© Anna Jocham
BJP reveals the four emerging image-makers selected to present their work at the French photography fair, which returns to the Grand Palais in November. Plus the other 16 shortlisted artists
Now in its eighth year, Paris Photo’s Carte Blanche Student competition awards four image-makers a showcase at the fair – and exposure in a major Parisian train station at the same time. Backed by Paris Photo, Picto Foundation, and SNCR Gares & Connexions, Carte Blanche Étudiants is aimed at undergraduate or masters students from European photography and visual arts schools.
The final four are selected from a shortlist of 20 artists by a judging panel, which this year included: Anna Planas, artistic director of Paris Photo; Jeanne Mercier, co-founder Afrique in Visu and independent curator; Nathalie Chapuis, editor, Atelier EXB; Jörg Brockmann, Director, Espace Jörg Brockmann; David De Beyter, artist; Sylvain Bailly, director of Cultural Affairs, SNCF Gares & Connexions; and Vincent Marcilhacy, director of Picto Foundation.
2024 Laureates
Anna Jocham
Born in Voitsberg, Austria, in 1997, Anna Jocham studied for a fine arts MA at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, after receiving her BA in photography from the Folkwang University of the Arts in 2022. She created the project Every cloud has a silver lining in 2024. Taking analogue photographs of everyday situations, she printed the images and scanned them multiple times, enlarging and moving the papers during the digitisation process. In doing so she deliberately created image errors, which turned into a grid in the image in some cases, and in others faithfully recorded the elements 1:1.
Toma Gerzha
A Gerrit Rietveld Academie graduate based in Amsterdam, Toma Gerzha was born in Moscow in 2003. Her images have previously been shown at Encontros da Imagem and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, plus in publications such as De Volkskrant, Marie Claire Italia, and BJP. Describing herself as a documentary photographer and multimedia artist, she explores insider-outsider perspectives and party culture. Gerzha initially started to shoot Control Refresh over three years in remote cities in Russia and Eastern Europe but, when war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, turned to artificial intelligence to continue the work, training the AI on her images and using it to generate more.
Alice Poyzer
British photographer Alice Poyzer recently graduated from the University of the West of England MA. Describing herself as a female neurodivergent practitioner, she uses images to communicate something of her experiences to others. Her series Other Joys explores the intense enthusiasm with which people with autism explore particular enthusiasms and obsessions, and includes items and subjects which Poyzer herself cherishes. “The feeling that surrounds one’s special interests is almost indescribable,” she explains. “This heavy sensation of warmth, delight, and intense excitement is something that many in the autistic community can understand…and the process of making these photographs has given me more confidence in passions that others may deem different, weird, and unusual.”
Joel Jimenez Jara
A multidisciplinary artist living in Madrid, Spain, Joel Jimenez Jara holds an MA from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and was born in Costa Rica in 1993. His work draws on collective memories and myth to disrupt established narratives, and operates at the crossroads of documentary and fiction. His series Castle of Innocence delves into the Children’s Museum of Costa Rica, for example, a former jail now used as a kids’ educational space. Drawing on archival material from the prison era and elements from the museum, the series questions how institutions represent collective identities, and how knowledge, history, and cultural heritage are disseminated.
Shortlisted
Anna Gajewszky
Born in 1997 in Budapest, Anna Gajewszky has an MA from Moholy-Nagy University of Arts and Design. Her work is mainly focused on families and womanhood, and her series Mother Don’t You Cry is based on her own childhood memories and family history.
Bahia Ourahou
Bahia Ourahou graduated from the Ecole nationale superieure d’art de Paris-Cergy and is now studying for an MA at Arles’ Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie. Born in Morocco in 1999, she lives between Arles and Rabat, and her series Taking Over Rabat focuses on how young people use public space in the Moroccan capital.
Benjamin Friedle
A visual artist who has studied photography at Hochschule Bielefeld since 2021, Benjamin Friedle was born in Stuttgart in 1999. His work 8.784 Photos consists of photographs of the sky, taken every 10 minutes over 61 days and combined into a single image uniting the two time axes of minutes and days. His work 8.784 Colors is generated from the same set of images, but presents the various shades sorted by colour values.
Charlotte David
Charlotte David is a French Canadian student at l’Atelier de Sevres, who begins her BA at Les Gobelins l’école de l’image next year. From the age of 13-16 she had to wear a corset, day and night, and her series Tiens-toi droite [“Stand up straight’] explores the impact of this experience on her life.
Emeline Ametis
A French-Caribbean visual artist born in Villepinte in 1992, Emeline Ametis spent several years working as a journalist in Paris before commencing her studies at Arles’ Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie in 2021. Her series peyi manman [“motherland’] is a series about the diasporic experience, shot in Guadeloupe.
Emely Ekmaliyan
Emely Ekmaliyan is a visual artist with Armenian and Georgian roots, currently studying BA photography at Sint-Lukas Brussels. Her series nona/ნონა is about her mother, who left Georgia and arrived in Belgium with just a small suitcase; with her images, Ekmaliyan explores both her mother’s life and their relationship.
Gergely Kovats
Currently studying at Moholy-Nagy University’s photography MA programme, Gergely Kováts works on long-term projects which draw on his personal experience. His series Another World is about the loss of a political utopia, and the sense we no longer believe it is possible to create a better world.
Kinga Wrona
Kinga Wrona is a Polish documentary photographer studying at the Institute of Creative Photography at the Silesian University in Opava; she was nominated for FUTURES 2023 by Fotofestiwal Lodz, and has exhibited her work at Circulation(s), Paris, and Daegu Photo Biennale. Her series 85 was shot in La Palma, Canary Isles in 2022, after the eruption of Cumber Vieja.
Lea Greub
Currently studying at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie, Berlin, Lea Greub focuses on socio-political, queer-feminist issues and European politics. Her project No Georgian Dream focuses on young people in Georgia, many of whom hope to join the EU; Georgia has applied to join the EU, but the current pro-Russian government is now blocking the progress of this process.
Makiko
Makiko is an international visual artist exhibited in Japan, North America, and Europe, and holds an MA from London’s Royal College of Art. ヒ ス テ リ ー [hysteria] considers the 120,000+ people of Japanese descent sent to internment camps in the US from 1942-45, after the attacks on Pearl Harbour – including Makiko’s great-great-uncle.
Nazif can Akçali
Nazif can Akçali graduated from Sabancı University, Istanbul in 2021 with a degree in art and art theory; he is now studying on two MA programmes, The Gramounce Food & Art Alternative MA and the Images, Sciences et Technologies Research Program at École Supérieure d’Art-Tourcoing. Colonnes Vivantes [“Living Columns”] explores human biomes from individuals with three different diets – vegan, gluten-free, and nonrestrictive.
Nicolas Reinart
Nicolas Reinart is a visual artist based in Germany whose practice centres on photographic methods. His series Filmfehler [“Failed Film’] engages with the archive of a former factory near Leipzig, which made film and photographic materials under the brands Agfa and Orwo until the collapse of the GDR in the 1990s. Supervisors on the production line collected mistakes in order to not to repeat the errors that caused them, he notes, but their records reveal their fascination with the wayward results.
Sarah Grethe
Born in Hamburg in 1997, Sarah Grethe is currently studying for an MA at the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg. Her series Unboxing explores perception and received narratives and is informed by postmodernism; selecting objects which resonate with our collective memory, Grethe combines them in unexpected ways to create unsettling tableaux.
Steven Natusch
Currently studying for an MA at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Dortmund, Steven Natusch was born in 1993 in Berlin. He explores existential questions through images, and in his project What will be different Tomorrow? considers the problem of nothingness, and the limits of logical thinking. Our view of reality is blurred in late capitalist society, he argues, and the meaningfulness of our existence being tested.
Valeriia Yeromenko
Valeriia Yeromenko was born in Ukraine in 2001, and moved to Slovakia to pursue her education when she was 17. Her work considers light, perception, and reality’s nuances, and her series Optical error explores the possibilities of creating visual artefacts as images of non-existent reality.
Vavara Uhlik
Born in Dnipro five years after the collapse of the USSR, Varvara Uhlik is now studying for an MA at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. Her series Sonechko, Yak Ty? (Sunshine, How Are You?) uses photography to allow her to virtually return to Eastern Ukraine, and to consider both her childhood and the ongoing impact of Soviet rule on her life.
