Sacha Lecca selects
Paul Thulin, United States, Project: Pine Tree Ballad

Paul Thulin's work of a generational home transported me. It is steeped in personal history, with voices of the past echoing throughout, while the references to classic literature, and American folklore and mythology makes the island feel like a familiar place.

Jennifer Blessing selects
Sara Lewkowicz, United States, Project: Maggie

Though ostensibly an essay about a victim of domestic abuse, Sara Lewkowicz's lacerating portrait of “Maggie” seems to inadvertently capture the day-to-day experience of two young children as they try to adapt to difficult circumstances. Lewkowicz's profoundly intimate photographs demonstrate her talent for insinuating herself into her subjects’ lives, while eliciting thought-provoking questions about her role as documentarian, as well as ours as witness.

Mary Virginia Swanson selects
Joshua McFadden, United States, Project: After SELMA

As a young man living in the American South, Joshua McFadden lives in the shadow of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. As an artist, McFadden’s perspective evokes an authentic process of examining, questioning, and comprehending a world in which he and his generation are the leaders-to-be of their communities. His project “After SELMA” turns a contemporary eye to issues that divided this country fifty years ago, informed by incidents of race relations in recent years. I believe we will learn a great deal about our future and ourselves through his photographs.

Todd Hido selects
Laura Hospes, Netherlands, Project: UCP-UMCG

After looking at hundreds and hundreds of portfolios very carefully, I am reminded of the sheer difficulty of creating photographs that are truly unique and stand out from the pack. In this age of increasing utter narcissism seen in the millennial generation, assisted and created by technology, there’s a mind-numbing amount of self portraiture. It actually frightens me that there are so many people so thoroughly interested in themselves and that they actually think that other people really care — and maybe they do, but just for a minute. However, the brave work by Laura Hospes is a very unique set of self portraits where vanity is the farthest thing from her mind. She is using photography in a way that touches me, making very classic physiologically charged images that actually have a purpose. She states that “My camera is my consolation and listens to me better that anyone else. I want to share the difficulties and loneliness that I feel right now.” I have used my camera, pointed at the landscape for the same purpose too, so I get it, and I think we should listen to her too.

María García Yelo selects
Jessica Eve Rattner, United States, Project: House of Charm

The extreme delicateness and empathy emitting from these photographs taken by Jessica Eve Rattner are about a unique persona, Lee. Her project puts into question what is regularly considered beautiful, portrayable and moving. Jessica's work was made over the course of years, slowly and intimately revealing Lee's interests and concerns, her memories and everyday life. The images reflect prodigious technique, a great capacity for composition and an extraordinary control of light and colour. A deeply honest search to document a world alien to most of us yet, still, just around the corner.

Ada Takahashi selects
Adrien Selbert, France, Project: Srebrenica

In Adrien Selbert's Srebrenica, from night to night, we are drawn in by the mysterious and otherworldly cinematic images. Our dreamscape reverie is disrupted when we realize the images are of a war scarred community. Selbert deftly communicates the harsh psychological reality of the survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre with powerful images that are at once alluring and chilling.

Jim Casper selects
Christian Vium, Denmark, Project: The Wake

Christian Vium has created an ambitious project that is artful, challenging, thought-provoking and insightful. It explores the differences and intersections of century-old anthropological photography and contemporary practices that still struggle with ways to present and represent “the Other” — in this case focusing on Aboriginal Australians from 1875 and now.

Jon Jones selects
Tadas Černiauskas, Lithuania, Project: Comfort Zone

Tadas Černiauskas' series of sleeping beach goers is as provocative as it is calming. Voyeuristic by nature, each subject, with their face obscured, is presented as a still life, and the viewer is invited to compare and contrast. The overall effect is one of strange tranquillity.