portfolios — FLOAT

Oct 6

Oct 6 Mathias Wasik

I moved to New York in 2015 and quickly realized the city itself wasn't the subject for me – its people were. The streets felt like an endless theatre, with fleeting gestures, humor, and collisions that revealed the real New York. That's when street photography shifted for me from a long-time interest into a way of life.

I would rarely leave home without a camera. Sometimes I'd chase light across the city; sometimes I'd wait on a corner for everything to align. My style is candid, close, and colorful – rooted in patience, curiosity, and the belief that time is what makes a photograph.

Street photography is a meditative process for me. It slows me down in a city that never stops moving, helps me connect with strangers, and gives me a sense of belonging. For me, these images are both personal imprints and part of New York's living archive. mathiaswasik.com

Sep 30

Sep 30 Vera Laponkina

Between autumn and spring (Work in progress) | The Kaliningrad region is the westernmost territory of the country, located in Central Europe. It has no direct borders with Russia. Over its centuries-old history, this region has repeatedly changed its name and nationality: Prussia, the Teutonic Order, East Prussia, the Russian Empire, Germany and the Soviet Union. Different historical and socio-cultural contexts are intertwined here so intricately that they formed a special pattern. You can admire it, or you can try to decipher it and then the space removes the mask of provincialism and opens from a completely different side. Everything here is conducive to mystical duality - the fragility of perception. Europe and conventional "backyards", center and periphery, past and present, medieval architecture and modern buildings, forest-steppe and sea coast, Russia and the West - everything seems to exist simultaneously and yet does not exist at all.

The city and the region seemed to be frozen between the complete destruction of the German, the final overcoming of the Soviet Union and the creation of something new. But this is not the monochrome despair that often envelops small provincial towns. Rather, it is philosophical melancholy. Like a mosaic in a dilapidated church of the 15th century, which served as a granary during the Soviet era - a state of eternal off-season and a feeling of stopped time. Future and past forcibly separated by a hazy present. But despite everything, people continue to hope for the better and believe in miracles.

Sep 14

Sep 14 Rachel Jump

Everyone is Icarus | I remember when my 80-year-old grandfather attended my thesis exhibition before I graduated from RISD. After looking around the gallery at the photographs I made of my family and hometown, he said, “You know, Rachel, not everyone is going to put the work in to understand your art, because its challenging.
“However, we are your family, and we are willing to do that for you.”

As someone who has been dedicatedly creating photographs of my family for over 15 years, I am still humbled by their unflinching- willingness to make themselves vulnerable to my lens. My practice explores and dissects the malleable nature of my family’s personal history. They represent a reinterpretation and examination of how individual family members react to hardship, and how trauma transforms individual perceptions of our collective family history. Recently, my photographs have been exploring the aftermath of my father’s genetic testing results. This unveiled a hereditary disorder that heightens his susceptibility to cancer. This revelation offered a possible glimpse into our future; a rare, yet ambivalent, gift.

This work is an exploration of my family and our efforts to provide comfort and resilience for one another in times of hardship. Through this collaborative project, we guide each other through the weight of newfound clarity, supporting one another as we confront how our lineage and shared experiences shape our sense of identity.

What aspects of ourselves do we choose to inherit, and what parts lie beyond our control? My photographs reveal not only the physical and psychological traits we are capable of inheriting, but how we decide to reconcile with that truth. Through this narrative, I hope to unveil the balance between acceptance and agency, highlighting my family’s recognition and defiance towards the path that has been carved out for us. www.racheljump.com

Aug 12

Aug 12 Elie Ranu

YOUR PARCEL IS COMING | An often-overlooked aspect of urban life is the ephemeral sculptures of discarded cardboard boxes and packaging, left on sidewalks, awaiting their final journey to the garbage truck. A weekly, monthly, or even bi-monthly event in more remote areas. This work explores the sculptural forms these piles of cardboard inadvertently take, turning mundane waste into objects of contemplation. Photographed at night with a harsh frontal flash, the series strips the scene of context, removing any temptation to romanticize the subject. What remains are these temporary monuments—fleeting relics of our consumption. The choice of low-contrast black and white reinforces this approach, reducing the piles to their geometric essence, shifting the focus from function to form.

To heighten the physical presence of the work, some images are altered using materials directly linked to the act of delivery—bubble wrap, staples, labels, adhesive tape. These interventions extend the subject beyond the image, embedding the accumulation into the very fabric of its existence, making the material more tangible, more present.

Yet, this project is far from being just a visual study. These accumulations of cardboard reflect the relentless consumerism and capitalist logic embedded in contemporary life. Receiving a package, once a rare event that didn’t warrant a dedicated collection day, has now become a daily ritual for many, highlighting how drastically our consumption habits have shifted over the past two decades.

Beyond their materiality, these boxes unwittingly reveal fragments of life. Their logos, labels, and sheer quantity sketch an economic portrait of the households that left them behind. But they also expose something more intimate: there are those who neatly stack their boxes, edges cut clean, arranged with precision, and others who discard them carelessly, torn, crumpled under their own weight. A methodical or chaotic personality, careful or rushed—each leaves an unconscious mark on the pavement, shaping the work of the waste collector. Every pile is a trace, a silent imprint of the home that produced it.

This language exists only for a few hours. Boxes left out late at night vanish by morning, swallowed by the garbage truck before the city wakes. This is the essence of the series: capturing what so few notice, what exists only in a fleeting in-between—a brief moment when the city is still asleep. To photograph them is to give presence to what disappears before it is even seen.

In a world saturated with images competing for attention through intensity and spectacle, this work stands apart in its restraint. It invites us to slow down, to reflect—not only on the forms emerging from our throwaway culture but also on the deeper narratives it carries: consumption, waste, and the inadvertent self-portraits we create, without realizing it, in cardboard. www.instagram.com/elieranu

Aug 7

Aug 7 Emma Jowdy

The Meaning She Holds | The Meaning She Holds explores the relationship between two sisters. It represents their relationship as a unit, but also each as an individual entity. Observing the carefree intimate closeness takes me back to my childhood with my sisters. I photographed these moments, showing the closeness they carry, and bringing viewers into their world. Each photograph offers a perspective into their similarities, differences, and individualism. ‘The Meaning She Holds’ is a sister, a friend, a mentor, a companion, and everything in between. www.emmajowdy.com

Julia Wimmerlin

Jul 2

Jul 2 Julia Wimmerlin

(UN)CORNERED | I am a Ukrainian photographer residing in Switzerland. I photographed Ukrainian women who fled from war in their temporary homes in Switzerland. Dressed in the same clothes as on the day they ran, each woman’s story of escape is depicted in my portraits. Each is photographed in a corner, a metaphor of the Russian invasion. Having passed through the worst experience in their lives, none feels cornered now. They do their best to adapt to a new culture, support their families and contribute to Ukraine’s victory.

I tried to imagine, if it were me, what would I pack: having no time, no space in the evacuation vehicle, and no idea if I’d ever see home again. Beyond the bare necessities, I asked each woman to show what she packed. The results were often surprising, even to the women themselves. Each item became a symbol of their homes and their once peaceful lives.

Jul 1

Jul 1 Jarod Polakoff

Familiar Alien | Familiar Alien contends with the confines of verbal language, ruminating on the expansive, subversionary power of the photograph. Borne out of a creative practice deeply concerned with interiority and introspection, these images attempt to transpose this inward gaze on subject matter decidedly attuned to physicality, mechanizing sensory experience as a vehicle for emotional excavation. The work is peppered with small doses of fantasy as a means to express and explore the strange, often mystifying nature of our internal experience. Hands squeeze, fluids ooze, and bodies exist in relationship with foreign substances, invoking biomorphic forms, queer eroticism, and surrealist whimsy through the reimagination of commonplace motifs. These ambiguous interactions, malleable in their interpretation, not only invite, but welcome speculation and personal bias, embracing the free-associative, meandering nature of our subconscious. These are images attuned to the fundamental paradigms that define our existence—the corporeal, the cerebral, and the overlapping spaces that pervade. jarodpolakoff.com/portfolio

Jun 30

Jun 30 Nika Sandler

In light of the increasingly concerning news about the imminent fate of the oceans, I find myself contemplating the issue of extinction with greater frequency. In collaboration with artificial intelligence, I dive into ancient waters and capture the inhabitants whose existence was interrupted and whose evidence is preserved in fossils. The aim of this work is to illustrate the fragility of life and to prompt reflection on the current, rapid extinction in which humanity plays a pivotal role.

Jun 27

Jun 27 Yusif Zadeh

The project was born at a time when the world stood still in anticipation of the unknown. Suddenly, familiar spaces became motionless, streets emptied, and cities turned into backdrops devoid of their usual human presence. A shift in rhythm changed the way we perceive our surroundings: places we once considered mere backgrounds to daily life became independent narratives, revealing the beauty of silence and the depth of the ordinary.

At its core, this project explores the quiet transformations of the city, shaped by shifting histories. Through a minimalist vision, it captures the subtle traces of change—empty spaces, evolving structures, and the quiet resilience embedded in the urban environment. Rather than focusing on overt signs of upheaval, the work highlights the small, often overlooked details that reveal how cities adapt, rebuild, and redefine themselves over time.

It is an observation of transition, where simplicity becomes a language for memory, continuity, and renewal. The author captures moments when space speaks for itself, when light, form, and the absence of familiar hustle and bustle take on special significance. The photographs transport the viewer into a world where every detail is filled with meaning, where the absence of people reveals unexpected symmetry, the purity of lines, and the hidden rhythm of the urban environment. In these restrained compositions, absence carries as much weight as presence, and the gaps between past and present are felt in the spaces left behind.

The project raises the question of how our perception of space changed when the familiar became inaccessible and the well-known—unexpectedly new. The city is neither a monument to the past nor a vision of the future—it is a quiet negotiation between what remains and what is yet to come. This project serves as a reminder of a time when the world slowed down, allowing us to see our surroundings differently—with attention, with reverence, and with a desire to find beauty in places where it had previously gone unnoticed.

Georgiana Feidi

Jun 26

Jun 26 Georgiana Feidi

Imagine our planet Earth as an independent living entity, undergoing its own cycles of rest, regeneration, and transformation. Chrysalis explores this idea, portraying the Earth in a state of slumber, where the natural world becomes a cocoon for unseen changes. Through surreal imagery and ethereal blue tones, I delve into the interconnectedness between nature, the cosmos, and humanity, where the natural elements blended with the human presence reflect the Earth's quiet metamorphosis.

By extensively editing the images, I aim to amplify their surreal qualities, blending reality and imagination to evoke a dreamlike, otherworldly atmosphere. The human body becomes a symbol of transformation, mirroring the Earth's regenerative process and the deep connection between humans and the natural world.

This series invites reflection on the delicate cycles of renewal that govern both nature and ourselves. Just as the chrysalis shelters a transformation in silence, so too does the Earth move through its quiet rhythms, inviting us to recognize our place within its continuous cycle of growth and change.

Angela Ferrotti

Apr 16

Apr 16 Angela Ferrotti

Until the Sun and Moon Go Down | So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning. (T.S. Eliot)

Landing on Alicudi feels like pioneering an unknown land, where enchantment instantly seduces or repels. The island only received electricity in the 1990s and continues to resist modernisaton, partly due to its unique location and layout. Beyond its status as an extreme destination, this microcosm's nuances and stark dualities reveal a reality rich with allure, shaped by its relationship with the natural elements, profound silences, and the mythology of the Aeolian Archipelago.

"Until the Sun and Moon Go Down" is an analogical tale intertwining reality and fiction, reflecting on the ways we inhabit the modern world while offering glimpses into the realm of night and dreams. The island, with its rugged nature only partially tamed by humans and its direct relationship with everything, invites one to play with perception and rediscover the hidden depths of the mind. www.angelaferrotti.com

Apr 2

Apr 2 Brendan Barry

BROKEN ROADS | Between 2011 and 2012 I hitchhiked, drove and walked 22,000 miles back and forth across the USA. Each day I got up at dawn and drove until dusk. I stopped only to eat, fill up with gas, swim, climb, look, and photograph. When the light of the day was gone, I drove on until I found a motel to sleep for the night.

The work I made then became about the road itself. The open road. A mass of distant, broken factions of society joined together; a continent connected by a concrete life-vein, pumping oil like blood. The road is a place of its own, a separate entity, though it is everywhere. Its pulse is continuous and constant.

The vehicle must rest and refuel, and the driver also. The road persists though, with wildness too. With all the safety offered by signs and signals, danger is abundant. A risk of imminent death lies round every corner. With an arsenal of loaded weapons and itchy trigger fingers all aiming at each other, it's only a matter of who shoots first.

There is something intrinsically lonely about a life on the road. There are intermittent signs of life; cars, houses, shops, service stations, but often no people to be seen. The driver is locked in, tinted windows up, air con pumping. Pull in, refuel with gas, and drive on. Pull in, refuel with food, and drive on. Pull in, refuel with sleep, and drive on. Only when the destination is reached does life take back on its familiar joys and woes, until the next journey. The jungle is dark but full of diamonds, Willy. Arthur Miller, Death Of A Salesman www.brendanbarry.co.uk

Mar 25

Mar 25 Jeff Smudde

This collection of recent photographs highlights my interest in rural scenes and the connection that rural America has with spirituality and especially Christianity. My interest in this landscape and the communities that live there is informed by my upbringing in the Midwest, being raised Catholic and past work as a journalist where I often covered stories in rural Illinois. Primarily working in black and white, these photographs delve into the vastness, isolation and spiritualism often found in rural America.

These photographs are selections from multiple ongoing series. My recent works focus on rural Illinois and spirituality, collecting masses of photographs to find relationships between them. These images follow themes that I’ve been working with for some time to act as an umbrella for my work made in rural spaces. While I no longer feel connected to the Church, there is always something that pulls me to make photographs about faith and understanding, how these things connect with the places I photograph.

Laura June Kirsch

Mar 24

Mar 24 Laura June Kirsch

Romantic Lowlife Fantasies: Emerging Adults In The Age Of Hope | Romantic Lowlife Fantasies: Emerging Adults In The Age Of Hope is the first published monograph by Canon award winning photographer Laura June Kirsch. Featuring over 85 original images, the book is a photo exploration of millennials in subcultures during the Obama era. Co-edited by Kirsch and Juxtapoz Editor-in-chief Evan Pricco, the collection examines an era of hopeful hedonism for a generation that came of age between 9/11 and a recession that put the traditional American Dream just out of reach. Featuring an introduction by Pricco and original essays by Darlene “Dee Nasty” Demorizi (comedian, actress and VICE personality), Allyson Toy (DJ Toy), Caitlin McGarry (an astrologist and wellness coach also known as Tarotgraph), Jessica Amodeo (NYU MFA Writing Alum) and a poem by Brooke Burt (NYU MFA writing Alum, formerly House Of Vans). Co designed by Laura June Kirsch and Patrick Carrie. www.romanticlowlifefantasies.com

Elvira Lutsenko

Mar 19

Mar 19 Elvira Lutsenko

I exist | I exist. I breathe. I feel.

I have an infinite number of thoughts in my head, which become more and more intelligent as I get older, but at the same time they turn into a continuous stream of thinking, analysing, doubting, fearing, making excuses, feeling guilty, feeling ashamed, and all this goes through my head at an incredible speed, completely disconnecting me from the reality around me. Where am I? Who am I?

When I willfully switch to my sensations and the 'existing' reality around me, I feel truly alive and happy. I become really interested in creating without expectations and analysis, creating because I exist, creating because I can, touching what I have already created and transforming it again. Where is the end result and is it important? After all, time is linear, but energy is not.

The series of self-portraits were created in the moment of total commitment to the process, in different periods of time, in different emotional states, but with one aim - to explore myself and what I like, what I feel and how I can express it. I wanted to physically touch, feel and transform the 'result' of photography, which was not final, but intermediate.

I exist. The purpose of my project was to experience the value of being able to create and live. To live the importance of the process itself, not the end result. To accept my 'imperfection' and enjoy the opportunity to be myself. To be free of my own thoughts and expectations. elutsenkoart.mypixieset.com

Mar 18

Mar 18 J.A. Young

OF FIRE, FAR SHINING | I am a photographer / multi-media artist based in Asheville, N.C. Using both personal photographs and public domain archival images as raw materials, my work combines various materials and methods (e.g., physical print experimentation, dramatic recomposition, and rephotography) to transform subtle feelings into tangible visual expressions. Rather than adhering to strict themes or concepts, I view each image as part of an ever-evolving landscape that mirrors the shifting contours of my perception and my emotional relationship to the world.

In 2020, a profound personal experience prompted me to reexamine the metaphysical layers of existence, catalyzing a deep dive into mysticism and a fundamental reevaluation of my ontological framework. At the same time, I began to come to grips with the scope of certain devastating realities of life on Earth: the staggering impact of corporate and consumer greed on the environment, the grisly violence perpetuated by the U.S. National Security State and its Military Industrial Complex, and the insidious reach of the repugnant ideologies that sustain these sinister forces.

The images that comprise OF FIRE, FAR SHINING marked my path as I waded through these bewildering experiences and events. While I did not enter the creative space with a predetermined narrative in mind, I am confronted with a sense of anticipation, unease, and foreboding when I view these pieces in retrospect, as if an unseen presence lurks within them, just out of reach, and threatening to emerge at any moment. Ultimately, OF FIRE, FAR SHINING explores what it feels like to be trapped within our highly strange, cataclysmic, and inevitably transformational moment — what Terence McKenna aptly referred to as “the end of history”. A monograph of this work will be published in September 2024. It is currently available for order from Zone. jayoung.work

Yurii Naumovych

Mar 17

Mar 17 Yurii Naumovych

Beyond| "Beyond" is a photographic project about the deepest corners of rural life. It explores various aspects of the countryside: from ancient houses preserving their history and soul, to portraits of residents who daily work in the fields and practice traditional crafts. Each frame reveals the uniqueness and distinctiveness of the village, its culture, and community. The discussion includes ethical, cultural, and ecological aspects of our coexistence with nature. "Beyond" is a place where time slows down, where nature preserves its wisdom, and people continue to live in harmony with their environment. Allow yourself to discover new perspectives on rural life and immerse yourself in its unique world. It is a true journey into a culture where every event, every object has its own history. "Beyond" points to what lies beyond what we usually see or understand in a village. Its goal is to uncover and analyze the emotions, thoughts, and internal states that may be hidden or not immediately apparent. Rural life is quite closed and stigmatized. Revealing the essence and showing another side, the depth of images is my task. "Beyond" indicates a search for identity and self-definition among village residents. It examines how the village influences personality development and relationships between people, as well as how residents perceive themselves and their surroundings. It serves as a means to explore the cultural and social aspects of village life that usually go unnoticed. Traditions, rituals, ways of life, and community values that form in the shadow of the widely recognized aspects of life.

Saeed Rezvanian and Farzaneh Radmehr

Mar 10

Mar 10 Saeed Rezvanian and Farzaneh Radmehr

Our Scattered Parts | This series is about memory and remembering. Plates are figurative of memory mechanism. The parts which appose beside together to make a substance (memory) and some parts are absent sometime. On the other hand plates are memory frangibility and susceptibility indication. Old photographs in the series are selected from family album of common people about 1940 to 1970 in Iran. There was a profession which called “Band-zani” in old Iran until some decades ago, and a person who called “Band-zan” (tinker) repairs broken porcelain or pottery dishes such a plate, bowl, pot , … “Band-zan” usually goes like a tinker from a quarter to another. He makes two tiny holes in both sides of crack or flaw in back of dishes and punch top of two thin and small iron or brass wire inside holes then rubs special glue made from lime and albumen on crack and stick broken parts together. Dishes will be ready again to use after repairing.

Plates had bold and usual presence in ordinary life, either in individual area and personal area is used. The plates which have used in this series all are from sample of usable and popular plates at Iranian house between about 1900 to 1970 that some made in Iran and some from abroad. One of the most well-known plates which had special popularity between Iranian families was called “Gol-e-Sorkhi” (Red flower); its pattern was several red rose and blossoms between green leaves on white background. www.saeedrezvanian.com and www.farzanehradmehr.com

Ekaterina Perfilieva

Mar 6

Mar 6 Ekaterina Perfilieva

Facade | The problem of the searching or losing of national identity is exacerbated during the war’s and crises periods. Tarusa has been considered for a long time as a power place for the Russian intellectuals who came here in the 19th and 20th centuries. The image of Russia has been created here in painting, prose and poetry for years. What is left now? Facade of empty destroyed houses. Commercial banners with folk ornaments, covering what needs to be carefully hidden from the eyes of tourists.

When a city becomes a museum, the artificially created image of “Russian culture” hides the problems of the present. It becomes an escapism, an attempt to close one’s eyes to reality. The very concept of “Russianness” becomes a construct that the state skillfully manipulates. Walking around Tarusa, I asked myself one question: “Where is the line between imposed, propagandistic and real?” perfilieva.com

Natali Agrzykova

Dec 20

Dec 20 Natali Agrzykova

“Hause” spiele | The aim of this project is to express through photography the adaptation to new conditions and to a foreign home. The war in Ukraine and the circumstances of today, the loss of home and surroundings, the attempt to adapt to a new place of residence and living conditions, the desire to feel protected and free - all this is happening now and with us. Playing "in the house" It is like penetrating into the living organism of the house through the furniture, walls, floor, as an acceptance of our new changing world with other rules and conditions. At the end of this "game", will we be able to integrate, will we be able to feel this "house" as our home? https://www.instagram.com/natali.agryzkova/