining the Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA) in Dudelange (Luxemburg) and managing their photography department until 2011. Today she curates photographic assignments with artists like Samuel Bollendorff, Stephen Gill, Armand Quetsch, Gea Casolaro, and exhibitions featuring works by national and international renown artists like Peter Hugo, Paolo Woods, Joachim Schmid, Gabriele Basilico, Paolo Ventura, Lee Miller, Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert, and others. She usually participates in the publications for these exhibitions as co-editor and author.

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Sibylle Fendt

Photographer and lecturer at the Ostkreuz School of Photography, Berlin

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Following studies in art history, philosophy and sociology Sibylle Fendt studied photography at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences from 1996 to 2002 under Prof. Roman Bezjak. After that she was a student under Wolfgang Tillmans at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Since 2008 she has herself been teaching at the Ostkreuz School of Photography and Design in Berlin-Weißensee. She has been a member of the Ostkreuz Photographers’ Agency since 2010. She has already won many awards for her works, including the Kodak-Nachwuchs-Förderpreis (2002), the Otto Steinert Award (2004) and 1st prize in the Vattenfall Photo Prize (2010).
Her photographic works deal mainly with people who find themselves in an elementary crisis: dementia sufferers, eating disorder sufferers, gambling addicts.
Sibylle Fendt lives and works in Berlin.

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V.-Prof.in Karen Fromm

Professor at Hannover University on the photojournalism and documentary photography course and 1st Chairperson of the Friends of the House of Photography, Hamburg

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Karen Fromm studied art history, literary studies and cultural management in Hamburg and Berlin. She earned her doctorate at the Humboldt University Berlin on the topic, “The Image as Witness. Staging the Documentary in Artistic Photography since 1980”. From 1995 to 1997 Karen Fromm managed Galerie Pfefferberg in Berlin; in 1999 she moved to Hamburg and assumed, for publishers Gruner + Jahr, management of the division for exhibitions, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate design. From 2008 to 2011 she was a management board member of photo and press agency FOCUS. Since 2010 she has been 1st chairperson of the Friends of the House of Photography at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg. Today, Karen Fromm teaches as an administrative professor at Hannover University on the photojournalism and documentary course. Her areas of research and teaching are photographic visual languages and the history and theory of photojournalism.

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Emmanuelle Hascoët

Exhibitions and Cultural Development Manager bei Magnum Photos, Paris

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With degrees in Modern Literature, Theatre Studies and International Artistic Cooperation, Emmanuelle Hascoët has worked on film productions and as programmer and production officer for a number of film and photography festivals (CITA Biarritz, Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, Filmar en América Latina in Geneva, Images au Centre in Paris). After an extended stay in Central America in 2002, her research into the region's audiovisual and photographic history led to a retrospective exhibition. She joined Magnum Photos in 2005 as an exhibition coordinator. She was in charge of the Magnum exhibitions' collection. Since 2010, she has been developing cultural projects in France, Southern Europe and Brazil for Magnum Photos as an exhibition manager. She lives in Paris. Emmanuelle Hascoët will conduct her reviews in English.

Klaus Kehrer

Publisher and founder of Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg

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Having spent a number of years working as a designer of photo and art books, Klaus Kehrer founded Kehrer Verlag in Heidelberg in 1995. This publishing house is now one of the world’s leading in the field of photography. Photographers such as Saul Leiter, Christopher Anderson, Thomas Ruff, Jessica Backhaus, Charles Fréger, Martin Parr, Rinko Kawauchi, Harry Callahan, along with numerous up-and-coming artists, have been published in recent years. Kehrer Verlag is a member of the European Publishers Award for Photography, an initiative by European publishing houses to promote contemporary photography. The award has been advertised for one photo book each year for 20 years.
Klaus Kehrer regularly takes part in portfolio reviews at international festivals and holds talks on editing and publishing photo books. He has published a number of his own photo books in the past, the fruits of an encounter during a portfolio review.

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Bernhard Knaus

Gallery owner and collector, Frankfurt am Main

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Bernhard Knaus is a graduate in business administration and a collector. He began publishing limited editions and dealing in art in 1996. After completing his studies, he opened his first gallery premises in Mannheim in 2001. The gallery represents international contemporary artists, focusing on photography. In 2007 he relocated, with the gallery, to Frankfurt am Main. A particular concern of his since the gallery was founded is continuous and long-term promotion of the artists he represents. Books are published in-house on a regular basis or brought out in collaboration with other publishers. The gallery works globally with museums and other non-commercial institutions and loans out works from its collection by the artists it represents for exhibition projects.

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Dr. Christina Leber

Management of the DZ Bank art collection, Frankfurt am Main

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Christina Leber holds a docorate in art history. After two years as the managing director of the second Berlin Biennale she joined the team of the DZ Bank art collection. Here she had worked as a curator for seven years before taking over the management in 2011. As the manager of the DZ Bank art collection Christina Leber is in charge of controlling and coordinating all art activities of the DZ Bank. She is particulary responsible for the value retention and the strategic development of the collection. With the help of external curators she organises four art foyer exhibitions a year. Furthermore she curates an coordinates all external domestic and international exhibitions with their corresponding publications.

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Nadja Masri

Freelance photo editor and lecturer at the Ostkreuz School of Photography, Berlin

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Nadja Masri works as a freelance photo editor and has been leading the class „photographic editorial department“ at the Ostkreuz School for Photography in Berlin since 2011. As a photo editor with an international network Nadja Masri researches, produces and edits stories and single images for magazines, photobooks and travel guides like the publishing house Mare or the magazine Das Magazin in Switzerland. From 2001 till 2009 she was in charge of the newsagency of the magazine Geo in New York and she was lecturer and seminar leader at the International Center of Photography. Before that she was photo editor at Stern in Hamburg, the business magazine Bizz in Cologne and the stock photo agency Ostkreuz in Berlin. Nadja Masri engages in portfolio revies and as member oft he jury at national and international fotofestivals and competitions. She is furthermore member of the selection committee of Emphas.is, which is an online crowdfunding platform for photography.

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Dr. Martina Mettner

Advisor to photographers, Aarbergen

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Following studies in sociology, Martina Mettner earned her doctorate with a dissertation on artistic photography. Subsequently she was editor-in-chief of various photo magazines, one of which was published in three languages worldwide. She took on the concept and market introduction of the magazine SCHWARZWEISS. In 2008 she introduced “Fotofeinkost” as a blog and has been managing this project as its publisher since 2010.
For ten years she has been advising photographers in individual consultations, through talks and trainings as well as with the aid of books. Her published guides for photographers are Erfolg als Fotograf – Wie man sein Können optimal präsentiert, and Fotografie mit Leidenschaft – Vom Abbilden zum künstlerischen Ausdruck.
Martina Mettner is particularly interested in works that allow intensive visual confrontation with people to be discerned, an immersion in their social reality – from one’s own family to a foreign culture.

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Ute Noll

Photo director of Du Magazin, photo critic, curator and teacher at Dortmund University of Applied Sciences in the photography faculty, Stuttgart

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In addition to her new employment as photo director of Du Magazin, Ute Noll continues to work as a lecturer, author and curator. Since 2007 Ute Noll has been running the agency On Photography & Illustration and the gallery UNO ART SPACE in Stuttgart. She regularly writes about up-and-coming talents and develops books within the team such as Hijacked 2 - Australische und Deutsche Fotografie (Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg) and magazines such as Ojodepez, issue no. 15 "I want to be happy" (La Fabrica, Madrid). At international exhibition venues such as the Australian Centre for Photography and the Zephyr gallery in Mannheim, as well as at Darmstadt’s Photography Days, she co-curates exhibitions with other curators. In 1999 Ute Noll co-devised the Frankfurter Rundschau magazine and was responsible for picture editing there until its last issue in 2007.
Ute Noll is interested in projects that record a specific theme artistically, in documentary form or experimentally, and that also demonstrate an independent point of view on the chosen theme.

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Thomas Schirmböck

Curator and managing director of ZEPHYR – Raum für Fotografie, Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim

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Thomas Schirmböck has been director and curator of ZEPHYR – Raum für Fotographie in Mannheim since 2005. Zephyr is an exhibition space that is devoted primarily to contemporary photography. Since spring 2005 Zephy has realized its multifaceted programme of international contemporary art in numerous solo, group and topical shows on its own premises and in the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums. Following studies in European art history, archaeology and political sciences in Heidelberg, Thomas Schirmböck built up the municipal photo gallery Alte Feuerwache in Mannheim from 1996 to 2004. From 1996 to 1999, in addition, he taught at the University of Mannheim. His most recent exhibitions include FotoChina (2006), my vision – Ideen für die Welt von Morgen (2007), Spurensuche, Polizeifotografie 1946–1971 (2008), Paolo Pellegrin, As I Was Dying (2008), Sascha Weidner, Am Wasser gebaut (2009).
Thomas Schirmböck is interested in conceptual photography, in photographs that are socially relevant and have a connection with contemporary history.

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Dr. Claude W. Sui

Director and curator of the Forum for International Photography, Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen and since 2010 teacher at the University of Applied Sciences Mannheim for the history of photography

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Claude W. Sui has been director and curator of the Forum for International Photography of the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim since 2002. He studied art history, philosophy and ethnology at the universities in Mainz and Frankfurt am Main and earned his doctorate on the work of the photographer Robert Häusser. Sui is in charge of the scientific compilation of the contemporary Helmut Gernsheim Collection, for the Robert Häusser Archive and the Reiss siblings’ collection of historical travel photographs. Among others, Sui has curated the following exhibitions at the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums: “Focus on Man, Pictures of People from the photographic collection of Helmut Gernsheim” (2003), "Robert Häusser, From the Photographic Work 1938–2004“ (2006), “Robert Lebeck - Unbelievable Luck“ (2004), “To the Holy Lands – From Mecca and Medina to Jerusalem”, Photographs of the 19th Century (2006), “Set into the Word – Contemporary Lyric Poetry to Photographs by Robert Häusser” (2007), “Robert Häusser – The Diary of Moor” (2008), “World Stars of Photography: The Winners of the Hasselblad Foundation” (2008), “Robert Häusser – The Berlin Wall“ (2009). „The Birth of Photography, Milestones from the Gernsheim Collection” (2012). In this exhibition the first ever photograph "View from the Window, Le Gras" taken in 1826 by Nicéphore Niépce was shown for the first time in over 60 years in Europe and exclusively at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Mannheim.
Sui was appointed as Jury Chairman for the Hasselblad Award 2010 of the Erna- und Victor Hasselblad Foundation, Göteborg (Sweden).

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Magnum Photos Reviewer

Abbas

Magnum photographer, Paris

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Iranian-French photographer Abbas has devoted his work to documenting the political and social life of societies in conflict. In his most important works since 1970 he has devoted himself to the wars and revolutions in Biafra, Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, the Middle East, Chile, Cuba, and South Africa during apartheid. In 1997 he returned to Iran after 17 years of voluntary exile, in order to photograph the revolution. His book Iran Diary 1971–2002 is a critical interpretation of Iranian history and is written and photographed in the form of a private journal. In 1981 Abbas was accepted into Magnum and recognized as a full member in 1985. Since 2002 he has been working on a project that deals with conflict among religions.
Abbas will have a three-hour session with discussion and guided tour at the Heidelberger Kunstverein. This session will be in English.

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Thomas Hoepker

Magnum photographer, New York

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Thomas Hoepker studied art history and archaeology before working globally as a photographer for the Münchner Illustrierte and Kristall. From 1964 he worked for Stern magazine as a photojournalist. After that he worked for a few years as a cameraman and producer of documentary films for German television, together with his wife, the journalist Eva Windmoeller. From 1978 to 1981 Hoepker was Director of Photography of the American edition of Geo in New York. During his years as Art Director of Stern from 1987 to 1989 he was appointed a full member of Magnum. He was president of Magnum from 2003 to 2006. For his reportages and feuilleton articles he was distinguished with the culture award of the German Photographic Society in 1968. Today, Hoepker lives and works in New York and Berlin. He films and produces television documentaries with his second wife Christine Kruchen.

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Liu Jie

Fellowship holder of the Magnum Foundation: Human Rights Fellowship 2012, Beijing

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Liu Jie is a Chinese photographer. After obtaining degrees in literature and Media Sciences he started his photojournalist career when he joined Xinhua News Agency in 2005. Liu Jie’s photographic essays capture the changing of China and its people during urbanization. His recent documentary works are mostly related to immigrant workers from the countryside and their children. The project Migrant Nation prompted nationwide discussions on the problem of the immigrant workers in China. The pictures were published by TIME lightbox in 2013. With this series he won the third place in the Picture of the Year Award 2012, and was among the finalists for the PDN annual. In 2012 he also held the Magnum Foundation’s Human Rights Fellowship.

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Magnum Photos Reviewer