EVA CHRISTINA NIELSEN My photography emerges from a deep instinct to observe and document. Since my earliest experiences with a Kodak Instamatic, the act of photographing has been tied to curiosity, human connection, and the search for quiet beauty. Working mostly in black and white and natural light, I photograph people and places encountered in daily life. Using a Leica Q2, I work intuitively, responding to what unfolds rather than constructing elaborate scenes. I do not work within strict projects. Instead, my practice is guided by attention and an openness to the small, often overlooked moments that surround us. Through these images I hope to pause time briefly, revealing beauty in the ordinary and creating photographs that allow viewers to enter their own thoughts, memories, and stories. LOCATION Vänersborg SWEDEN CAMERA/S Leica Q2 WEBSITE https://www.evachristinanielsen.com/ @EVA_CHRISTINA_NIELSEN

Presenting the work of visual storytellers from around the world. SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. PICTORIAL STORY RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. PICTORIAL STORY DELTA DUSK John Agather weaves image and text into a single current, tracing how music, memory, and daily life continue to move through the Mississippi Delta. PICTORIAL STORY SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. PICTORIAL STORY SOLITUDE UNDER A TECHNIFIED SUN Tracing the space between movement and stillness, Héctor Morón reveals a city that persists as human presence slips by. PICTORIAL STORY 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. PICTORIAL STORY THE PAINTED VILLAGE OF LABANDHAR Anjan Ghosh’s photographs carry us to Labandhar, where painting becomes language, tradition stays present, and art grows through shared ground. PICTORIAL STORY ORDINARY GRIEF What endures when everything else is uncertain? Through photography, Parisa Azadi asks us to see Iran not as story, but as feeling. PICTORIAL STORY THE EVERYMAN Eva Mallis uncovers the quiet strength of overlooked lives, capturing everyday encounters in Mumbai’s industrial districts as intimate portraits of labor and resilience. PICTORIAL STORY IN BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTER In Cairo’s City of the Dead, families carve out ordinary lives among centuries of tombs — Paola Ferrarotti traces the fragile line between memory and survival. PICTORIAL STORY UNFIGURED Nasos Karabelas transforms the human body into a site of emotional flux — where perception fractures and inner states become visible form. PICTORIAL STORY VISIONS OF ICELAND FROM ABOVE Massimo Lupidi takes flight above Iceland — capturing nature’s abstract brushstrokes where land, water, and sky blur into poetic visions beyond the ordinary eye. PICTORIAL STORY UNDER THE CLOUDS Giordano Simoncini presents a visual ethnography of the interconnectedness of indigenous cosmology, material life, and the ecological balance within the Quechua communities of the Peruvian Andes. PICTORIAL STORY NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy — strangers lost in thought in a world before digital distractions took hold. PICTORIAL STORY THE GHOST SELF Buku Sarkar stages her refusal to vanish. Her photographs are unflinching, lyrical acts of documentation, mapping a body in flux and a mind grappling with the epistemic dissonance of chronic illness. PICTORIAL STORY WHISPERS On Mother’s Day, Regina Melo's story asks us to pause. To remember. To feel. It honors the profound, often quiet sacrifices that mothers make, and the invisible threads that bind us to them. PICTORIAL STORY BEYOND THE MASK By stepping beyond the scripted world of professional wrestling and into the raw terrain of mental health, Matteo Bergami and Fabio Giarratano challenge long-held myths about masculinity, endurance, and heroism. PICTORIAL STORY FRAGMENTS OF TIME Each of jfk's diptychs functions as a microcosm of the city, allowing viewers to experience urban life as constant fragmented glimpses, mirroring the unpredictable nature of human interactions. PICTORIAL STORY VANISHING VENICE Lorenzo Vitali’s portrayal of Venice is an almost surreal experience — where time dissolves, and the viewer is left with the sensation of stepping into a dreamscape. PICTORIAL STORY CLAY AND ASHES Abdulla Shinose CK explores the challenges faced by Kumhar Gram's potters, balancing tradition and adaptation in the face of modern pressures. PICTORIAL STORY ISLAND Enzo Crispino’s photographic series, “Nêsos,” invites viewers into an introspective journey that mirrors the artist’s rediscovery of his voice in photography after a prolonged period of creative estrangement. PICTORIAL STORY BEYOND THE BRICKS Amid Bangladesh’s dynamic urban growth, Anwar Ehtesham’s photography takes us beyond statistics and headlines, revealing the hidden lives of the laborers working tirelessly in the nation’s brick kilns. PICTORIAL STORY OAXACA In Oaxaca, Tommaso Stefanori captures Día de los Muertos, exploring the convergence of life and death, human connections, and enduring cultural rituals through evocative photographs of tradition and emotion. PICTORIAL STORY BEHIND THE PLANTS Wayan Barre documents Cancer Alley residents facing pollution and economic challenges, shedding light on their resilience and the impacts of environmental injustice. PICTORIAL STORY THE RED POPPY AND THE SUN By blending archival and contemporary images, Mei Seva creates a visual story that captures the ongoing struggles and moments of triumph for those impacted by displacement and circumstance. PICTORIAL STORY FIRE AND FORGE Alexandros Zilos delves deep into the harsh reality of sulfur mining, while also capturing the allure of the blue fire phenomenon created by sulfur deposits in the crater.

Talking to photographers from around the world, offering an insight into their photographic journey to inspire us all. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. INTERVIEW GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. INTERVIEW WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. INTERVIEW WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. INTERVIEW ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. INTERVIEW THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. INTERVIEW IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. INTERVIEW WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. INTERVIEW DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. INTERVIEW UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. INTERVIEW THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. INTERVIEW WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. INTERVIEW CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. INTERVIEW STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. INTERVIEW PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. INTERVIEW POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. INTERVIEW QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. INTERVIEW TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. INTERVIEW THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details. INTERVIEW VISUAL HEALING BEYOND THE DIAGNOSIS Betty Goh’s photography exemplifies the transformative power of visual storytelling, where personal adversity becomes a canvas for resilience, illuminating the connection between art, healing, and self-reclamation. INTERVIEW EVERYDAY BLACKNESS Parvathi Kumar’s book is a profound tribute to the resilience, and contributions of incredible Black women from all walks of life, making it a vital addition to the conversation around International Women’s Month. INTERVIEW A VOYAGE TO DISCOVERY Fanja Hubers’ journey in photography is one of continuous exploration, balancing documentation with artistic self-reflection. INTERVIEW MARCH FORWARD Through photography, Suzanne Phoenix creates a space for representation, recognition, and resistance — ensuring that the voices of women and gender-diverse people are seen, heard, and celebrated. INTERVIEW FLUX: Exploring Form, Luminescence, and Motion Amy Newton-McConnel embraces unpredictability, finding structure within chaos and allowing light to guide the composition. INTERVIEW AN ODE TO SPONTANEITY AND SERENDIPITY Meera Nerurkar captures not just what is seen but also what is felt, turning the everyday into something worth a second glance. INTERVIEW THAT’S HOW IT IS Luisa Montagna explores the fluid nature of reality - how it shifts depending on the observer, emphasizing that subjective perception takes precedence over objective truth.

GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. March 15, 2026 INTERVIEW PHOTOGRAPHY Isolda Fabregat Sanz INTERVIEW Melanie Meggs Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link SHARE Isolda Fabregat Sanz works in quiet opposition to the speed of contemporary image culture. At a time when photographs are expected to perform instantly, her work insists on patience. Her images do not present conclusions. They remain open, attentive to the conditions of their making and their encounter. Her grounding in art history informs both how images are created and how they are understood. Isolda has described this knowledge as something ever present, “the history of art that Jiminy Cricket whispers in my ear.” It is not a voice that instructs through quotation or homage, but one that operates quietly, shaping decisions through tone and restraint. This awareness is reinforced by professional experience within institutions such as the British Museum and the Peggy Guggenheim, where images are not only encountered but mediated, preserved, and assigned value. Isolda approaches photography knowing that images can shape how people think and feel long after the camera is put away. Each frame carries a history of looking and of institutional framing. Rather than foregrounding this awareness through overt reference, she embeds it into the structure of the photograph itself. Light disciplines the scene. Composition establishes distance. What is visible is shaped as much by restraint as by revelation. Working across portraiture, fashion, and documentary practice, Isolda refuses the hierarchies that separate these forms. Instead, she treats them as shared territories in which questions of authorship and representation remain unresolved. Her subjects are not exaggerated or simplified. They are allowed to exist naturally within the frame, leaving the viewer free to interpret what they see. There is a quiet ethical dimension to this approach. Isolda does not ask the viewer to identify, consume, or judge. She asks for attention. The work holds space for ambiguity at a time when ambiguity is often flattened by certainty. In doing so, her photographs argue for a slower relationship to images, one in which looking becomes an active, reflective act rather than a passive habit. This interview considers how such a practice takes shape. It follows Isolda Fabregat Sanz’s thinking around choice, responsibility, and visual authority, and asks what it means to make photographs that resist resolution while remaining fully present in the world. “I resist immediacy, I feel like the world is spinning, technology has developed fast, transport (planes) allow us to travel fast from one location to another, we eat fast food, or drink take away coffee. While living in London I felt that I had no time to digest what was going on. So, I rebel, I want to move slow. I believe I have two different approaches in photography: on the one hand I sometimes spend hours looking at details on the mundane of the city landscape such as an aesthetic crack on a wall, or shadow of a tree on a bench or the reflection of a building in a puddle. On the other hand, I love capturing movement. For instance, I have a series of flamenco dancers, I like incorporating movement in my fashion and I also do candid pictures in events. Furthermore, on a frenzy night I took a picture on a rainy day in Milan of a tram moving from a lower point of view. The city is in a rush, no one is there, it is late at night. I capture this spinning, because that is what I feel this is. I want to stop the tram.” IN CONVERSATION WITH ISOLDA FABREGAT SANZ TPL: What is the very first photograph you remember caring about, whether you made it or simply encountered it? How has it shaped the way you see now? ISOLDA: One of the first photographs that I vividly remember is the portrait of Gabriel García Márquez by Spanish photographer Colita at the exhibition COLITA, ¡PORQUE SÍ! At Pedrera (Barcelona, Spain). It is a fun and playful portrait of one of the most well-known and prestigious writers in Latinoamerica. When I do a portrait of someone, the shutter speed moves at 1/100th per second. The act of taking a photo is rapid, what matters is the time before you take to create the right lighting, choosing the place where you are photographing the subject and the most important. Creating a comfortable and playful environment for your model, read his body language and try to capture its true nature. That is what that portrait of Colita means to me since I saw it. TPL: You photograph across portraiture, fashion, and documentary practice. How do you understand the relationship between these modes within your work? What do they allow you to ask differently? ISOLDA: Once a professor in Milan told me that real fashion is done in studios. In my head he couldn’t possibly be more wrong. People wear clothes in the street; people style their clothes. I like to incorporate movement and realism in my fashion because I want it to be relatable, almost like a documentary and sometimes I feel like I am doing portraits in fashion when the model becomes an important subject, the center of a relatable story. Nevertheless, by working for Tiké (an artisan of ceramic Italian jewelry) I have treated my models almost like beautiful sculptures or even mannequins with the only intention of creating beauty. The subject (the model) becomes just another element in my picture sometimes in fashion, specially when I have done close ups for jewelry. On the other hand, sometimes while doing portraits I feel like fashion is in my head because I approach people when I see someone with interesting attire. And I want the clothes of my subject to look immaculate. I cannot separate fashion from urban photography unless there are no subjects in my picture. Because clothes are related to a time and a place and can locate us. As an art historian I consider fashion as another tip to understand what period this painting was made. TPL: You have worked within major art institutions. How has that proximity shaped your understanding of photographic authority? Did it change how you think about validation or visibility? ISOLDA: Photography was not considered in my university while doing Art history in Barcelona. I don’t recall any important photography shows at the Peggy Guggenheim, or the British Museum while I was working there. In both museums photography is important for the documentary presence. But rarely as an art form itself. There are some photography artworks in their exhibitions, but still photography is not as considered in the art world yet. TPL: You’ve described art history as Jiminy Cricket whispering in your ear. Is that voice more of a gentle guide, a moral compass, or a constant question mark? Do you ever ignore that voice? ISOLDA: I believe it is a question mark before I publish the picture. I have years of visual media in my head that make me think twice. I have this constant thought “I have seen that before” so I sometimes consider taking pictures as practice because I know that I might be doing something that has been done before and is not unique. Having said that, when I do personal projects, I take influence from, painting architecture, sculpture, it is like a melting pot in my head. But I try not to copy, I give a new meaning, the technique has to serve a purpose, bring a message. An example of the influence of art in my picture as constant is the recent series of portraits done to the Australian singer Billy Otto. While asking him to pose for me shirtless I ask him to imitate the Slave of Michelangelo. A sculpture that I saw at the Louvre (museum in Paris) years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. TPL: You approach photography with an awareness that images carry authority long after they leave the camera. How does that shape your sense of responsibility? Does it influence what you choose not to photograph? ISOLDA: While doing street photography I know that I can’t be too selfish. While wandering in the city you come across very interesting characters with a great camera appeal that might make a masterpiece portrait. However, I would never want to recreate the pain or struggle of other people. I tend to have a chat with the subjects I photograph, I create a bond, a friendly interaction, I do not steal. While I was in Jordan a cotton seller approached me and my friend. He was a character, the way he smiled was fascinating for me, so I had to do a portrait of him. On the other hand, I met this very sweet gentleman in a bar. When I asked him to do a portrait of him, he immediately faltered, he had a gentle smile and was wearing a very colorful jersey that his wife made. I kindly ask him to take a portrait of him because I found him interesting and he was touched by the fact that I considered him, we are still in contact. TPL: If you could spend a day in the studio of any artist, living or dead, who would it be and why? Would you want to watch, help, or just quietly exist there? ISOLDA: I would love to spend one day with Helmut Newton. I want to learn all about his lighting, I like to ask him a million questions about how to treat their models. I love his irony and his respect for their subjects. I also dream of meeting the cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, I actually did my BA thesis about his work in comparison to painting. I love the use of the light and color in his movies and the fact that he takes great inspiration from known and not known artists. Photography is a perfect ice breaker to approach people. I have created great relationships while doing portraits or fashion. TPL: What is something people often misunderstand about photography that quietly drives you mad? ISOLDA: History of photography was not even considered in art history at the University of Barcelona while I was studying (2013-2018). It is considered a medium to do art, while painting is immediately artistic. Also, because of the nature of photography it is considered a medium to document, so it is immediately believed to show the truth. But the photographer can manipulate, and images are subjective, because the photographer has framed a reality. Their reality to you. TPL: What is the most unexpected place photography has taken you? Was it somewhere physical, emotional, or both? ISOLDA: Photography is a perfect ice breaker to approach people. I have created great relationships while doing portraits or fashion. Photography allowed me to stop at 5 in the morning in Russia to photograph the reflection of a channel with a golden light in the very ugly neighborhood I was living in Kapitanskaya Street, in Saint Petersburg. I was coming back from a night out and I realized I have to stop and contemplate. Photography has this power, when I see beauty in the mundane, I stop and look. TPL: Are you the kind of photographer who travels light, or does your bag resemble a small survival kit? What is the one thing you never travel without, outside of your camera? What is the one thing you always carry that has nothing to do with photography? ISOLDA: I am missing my Fuji X100F right now. A small digital (not heavy) camera that allows me to take candid pictures. For many years I used a Pentax that I inherited from my dad and that I used for more than 10 years. I did two interrails with the camera and captured great moments of the Black Lives Matter in London with it. Then I bought myself a Sony Alpha III, that I now use for work. People remember me always having a camera around my neck. Nowadays I am using the Sony and an analogue camera for my adventures in Australia when I want to travel light. TPL: What does your photographic process look like once you are no longer shooting? How important are editing and sequencing to you? ISOLDA: I enjoy being able to change a color picture into black and white if I feel that works better (never abuse). Or cutting an image and reframing events shots. However, most of the time I enjoy the process of taking the actual picture. I do not really enjoy sitting in front of my computer. TPL: Looking ahead, what questions are currently driving your work forward? What feels unresolved or newly urgent? ISOLDA: Nowadays I am mostly working in events and doing less fashion, however, I feel a bit stuck. I live in this beautiful place in Australia, Byron Bay, at the moment where nature is impressive and there’s a lot of good-looking people. I am missing the urban, the odd, the unexpected. A few weeks ago, I went to Lismore, which is a town that has sadly suffered from the floods that had devastated it. I found it inspiring, I love their graffiti, the rusty buildings, the abandoned places. Like in the 18th century painters found inspiration in the ruins and abandoned churches. I am fascinated by this kind of urban landscape. TPL: On days when you are not photographing, what would we find you doing? Do those moments feed back into your work in quiet ways? ISOLDA: I used to go to the Opera, Filmoteca (old film library in Barcelona), I visit the museums and galleries all the time in London, Barcelona and Milan. These places are where I normally find my inspiration: in painting, sculpture and cinema and theatre. Nowadays I read, watch movies and try to see art. I also love dancing. I started doing flamenco around a year and a half ago. Of course, I danced flamenco and I photographed it. While living in Venice I saw a photography exhibition of the great dancer Mijaíl Barýshnikov. Moved by his passion for dancing he has photographed in a unique way different dances around the world. That gave me the idea years later, to photograph dance there is nothing like being also a dancer yourself. When I shoot in a "tablao" I understand the rhythm, I feel like I am dancing with them, I catch that decisive moment because I understand it better. Also, by being in shows myself had allowed me to be with my camera and photograph the dancers before the show in a more intimate way. They also have a more genuine answer to my camera because I am their colleague (another dancer). Listening to Isolda Fabregat Sanz speak about photography, one begins to understand that her work is shaped as much by movement as it is by looking. Her journey has taken her across cities rich with artistic memory. Barcelona, London, Milan, Venice, Saint Petersburg and now Australia each appear not simply as locations but as layers of experience that continue to inform how she approaches the frame. Travel, for Isolda, is not an accessory to photography. It is part of the way she learns to see. Underlying this movement is a deep and enduring knowledge of art history. The whisper she describes of art history speaking in her ear reflects a practice shaped by reflection and awareness. Each image becomes a point where visual memory and lived experience meet. Now based in Byron Bay, Australia, Isolda finds herself surrounded by a landscape very different from the dense urban environments that once fueled much of her work. Yet even here the search continues. The pull of unexpected places, rusted structures, shifting light and human presence still draws her attention. As she reflects on the future of her practice, there is a sense that her work remains open, still responding to the places she inhabits and the people she encounters along the way. What emerges from this conversation is a photographer attentive not only to the image itself but to the conditions that shape it. Isolda’s practice reminds us that photography can still slow the world down, inviting us to pause, observe and consider the quiet details that often pass unnoticed. VIEW ISOLDA'S PORTFOLIO website >>> instagram >>> read more interviews >>> GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience, and hope. UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. THE PULSE OF THE STREET Moments vanish, yet Suvam Saha holds them still — the pulse of India’s streets captured in fragments of life that will never repeat. WHAT DO WE WANT? More than documentation, David Gray reveals the human pulse of resistance and asks us to see beyond the surface of unrest. CRACKED RIBS 2016 Cynthia Karalla opens up about the art of survival, the power of perspective, and why she believes each of us holds a monopoly on our own narrative. STREETS OF KOLKATA Ayanava Sil’s reveals Kolkata’s soul, capturing moments with empathy, presence and humility while offering deep insight into both city and self. PERIPHERAL PLACES A project by Catia Montagna that distills fleeting encounters and spatial poetics into triptychs - visual short stories that capture the in-between, where meaning often hides. POINTE-AU-CHIEN IS NOT DEAD Through Wayan Barre’s documentary, we are invited not only to see but to feel the lived realities of a community standing at the crossroads of environmental collapse and cultural survival. QUEER HAPPENED HERE Author Marc Zinaman sheds light on the valuable contributions that LGBTQ+ individuals have made to the cultural and social fabric of New York City. TRACES OF TIME Marked by an ongoing visual dialogue with time, memory, and impermanence, Zamin Jafarov’s long-term projects highlight the quiet power of observation and the emotional depth of simplicity. THERE MY LITTLE EYES Guillermo Franco’s book is an exploration of seeing beyond the obvious. His work invites us to embrace patience, curiosity, and the unexpected in a world that often rushes past the details. VISUAL HEALING BEYOND THE DIAGNOSIS Betty Goh’s photography exemplifies the transformative power of visual storytelling, where personal adversity becomes a canvas for resilience, illuminating the connection between art, healing, and self-reclamation. EVERYDAY BLACKNESS Parvathi Kumar’s book is a profound tribute to the resilience, and contributions of incredible Black women from all walks of life, making it a vital addition to the conversation around International Women’s Month. A VOYAGE TO DISCOVERY Fanja Hubers’ journey in photography is one of continuous exploration, balancing documentation with artistic self-reflection. MARCH FORWARD Through photography, Suzanne Phoenix creates a space for representation, recognition, and resistance — ensuring that the voices of women and gender-diverse people are seen, heard, and celebrated. FLUX: Exploring Form, Luminescence, and Motion Amy Newton-McConnel embraces unpredictability, finding structure within chaos and allowing light to guide the composition. AN ODE TO SPONTANEITY AND SERENDIPITY Meera Nerurkar captures not just what is seen but also what is felt, turning the everyday into something worth a second glance. THAT’S HOW IT IS Luisa Montagna explores the fluid nature of reality - how it shifts depending on the observer, emphasizing that subjective perception takes precedence over objective truth.

Be inspired by the photographers on the 2024 List. 2024 PHOTOGRAPHERS © Anna Tut ALEXANDROS ZILOS Athens GREECE AMY HOROWITZ New York UNITED STATES ANA-MARIA ALB Bukovina ROMANIA ANN PETRUCKEVITCH UNITED KINGDOM ANNA TUT Krasnogorsk City RUSSIA CARMEN SOLANA CIRES Madrid SPAIN CATIA MONTAGNA SCOTLAND/ITALY DASHA DARVAJ UMRIGAR Karachi PAKISTAN DEDIPYA BASAK Kolkata INDIA EDWIN CARUNGAY San Francisco UNITED STATES FRANCE LECLERC Chicago UNITED STATES ISABELLE COORDES Münster GERMANY JOHN KAYACAN Los Angeles UNITED STATES JUSTINE GEORGET Lyon FRANCE MARIETTE PATHY ALLEN New York UNITED STATES MATTHIAS GÖDDE Beckum GERMANY MEI SEVA New York UNITED STATES MIA DEPAOLA Washington D.C UNITED STATES NAZANIN DAVARI Tehran IRAN PAUL COOKLIN UNITED KINGDOM PEDRO VIDAL Barcelona SPAIN RAFA ROJAS São Paulo BRAZIL ROMAIN COUDRIER Marseille FRANCE ROWELL B. TIMOTEO La Union PHILIPPINES SASHA IVANOV St. Petersburg RUSSIA

Mei Seva (b.1996) works primarily with photography, as well as film and archival research, to visualize contested histories and social and political myths, examining what is erased, marginalized, and transformed just below the surface. Her work looks at how economic and political forces reshape communities and cultures, with particular attention to her homeland of Albania. Her practice falls into the post-documentary space, bringing a more lyrical and intimate perspective to sociopolitical issues. She was a 2025 Fellow in the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program and was a Lucie Foundation Finalist in Photojournalism/Documentary. She is an MFA (Photography) candidate at Columbia University, where she brings in her earlier training in political science — with a focus on social movements, revolutions, and global inequality. MEI SEVA Mei Seva (b.1996) works primarily with photography, as well as film and archival research, to visualize contested histories and social and political myths, examining what is erased, marginalized, and transformed just below the surface. Her work looks at how economic and political forces reshape communities and cultures, with particular attention to her homeland of Albania. Her practice falls into the post-documentary space, bringing a more lyrical and intimate perspective to sociopolitical issues. She was a 2025 Fellow in the NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program and was a Lucie Foundation Finalist in Photojournalism/Documentary. She is an MFA (Photography) candidate at Columbia University, where she brings in her earlier training in political science — with a focus on social movements, revolutions, and global inequality. LOCATION New York UNITED STATES CAMERA/S Pentax K1000 with Kodak Porta 400 film WEBSITE https://meiseva.com/ @MEI__SEVA FEATURES // The Red Poppy and the Sun

The Pictorial List is a global online magazine exploring the beauty and complexity of all things photography. FOUNDATIONS OF PRACTICE ART EXHIBITION February 07 to April 04 Foundations of Practice marks the beginning of The Pictorial List's journey - an opening not only of our new artspace, but of dialogue into the practice of the artist. GUIDED BY A WHISPER Guided by reflection and the quiet presence of art history, Isolda Fabregat Sanz makes photographs that resist certainty and invite the viewer to remain inside the act of looking. Latest features PICTORIAL STORY SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. PICTORIAL STORY SOLITUDE UNDER A TECHNIFIED SUN Tracing the space between movement and stillness, Héctor Morón reveals a city that persists as human presence slips by. PICTORIAL STORY 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. PICTORIAL STORY THE PAINTED VILLAGE OF LABANDHAR Anjan Ghosh’s photographs carry us to Labandhar, where painting becomes language, tradition stays present, and art grows through shared ground. INTERVIEW WHAT REMAINS, WHAT EMERGES Laetitia Heisler transforms risk, memory, and the body into layered analogue visions — feminist rituals of seeing that reveal what endures, and what quietly emerges beyond visibility. INTERVIEW WHAT WE ARE, WHAT WE DO Culture lives where art and community meet, and in this space Alejandro Dávila’s photographs reveal the unseen labor and devotion that sustain creation. INTERVIEW ANALOGICAL LIMBO Nicola Cappellari reminds us that the photograph’s power lies not in what it shows, but in what it leaves unsaid. INTERVIEW THREADS OF MOROCCAN LIFE Through gestures of work and moments of community, Kat Puchowska reveals Morocco’s overlooked beauty. INTERVIEW IT STARTED AS LIGHT…ENDED IN SHIVERS… Between intimacy and estrangement, Anton Bou’s photographs wander — restless fragments of light and shadow, mapping the fragile terrain where self unravels into sensation. INTERVIEW WITH EYES THAT LISTEN AND A HEART THAT SEES For decades, Rivka Shifman Katvan has documented the unseen backstage world of Broadway, capturing authenticity where performance and humanity intersect. PICTORIAL STORY ORDINARY GRIEF What endures when everything else is uncertain? Through photography, Parisa Azadi asks us to see Iran not as story, but as feeling. INTERVIEW DIPTYCH DIALOGUES Through the beautiful language of diptychs, Taiwanese photographer Jay Hsu invites us into a world where quiet images speak of memory, resilience and hope. PICTORIAL STORY THE EVERYMAN Eva Mallis uncovers the quiet strength of overlooked lives, capturing everyday encounters in Mumbai’s industrial districts as intimate portraits of labor and resilience. INTERVIEW UNKNOWN ABYSSINIA In Ethiopia, Sebastian Piatek found a new way of seeing — where architecture endures, but women in motion carry the narrative forward. INTERVIEW IN BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTER In Cairo’s City of the Dead, families carve out ordinary lives among centuries of tombs — Paola Ferrarotti traces the fragile line between memory and survival. RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. OPEN CALL IN AN INSTANT Have instant film tucked in a drawer or fresh from the camera? We are gathering Polaroids, Instax, and all peel-apart surprises for this fun instant exhibition. Family snapshots, artistic experiments, awkward haircuts — every square counts. Join us and let your instant memory meet the wall. MORE INFO New York, New York! PICTORIAL STORY NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASTION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy. INTERVIEW FABRIC OF NEW YORK VISUALS Elle Clarke lives NYC — snapping its heart and hustle with her smartphone, one real city moment at a time! INTERVIEW NOD OF RECOGNITION B Jane Levine’s portraits give a playful wink — inviting a nod of recognition to the hidden stories we all carry inside. INTERVIEW NEW YORK IMPROVISATIONS Fast-moving, off-kilter, witty, raw and classic film noir define Bill Lacey's photography. PICTORIAL STORY MERMAID MAGIC AJ Bernstein captures the magic of the Mermaid Parade—where fantasy, freedom, and community come together in a sea of color and joy. INTERVIEW GOTHAM MEMORIES Jeff Rothstein clicks, time unfolds — capturing the heart of the city in timeless frames, from 1969 to today. PICTORIAL STORY TAKING THE PLUNGE Carol Dronsfield takes the plunge with the Coney Island’s Polar Bears, capturing the chill, the thrill, and the heart. INTERVIEW THE AUTHENTIC GAZE Amy Horowitz says “Don’t Smile”— and in doing so, captures the real and wonderfully unscripted faces of New York City. VOLUME ONE- NEW YORK BUY NOW CALL FOR ART CODE GIRL CODE GIRL is a curated multi-media exhibition presented as part of Women in Public Space. Following the Memorial Day Weekend mural commission, this women's and gender expansive group exhibition expands the dialogue into the Artspace through interdisciplinary practices including photography, painting, printmaking, sculpture, video, film, animation, and expanded media. MORE INFO © Parvathi Kumar, Desiree Washington (2020) join the Pictorial Community >>> Follow us on Instagram #thepictoriallist @thepictorial.list Load More DELTA DUSK John Agather weaves image and text into a single current, tracing how music, memory, and daily life continue to move through the Mississippi Delta. Interviews you may have missed REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE Camille J. Wheeler documents Austin's streets, with a particular focus on its homeless community. COMEDIANS Steve Best documents the British comedy scene, backstage and on stage, the highs and lows, and the joy of being a comedian. QUARANTINE IN QUEENS Neil Kramer's humorous and compassionate lockdown diary has gone viral. ENROUTE TO THE PINES Robert Sherman shares his documentary series about drag queens celebrating the 'Invasion of the Pines'. SERVICE INTERRUPTION Wojciech Karlinski documented Poland train stations during the pandemic, highlighting their formal and aesthetic side. VOICES OF THE NILE Voices of the Nile by Bastien Massa and Arthur Larie is a project documenting the relationship of Ethiopians with the Blue Nile. BREAKS FROM REALITY The magic only dreams are made of become reality for viewers as they engage in the poetic imagery of Mariëtte Aernoudts. BEYOND THE STORY Through her documentary photography, Christina Simons is compelled to tell the stories of those who are unable to do so themselves. © Russell Cobb Stay up to date Subscribing to The Pictorial List means joining a community that values visual storytelling. You will get exclusive content, inspiring pictorial stories, thoughtful interviews, book reviews, and more — delivered weekly to your inbox. Media Partners

We are on a mission to discover new photographers, and the most pictorial and interesting photo stories out there. SPOTLIGHT / Isolda Fabregat Sanz Barcelona SPAIN AARON RUBINO ABBIE BRIGGS ABDULLA SHINOSE CK ABHAY PATEL ABHISHEK SINGH ADAM SINCLAIR ADESH GAUR ADRIAN PELEGRIN ADRIAN TAN ADRIAN WHEAR AGATA LO MONACO AHMET HOJAMYRADOV AJ BERNSTEIN ALAN THEXTON ALEJANDRO DAVILA ALESSANDRO GIUGNI ALEX FRAYNE ALEX GOTTFRIED BONDER ALEX RUTHERFORD ALEXANDRA AVLONITIS ALEXANDROS ZILOS ALEXEY STRECHEN ALICIA HABER AMY HOROWITZ AMY NEWTON McCONNEL GET ON THE LIST © John St.

ISOLDA FABREGAT SANZ Photography is the art of choice. In this chaotic world where everything and everyone seems to be spinning around; photography helps me to process it. The camera allows me to frame reality, and it requires me to put focus on something or someone. I am mainly interested in portrait, fashion, and documentary photography. Always using the knowledge of the history of art that Jiminy Cricket whispers in my ear. LOCATION Barcelona SPAIN CAMERA/S Sony alpha 7aIII WEBSITE https://www.isoldafabregat.com/ @ISOLDA_PHOTOGRAPHY

PICTORIAL STORY NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy — strangers lost in thought in a world before digital distractions took hold. June 22, 2025 PICTORIAL STORY photography HIROYUKI ITO story MELANIE MEGGS SHARE Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link There’s a peculiar kind of intimacy that lives in Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs. It's not the kind born of conversation or connection — quite the opposite. It’s the intimacy of solitude. Of being lost in thought, adrift in a crowd, present only to oneself. These photographs, made on New York City subways between 2007 and 2008, capture something that has all but vanished in the decade and a half since: the unguarded inner life of strangers in public. Hiroyuki Ito has spent much of his life observing people in motion, in performance halls, on street corners, under stage lights, and deep below the city, on screeching trains beneath the asphalt. Born in Tokyo in 1968, Hiroyuki arrived in New York in 1992 more by parental edict than personal ambition. “I graduated from high school and for the next three years, I didn’t do anything,” he recalls. “I didn’t go to school; I had no job — I was a lazy bum staying home all the time. Finally, my mother got sick of me and suddenly told me to go to America and do something.” She handed him the number of a friend’s son studying music in Boston. When the young Hiroyuki admitted he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, the man offered a simple suggestion: “Go to New York. You might find something.” Hiroyuki didn’t know what he was searching for, only that he had to start looking. Over the years, New York gave him direction, mentors, and ultimately, a career. As a freelance photographer for The New York Times for over two decades, he covered countless performing arts events, balancing the precision of visual storytelling with the fluidity of human expression. But what he captured on the subway during his commutes, those unposed, unscripted interludes, reveal another dimension of his photographic practice: one anchored in patience and reverence for the everyday. There is no peak action, no drama. In these photographs, faces become quiet landscapes of thought. “Did I turn off the gas before I left home?” “How am I going to pay this month’s rent?” “Does he really love me?” “Will my mother be okay on her own?” We’ll never know what any of them were thinking. But that’s the point. These aren’t photographs meant to explain. They are photographs that suggest. Photography, Hiroyuki reminds us, is not about clarity. It’s about imagination. “A photograph is still and silent,” he says. “It can’t move or speak like a video. It needs the viewer’s mind to complete it.” It was 2007, the first iPhone had just been released, and though it would soon revolutionize how we live and move through the world, it hadn’t yet infiltrated the subway. Hiroyuki’s photographs, then, become a kind of archaeological record, visual evidence of a now-extinct species: the publicly private New Yorker, whose mind was their only entertainment on the ride home. “I miss the blank facial expressions,” Hiroyuki reminisces. Of course, Hiroyuki isn’t lamenting the loss of the past for nostalgia’s sake. He's well aware that times change, as do the tools we use to shape our days. “Photography is essentially about time,” he says. “It’s a record of something that is leaving us.” His images aren’t a plea for regression. They’re an invitation to see what was there and what might still be, if only we look more closely. There’s a humility to Hiroyuki’s practice that runs counter to much of what we associate with artistic authorship. He doesn’t consider himself an artist, or even a journalist. “I feel more like a municipal clerk,” he offers, “punching the clock and taking pictures every day.” That modesty belies the quiet rigor in his work. Whether documenting actors on stage or riders on a subway bench, he approaches each scene with a sensitivity to rhythm, to breath, to what he calls the “rest” in a musical composition — the moment between notes, where silence makes meaning possible. This sense of restraint, of going only halfway and allowing the viewer to meet him there, is deeply rooted in Hiroyuki’s Japanese heritage. In a city where everyone is performing, whether consciously or not, Hiroyuki knows when to look, and when to hold back. His camera is his sketchbook. “It’s like a pencil and a small notebook,” he says. “A way of making a quick drawing.” And so, these subway portraits function almost like visual haikus — minimal, contemplative, and open-ended. There is no attempt to make the subway more glamorous or more despairing than it is. Instead, Hiroyuki focuses on the ordinary magic of people simply being, lost in thought, waiting, transitioning from one place to another. The subway becomes not just a vehicle but a metaphor for a moment suspended between past and future. Between who we were and who we’re becoming. And that’s where the power of these photographs lies. They remind us of something that is both specific and universal: that we all carry secret lives, even in plain sight. That reflection is possible amid the noise. That even in transit, we might be still. For The Pictorial List community, this project opens a quiet window onto a time not so distant. One we all passed through but rarely stopped to see. Through Hiroyuki’s perspective, we’re invited to slow down, to remember what it felt like, and to rediscover meaning in the ordinary moments that once rushed by unnoticed. © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito © Hiroyuki Ito Three decades after his first subway photographs, Hiroyuki Ito still rides the trains, camera in hand, eyes open to the choreography of urban life. The world around him has shifted. He doesn’t mourn the change. He adapts. He watches. He documents. And perhaps, decades from now, his images of people swiping screens and tapping icons will carry their own elegiac beauty, as foreign and fascinating to future viewers as these quiet, analog souls appear to us now. For Hiroyuki, photography is not a pursuit of drama or self-expression. It is an act of steady attention, a way of listening without words. And as long as people keep creating fleeting moments of stillness amid the noise, he’ll be there, observing, recording, and quietly reminding us to look a little closer. view Hiroyuki Ito's portfolio Website >>> Read on Substack >>> The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author/s and are not necessarily shared by The Pictorial List and the team. read more stories >>> RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. DELTA DUSK John Agather weaves image and text into a single current, tracing how music, memory, and daily life continue to move through the Mississippi Delta. SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. SOLITUDE UNDER A TECHNIFIED SUN Tracing the space between movement and stillness, Héctor Morón reveals a city that persists as human presence slips by. 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. THE PAINTED VILLAGE OF LABANDHAR Anjan Ghosh’s photographs carry us to Labandhar, where painting becomes language, tradition stays present, and art grows through shared ground. ORDINARY GRIEF What endures when everything else is uncertain? Through photography, Parisa Azadi asks us to see Iran not as story, but as feeling. THE EVERYMAN Eva Mallis uncovers the quiet strength of overlooked lives, capturing everyday encounters in Mumbai’s industrial districts as intimate portraits of labor and resilience. IN BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTER In Cairo’s City of the Dead, families carve out ordinary lives among centuries of tombs — Paola Ferrarotti traces the fragile line between memory and survival. UNFIGURED Nasos Karabelas transforms the human body into a site of emotional flux — where perception fractures and inner states become visible form. VISIONS OF ICELAND FROM ABOVE Massimo Lupidi takes flight above Iceland — capturing nature’s abstract brushstrokes where land, water, and sky blur into poetic visions beyond the ordinary eye. UNDER THE CLOUDS Giordano Simoncini presents a visual ethnography of the interconnectedness of indigenous cosmology, material life, and the ecological balance within the Quechua communities of the Peruvian Andes. NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy — strangers lost in thought in a world before digital distractions took hold. THE GHOST SELF Buku Sarkar stages her refusal to vanish. Her photographs are unflinching, lyrical acts of documentation, mapping a body in flux and a mind grappling with the epistemic dissonance of chronic illness. WHISPERS On Mother’s Day, Regina Melo's story asks us to pause. To remember. To feel. It honors the profound, often quiet sacrifices that mothers make, and the invisible threads that bind us to them. BEYOND THE MASK By stepping beyond the scripted world of professional wrestling and into the raw terrain of mental health, Matteo Bergami and Fabio Giarratano challenge long-held myths about masculinity, endurance, and heroism. FRAGMENTS OF TIME Each of jfk's diptychs functions as a microcosm of the city, allowing viewers to experience urban life as constant fragmented glimpses, mirroring the unpredictable nature of human interactions. VANISHING VENICE Lorenzo Vitali’s portrayal of Venice is an almost surreal experience — where time dissolves, and the viewer is left with the sensation of stepping into a dreamscape. CLAY AND ASHES Abdulla Shinose CK explores the challenges faced by Kumhar Gram's potters, balancing tradition and adaptation in the face of modern pressures. ISLAND Enzo Crispino’s photographic series, “Nêsos,” invites viewers into an introspective journey that mirrors the artist’s rediscovery of his voice in photography after a prolonged period of creative estrangement. BEYOND THE BRICKS Amid Bangladesh’s dynamic urban growth, Anwar Ehtesham’s photography takes us beyond statistics and headlines, revealing the hidden lives of the laborers working tirelessly in the nation’s brick kilns. OAXACA In Oaxaca, Tommaso Stefanori captures Día de los Muertos, exploring the convergence of life and death, human connections, and enduring cultural rituals through evocative photographs of tradition and emotion. BEHIND THE PLANTS Wayan Barre documents Cancer Alley residents facing pollution and economic challenges, shedding light on their resilience and the impacts of environmental injustice. THE RED POPPY AND THE SUN By blending archival and contemporary images, Mei Seva creates a visual story that captures the ongoing struggles and moments of triumph for those impacted by displacement and circumstance. FIRE AND FORGE Alexandros Zilos delves deep into the harsh reality of sulfur mining, while also capturing the allure of the blue fire phenomenon created by sulfur deposits in the crater.

DONNA BASSIN I am a Brooklyn-born, New Jersey–based photo artist, filmmaker, writer, and clinical psychologist whose work as a trauma therapist has profoundly shaped my practice. I focus on long-term projects that explore painful aspects of modern life, such as post-traumatic stress, racism, social injustice, and, most recently, environmental destruction. Before turning to photography and film, I studied art therapy at Pratt Institute and started as a handmade clay artist. Those early experiences, working directly with materials and later with patients, taught me that rupture leaves marks not only on bodies and minds but also on the surfaces we touch and shape. This awareness continues to influence my art. My photographs bear their own scars, burned, torn, sutured, or reinforced with gold washi tape, not to hide damage but to reveal trauma and loss so that healing can begin. Collaboration and community remain central. As co-creator of Frontline Arts, I worked with veterans to transform military uniforms into handmade paper, an experience that culminated in By Our Own Hand, a site specific installation at the Montclair Art Museum. These collective acts of making extend my studio practice into shared moments of mourning and repair. My approach is guided by psychoanalysis, which trained me to listen for the unspeakable, and by Japanese traditions such as kintsugi and calligraphy, which honor repair and imperfection. I draw inspiration from Hiroshi Sugimoto’s meditations on time, Doris Salcedo’s sculptural mourning, Anselm Kiefer’s scarred landscapes of memory, and Richard Avedon’s honest and vulnerable portraits. Alongside photography, I have created several short art films and directed two award winning feature documentaries, Leave No Soldier and The Mourning After. Film and video allow me to expand my photographic work into time and motion. My photographs, writing, and interviews have appeared in Tricycle, Lenscratch, Fotonostrum, Grazia, Borderline Press’ Facsimile, Lens Magazine, FLOAT, LandEscape Art Review, Dodho Magazine, The Hand Magazine, Analog Forever, Vostok Magazine, and Overlapse’s Stir the Pot. I received a 2024 Puffin Foundation Artist Grant and a 2021 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship, and I was recognized as both a Top 50 Photographer and a Finalist for Critical Mass from 2022 to 2024. My series The Afterlife of Dolls was featured on New Jersey PBS’s State of the Arts, and Portraits of the Precarious Earth appeared in “The Art of Repair” on Rhode Island PBS’s Art Inc. I have held solo exhibitions at the Newport Art Museum, R.I.; the Montclair Art Museum, N.J.; the Morris Museum, N.J.; the Passaic Arts Center, N.J.; Mira Forum, Porto, Portugal; and Espaço D’Artes, Lisbon, Portugal, as well as in SaveArtSpace’s billboard project in Brooklyn, N.Y. LOCATION New Jersey UNITED STATES CAMERA/S Sony, iPhone & Diana Pinhole WEBSITE https://www.donnabassin.com/ @P1NHOLE.DONNABASSIN FEATURES // Rupture Repair Remnant

PICTORIAL STORY RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. March 8, 2026 PICTORIAL STORY PHOTOGRAPHY Donna Bassin STORY Donna Bassin INTRODUCTION Karen Ghostlaw SHARE Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link Rupture is not an abstract condition but a lived one, registered in bodies, relationships, landscapes, and images. This text unfolds as an inquiry into how damage is acknowledged, carried, and worked through over time, without denial or premature resolution. Moving between artistic practice, psychological listening, and material process, it traces an ongoing engagement with mourning, witnessing, and repair, not as a return to an original state, but as an ethical labor that remains partial and unfinished. This inquiry lives at the center of Donna Bassin’s work. A Brooklyn-born, New Jersey-based photo artist, filmmaker, writer, and clinical psychologist, she works at the intersection of art making and trauma care, where attention itself becomes a form of devotion. What breaks matters. What remains matters. She returns to her subjects over years rather than resolving them quickly, allowing loss and memory to shift, settle, and deepen in their own time. Before turning to photography and film, Donna studied art therapy at Pratt Institute and worked as a handmade clay artist. Working with earth and touch taught her that surfaces remember. Decades of work as a clinical psychologist and community worker with trauma and complex mourning deepened this understanding. Rupture leaves traces not only in bodies and minds, but in the materials, we handle and the images we hold. History gathers in wear, fracture, and repair. That awareness continues to shape her visual language. Her photographs resist seamlessness. They are burned, torn, punctured, sutured, and reinforced, sometimes with gold washi tape, so that damage remains visible and palpable. These gestures are not embellishment. They are acts of insistence. The image must carry what it has endured. Repair is present but never concealed. The scar is not erased. It stands as evidence of survival and of time passing through. Collaboration and community extend this ethic beyond the studio. As a founding member and president of the board of Frontline Arts in New Jersey, Donna worked with veterans to transform military uniforms into handmade paper, a collective act of mourning that culminated in By Our Own Hand, a site-specific installation at the Montclair Art Museum. In these shared acts of making, the studio opens outward. Grief becomes something held together. Memory becomes communal. What cannot be undone can still be witnessed. Donna’s practice is shaped by psychoanalytic listening, an attention to what is spoken and what remains unsaid, as well as by Japanese traditions such as kintsugi, which honor imperfection and visible repair. Her work resonates with artists who hold time within material form, including Hiroshi Sugimoto, Doris Salcedo, Anselm Kiefer, and Richard Avedon. Across these influences and through her own sustained inquiry, Donna asks us not to look away, but to remain with what has been marked, and to recognize that repair is not a conclusion. It is a practice. The question beneath my work is straightforward: how do we live with what has been torn within us, between us, and around us without looking away? For me, repair begins with acknowledgement: naming the injury, registering the loss, and refusing the pressure to smooth it over or move on. Only then can mending begin, not as a reset but as a process—partial, visible, and ongoing. Loss, trauma, mourning, and witnessing run through everything I make. I’m interested in how loss is metabolized (or not), how people protect themselves from the unthinkable, and how meaning evolves over time within relationships. I work in series and long-term projects, returning to subjects over years rather than resolving them quickly. This sustained attention has shaped bodies of work addressing social injustice, PTSD, and moral injury, and, more recently, the environmental crisis. In my series, Portraits of a Precarious Earth, I approach damaged and disappearing landscapes not as neutral scenery but as vulnerable subjects — sites where human action, denial, and responsibility are inscribed. The work asks how we bear witness to environmental harm without aestheticizing it away and how attention itself might become an ethical response. I’m an artist working in photography, a filmmaker, a writer, and a clinical psychologist specializing in trauma and complex mourning. These roles are not separate; they form a single practice. Psychoanalytic training has taught me to listen for what is spoken and what is withheld, for what appears indirectly in gesture, tone, and the objects people keep. In the studio, I work with the same attention. I don’t treat images as declarations. I treat them as encounters; places where contradiction, vulnerability, and resilience can sit side by side without being forced into closure. Formally, my practice often begins with the camera but does not end there. I work with photographs as physical objects, not merely representations. I intervene on the surface, tearing, burning, puncturing, reassembling, suturing, and layering physical prints. These actions are not embellishment or disguise. They are the content. I want the photograph to carry history, its vulnerability, and endurance, so the viewer meets not “perfect” beauty but a surface that has survived. The repair is visible; the scar is not hidden. I document what exists, then build a second truth on the image’s skin, the way people build second truths about themselves. I care deeply about the image’s materiality, its weight, grain, fragility, and resistance, and I’m drawn to the edge of the photograph, where the frame typically contains and controls. Sometimes I let the photograph resist that containment. I push the boundaries of two dimensions by layering prints, lifting corners, building relief, and letting thread, paper, and tape move the image into space. I want the work to register viscerally, engaging the senses and the body. A puncture is not just a mark; it’s a small act of violence and a record of it. A burn is not only a formal device; it’s an interruption that changes what an image can hold. Stitching can be read as repair, but also as urgency: as what must be held together, what cannot be restored, and what is still in need of care. Beauty matters here, too. I use color, light, and formal balance as thresholds that allow looking, especially at what many people would rather avoid. But I try to keep beauty ethically awake. The goal is not comfort; it’s attention. My engagement with women’s issues is longstanding and specific. In my psychoanalytic writing, editorial work, and community practice, I’ve remained close to feminist questions, with particular attention to motherhood and maternal subjectivity, how attachment, memory, and mourning shape a mother’s inner world, and how cultural ideologies press on women’s lived experience. I’ve written about female development and sexual difference, including how “difference” can illuminate women’s complexity or be used to confine it. I also address embodied experience, including infertility, reproductive loss, and the stigma that often surrounds them. Across these efforts, the aim is consistent: to broaden what is thinkable about women’s inner lives without reducing them. That commitment extends into my filmmaking and community-based work. In my award-winning feature-length documentary, Leave No Soldier , I deliberately included women who have served, including Vietnam-era nurses as well as female soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their presence pushes back against a cultural reflex that frames war experiences and moral injury as exclusively male stories. For me, this insistence on visibility is an ethical intervention that foregrounds women’s labor, endurance, injury, and post-war psychological lives. The same ethical stance shapes my photographic series My Own Witness . It uses black-and-white portraiture and charged, familiar objects to make social fracture intimate, entering the body, the face, and the domestic and national imagination. © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Aya © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Tacy © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Philemona © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Shontel © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Messiah © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Chad and James © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Danielle © Donna Bassin, My Own Witness: Rupture and Repair. Dulce © Donna Bassin, Precious Scars: Monastery © Donna Bassin, Precious Scars: Kyoto © Donna Bassin, Precious Scars: Geishas © Donna Bassin, Precious Scars: Monk © Donna Bassin, Precious Scars: Jizo © Donna Bassin, Precious Scars: Bridge © Donna Bassin, Precious Scars: Monk Alongside photography, Donna Bassin works in film, extending these ethical questions into time and lived duration. Her award-winning documentaries Leave No Soldier and The Mourning After examining moral injury, loss, and the long reverberations of violence. These films continue her sustained attention to what follows rupture rather than what neatly resolves it. Whether working with images, objects, sound, or collaborative processes, her practice is grounded in listening to what is spoken, what is withheld, and what quietly endures. This sustained commitment has been recognized through numerous honors and exhibitions, including Time and Wisdom of the Land awarded Best Series by LA Photo Curator in 2024, multiple selections and finalist distinctions from Photolucida’s Critical Mass, recognition as a Top 50 Photographer in 2022 and Finalist in 2023 and 2024, support from The Puffin Foundation and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and residencies such as the Baer Arts Center in Iceland. Her work has been presented at institutions including the Morris Museum, Newport Art Museum, Montclair Art Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and in international exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and North America. In photography, film, writing, and clinical practice, Donna resists closure. She stays with what has been torn, within us, between us, and around us. Repair is not framed as restoration, but as an ongoing act of attention, visible, imperfect, and necessary. The altered surfaces of Portraits of a Precarious Earth echo the marked bodies, domestic objects, and intimate interiors found in Donna’s work centered on women’s lives. In both, grief and endurance are inscribed rather than concealed. Repair unfolds slowly and remains visible. Whether the subject is land or body, the work asks what it means to remain present with what has been damaged, and what it requires to care for it. Donna Bassin’s environmental work and her women-centered series are united by a shared ethical stance: a refusal of erasure. Across landscapes and across bodies, her images insist that injury be seen and that healing not be mistaken for disappearance. Vulnerability becomes a site of meaning, and attention becomes a form of care. view Donna Bassin's portfolio Website >>> Instagram >>> The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author/s and are not necessarily shared by The Pictorial List. read more stories >>> RUPTURE REPAIR REMNANT In this reflection on rupture, Donna Bassin invites us to consider how grief settles into the body and the image, and how the slow work of witnessing becomes a form of repair. DELTA DUSK John Agather weaves image and text into a single current, tracing how music, memory, and daily life continue to move through the Mississippi Delta. SILENT BEAUTY Tamara Quadrelli photographs the world by slowing down inside it. There is no rush to explain what we are seeing. The pleasure comes from staying with it. SOLITUDE UNDER A TECHNIFIED SUN Tracing the space between movement and stillness, Héctor Morón reveals a city that persists as human presence slips by. 4320 MINUTES WITHOUT COLOR Moving between photography and narration, Mohammed Nahi traces a period in which sight could no longer be assumed as reliable, and attention shifted toward memory and duration. THE PAINTED VILLAGE OF LABANDHAR Anjan Ghosh’s photographs carry us to Labandhar, where painting becomes language, tradition stays present, and art grows through shared ground. ORDINARY GRIEF What endures when everything else is uncertain? Through photography, Parisa Azadi asks us to see Iran not as story, but as feeling. THE EVERYMAN Eva Mallis uncovers the quiet strength of overlooked lives, capturing everyday encounters in Mumbai’s industrial districts as intimate portraits of labor and resilience. IN BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTER In Cairo’s City of the Dead, families carve out ordinary lives among centuries of tombs — Paola Ferrarotti traces the fragile line between memory and survival. UNFIGURED Nasos Karabelas transforms the human body into a site of emotional flux — where perception fractures and inner states become visible form. VISIONS OF ICELAND FROM ABOVE Massimo Lupidi takes flight above Iceland — capturing nature’s abstract brushstrokes where land, water, and sky blur into poetic visions beyond the ordinary eye. UNDER THE CLOUDS Giordano Simoncini presents a visual ethnography of the interconnectedness of indigenous cosmology, material life, and the ecological balance within the Quechua communities of the Peruvian Andes. NYC SUBWAY RIDERS BEFORE THE INVASION OF SMARTPHONES Hiroyuki Ito’s subway photographs reveal a vanished intimacy — strangers lost in thought in a world before digital distractions took hold. THE GHOST SELF Buku Sarkar stages her refusal to vanish. Her photographs are unflinching, lyrical acts of documentation, mapping a body in flux and a mind grappling with the epistemic dissonance of chronic illness. WHISPERS On Mother’s Day, Regina Melo's story asks us to pause. To remember. To feel. It honors the profound, often quiet sacrifices that mothers make, and the invisible threads that bind us to them. BEYOND THE MASK By stepping beyond the scripted world of professional wrestling and into the raw terrain of mental health, Matteo Bergami and Fabio Giarratano challenge long-held myths about masculinity, endurance, and heroism. FRAGMENTS OF TIME Each of jfk's diptychs functions as a microcosm of the city, allowing viewers to experience urban life as constant fragmented glimpses, mirroring the unpredictable nature of human interactions. VANISHING VENICE Lorenzo Vitali’s portrayal of Venice is an almost surreal experience — where time dissolves, and the viewer is left with the sensation of stepping into a dreamscape. CLAY AND ASHES Abdulla Shinose CK explores the challenges faced by Kumhar Gram's potters, balancing tradition and adaptation in the face of modern pressures. ISLAND Enzo Crispino’s photographic series, “Nêsos,” invites viewers into an introspective journey that mirrors the artist’s rediscovery of his voice in photography after a prolonged period of creative estrangement. BEYOND THE BRICKS Amid Bangladesh’s dynamic urban growth, Anwar Ehtesham’s photography takes us beyond statistics and headlines, revealing the hidden lives of the laborers working tirelessly in the nation’s brick kilns. OAXACA In Oaxaca, Tommaso Stefanori captures Día de los Muertos, exploring the convergence of life and death, human connections, and enduring cultural rituals through evocative photographs of tradition and emotion. BEHIND THE PLANTS Wayan Barre documents Cancer Alley residents facing pollution and economic challenges, shedding light on their resilience and the impacts of environmental injustice. THE RED POPPY AND THE SUN By blending archival and contemporary images, Mei Seva creates a visual story that captures the ongoing struggles and moments of triumph for those impacted by displacement and circumstance. FIRE AND FORGE Alexandros Zilos delves deep into the harsh reality of sulfur mining, while also capturing the allure of the blue fire phenomenon created by sulfur deposits in the crater.