Invited photographers
Rotterdam Photo 2026 – Invited photographers
This year at Rotterdam Photo, we’re excited to welcome various invited photographers whose work deeply resonates with our 2026 theme: Echoes of Silence – War in the Artist’s Soul.
Through personal histories, cultural narratives, and explorations of technology, each artist offers a powerful lens on what it means to be connected—to place, to memory, to each other. Their stories cross borders and generations, reminding us that photography is not just about capturing moments, but about sharing them.
Caroline Monnet
Caroline Monnet is a multidisciplinary artist of Anishinaabe and French ancestry, originally from the Outaouais region, who lives and works in Mooniyang/Montreal (Canada). Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Canada, the United States and Europe. The artist has also exhibited at the Whitney Biennial (New York, USA), Toronto Art Biennial (Canada), KØS Museum (Køge, Denmark), Musée d’art contemporain (Montréal, Canada) and National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, Canada), among others. Her work is included in numerous collections in North America and at the Maison de l’UNESCO in Paris. Caroline Monnet is represented by Blouin Division in Montreal and Toronto.
Echoes From a Near Future and Ikwewak
Since 2016, multidisciplinary artist Caroline Monnet has been developing a compelling body of photographic and video work that celebrates Indigenous women in all their splendor: eccentric, elegant, proud, and charismatic. The photo Echoes from a Near Future and her series Ikwewak is part of a broader effort to rewrite visual narratives that have long marginalized or distorted the representation of First Nations women.
In Echoes From a Near Future and Ikwewak, Monnet presents six Indigenous women who directly confront the viewer’s gaze, breaking away from the colonial, anthropological, Eurocentric, and patriarchal perspectives that have historically defined their portrayal. These powerful portraits act as forms of resistance. Through a sociological reflection on systems of power, Monnet highlights the double threat faced by Indigenous women: subjected to both the colonial and the male gaze. Ikwewak stands as a tribute, a political gesture, and an affirmation of dignity.
Through this visual and conceptual experimentation, Caroline Monnet reinserts First Nations female bodies into the spaces of our cities, our lives, our families, and our collective memory. Her work contributes to a broader cultural reappropriation and assertion of identity, driven by a vibrant sense of empowerment and agency.
Find out more:
Website: carolinemonnet.ca
Instagram: @coco.monnet
Diego Moreno
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas. Mexico. 1992. Visual artist specialized in photography and narrative, lives between Mexico and Switzerland. His work approaches photography as the main tool to create new realities and intertwines with other disciplines such as text, drawing, painting. He explores themes of identity such as religion, violence, affection and the complexity of family and cultural ties in his context. He considers photography as a possibility of narrative control, which is why he has specialized mostly in the creation of photobooks.
He has been named as one of the most influential young photographers in the world by The British Journal Of Photography UK; Creative Review UK and FOAM MAGAZINE Neatherlands. He has received various awards around the world, such as: the POY LATAM Latin American Photography Award in three categories in 2025 and 2019 in Quito, Ecuador; the UNSTUCK 2022 Award in Toronto, Canada, awarded by the Magenta Foundation; FOAM TALENT 2022 in Amsterdam; iPhone Photography Awards 2021 in New York; LensCulture Art Awards 2021 in Amsterdam; Cheerz Photo Festival 2019 in Paris, France; International Image Award 2019 in Mexico; LensCulture Emerging Talent Award 2018 in Amsterdam; and the Acquisition Award at the 10th Puebla de los Ángeles Biennial 2015 in Mexico.
Malign Influences
It is a graphic intervention project on my family photographic archive. Through the manual use of coloured pencils, graphite, Indian ink, markers, oil or materials such as bleach or vinegar, I intervene the photographs as a way of creating new realities invented from my obsession and fascination with the anomalous. Inspired by the apocalyptic vision of the Catholic Church I served for twelve years as a child and raised in a highly religious environment, I grew up disturbed by who I was because of my sexual orientation.
My identity was veiled by the prejudices and guilt that religious doctrines bestow on you. Throughout my life, the symbol of the monstrous and the abnormal was the only image I could empathise with because of the rejection. Malign Influences allows me to construct an alternate world without guilt, paying homage to the family album, one of the main fictional artefacts in our lives that generates our identity over time. This project is starred by the beings that inhabit my head, who neither hide nor are silent, they show themselves in all their monstrosity. They speak with multiple voices claiming their difference. Thus, with their ungrammatical language, we refuse to be condemned to silence.
Find out more:
Instagram:@diiegotv
Hashim Nasr
Hashim Nasr (b. 1990, Khartoum, Sudan) is a self-taught visual artist whose work explores themes of heritage, identity, and memories through surreal and avant-garde imagery. Currently based in Alexandria, Egypt, Nasr’s recent work delves into the emotional complexities of exile.
A graduate in dentistry, his passion for art photography evolved into creating surrealist and conceptual visuals using portraiture, symbolic props, and evocative settings. His imagery often reflects on gender equality, diversity, and the subconscious, blending editorial aesthetics with dreamlike visuals.
Deeply influenced by his Sudanese roots, Nasr reimagines childhood memories to craft visuals that reconnect him with his heritage. His distinctive use of cones, the color blue, and natural elements evoke a profound sense of nostalgia and surrealism. Set against the backdrop of Sudan’s political and economic challenges, his work becomes an act of self exploration and cultural representation.
Hashim’s photographs have been showcased internationally in platforms including Ones to watch issue by British Journal of Photography (2024) , WePresent (2025), and L’Oeil de la photographie (2025). He has participated in programs such as the Arab Documentary Photography Program supported by AFAC, Magnum Foundation, and Prince Claus Fund. His works have been exhibited in Sudan, Egypt, and Europe across Africa , and are part of ongoing projects exploring exile, belonging, and the reconstruction of memory.
On War and Displacement
The project On War and Displacement dives into the deeply emotional and surreal experiences of individuals displaced by war, with a specific focus on the ongoing conflict in Sudan. Through conceptual and surreal photography, the project aims to capture the emotional landscapes of displacement, the pain of separation from homeland, and the uncertainty of the future through my family and my own story .
Using conceptual photography , I intend to create evocative visuals that visualize the actual reality and bring forward a deeper understanding of the psychological impacts of war and displacement. My images portray fragmented moments of life in exile, using personal items, desolate spaces, and surreal scenarios to communicate the internal conflicts experienced by displaced individuals. The photography will blend surrealism with conceptual storytelling , drawing on inspiration from the displaced experience in Sudan and my personal journey as an artist living in Alexandria, Egypt, away from my home in Sudan .
Find out more:
Instagram:@hashimnsr
Otto Snoek
Otto Snoek (Rotterdam, b.1966) distinguishes himself as a documentary photographer with his thematic focus on the more abstract processes in our Western society and his radical aesthetics in which he portrays people from very nearby. His way of working could be classified as ‘slow journalism’. In his photographs, several things happen simultaneously and everything is depicted with equal sharpness and detail, without any explicit hierarchy. His compositions are not tidy, and sometimes there is not even a main subject. On the contrary, the most diverse elements at the edges and elsewhere in the image attract the viewer’s attention.
This unrest is not only a reflection of the modern urban feeling. It is also a mirror of contemporary social life in general, consciously created by the photographer, which is full of paradoxes, where diverse milieus and cultures rub shoulders seemingly without any problems. Where the individual merges into the group and the human being transforms into the masses.
Feyenoordcafés
During Rotterdam Photo 2026, Snoek will present his photo series Feyenoordcafés, which arose from his collaboration with writer Frans Reichardt, who provided the accompanying quotes. On days when Feyenoord played a home game, they visited the cafés within walking distance of De Kuip stadium in the surrounding working-class neighborhoods, where they portrayed the supporters present in the hours leading up to the games. Snoek ‘only’ photographed what he saw and what surprised him, while Reichardt wrote about Feyenoord from the perspective of a loyal supporter, focusing on the club culture and the deep emotional bond between the legion and the club.
Find out more:
Website: ottosnoek.com
Instagram: @otto_snoek
Elisa Iannacone
Elisa is the recipient of the Alfred Fried Peace Medal (2024), a Nobel Peace Prize Legacy recognition, awarded in partnership with the Austrian Parliament and UNESCO. She is the winner of the Global Peace Photo Award for both Series and Photo of the Year (’24-’25), and her work is displayed in the Austrian Parliament and South African Constitutional Court’s Permanent Museum Collections.
As an experienced journalist and cinematographer, she has developed a personal voice that combines journalistic interviews with magical realism, to address current affairs in a unique and impactful way. By delving deep into personal narratives and global events, she captures the essence of trauma and resilience, transforming raw interviews into compelling artistic expressions. Through her innovative approach, Elisa uses art not only to approach critical issues, but to explore the emotional and psychological layers of these stories, offering audiences a profound and immersive understanding of the subjects she covers.
Hope in the Rubble
This work examines the intersection of trauma, memory, and imagination through visual storytelling, reframing lived experience as emotional truth. Rooted in a Latin American sensibility, it draws on magical realism to approach trauma not as spectacle, but as testimony—unfolding through the symbolic and the poetic.
In Hope in the Rubble, I create meticulously staged environments in collaboration with young survivors and children affected by war. The Syrian chapter of the project was developed clandestinely over several years, concluding only after the fall of the Assad regime. In Ukraine, the work was produced amid nightly bombings and air-raid sirens—conditions that mirror the children’s daily reality.
Rather than focusing on visible devastation, the work turns toward the silent psychological toll of conflict. The child is not positioned as a passive victim, but as a co-author. Through sustained conversations—at times supported by art therapists—children articulate their dreams, fears, and inner worlds. Every prop and costume is real and placed in situ; these scenes are not fantasies, but acts of resistance, where imagination becomes a means of survival.
These photographs function as conceptual interventions—acts of reclamation in which the camera becomes a tool of agency. Ultimately, the series bears witness to the human capacity to endure: to build invisible worlds of beauty and meaning, even when the world outside offers none.
Find out more:
Website: elisaiannacone.com
Instagram: @elisaiannacone
Sandra Zegarra Patow
Generación Arcoíris
Curated by Unity in Diversity Rotterdam
Why this generation?
Because they keep moving, even when space feels limited.
Because they find ways to be seen in a world where that is not always a given.
In Generación Arcoíris, Sandra Zegarra Patow turns her focus to Generation Z in Peru. Young people navigate visibility and safety, difference and belonging. In their clothing, posture, and gaze, identity appears not as something fixed, but as something continuously shaped. What becomes visible are quiet negotiations with the world around them. Between self and society. Between intimacy and exposure.
This series emerged from admiration. Sandra was moved by the resilience, creativity, and sensitivity of these young people. By the ways in which they create new paths and shift boundaries, often without being seen or acknowledged. Through her camera, she makes space for their voices, dreams, and doubts. Not to define them, but to let them exist.
For Sandra, a Peruvian artist raised in the Netherlands, this work is deeply personal. It is a reconnection with her roots and at the same time a tribute to a community that continues to inspire her. What began as a search for origin grew into a shared story about identity, future, and self-definition.
For Unity in Diversity Rotterdam, Generación Arcoíris touches the core of what we do. We work with artists who do not separate their background and personal history from their practice, but use them as a source of strength. Artists who dare to search, to diverge, and to reinvent themselves. Art becomes a space where identity can move, and where new perspectives can emerge.
Within Echoes of Silence, this series shows how tension and inner unrest do not need to be loud to be present. They continue to live on through choices, through expression, through the desire to be seen on one’s own terms.
This series invites you to pause.
To look.
And perhaps recognize something of yourself.
Find out more:
Website: uidrotterdam.com and sandrazegarrapatow.com
Instagram: @uidrotterdam and @sandrazegarrapatow
