Pop-up Muzeum Sztuki ft. HFBK Fotoklasse "570km, 50 by 70cm"
Pop-up by the photography class from HFBK Hamburg centers around a shared object: a standardized aluminum frame (50 × 70 cm, with glass), available in multiple identical copies. These frames were given to the class as a gift – a simple gesture that sparked the idea for this collective project. Each artistic position is invited to engage with the frame – not merely as a container for an image, but as a conceptual and material point of departure.
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The project questions the conventions of photographic and artistic display and explores the frame as object, as border, as medium, and as metaphor. Through a collective conceptual approach, each work opens up a self-referential dialogue with the act of exhibiting itself. The process plays a central role. Rather than presenting finalized works, the project embraces the unfinished, the provisional, and the shifting nature of artistic production. The logistical and physical movement of the frames becomes part of the narrative too – working, transporting, installing, and reflecting are understood as intertwined steps in an open process.
Receiving the frames – and responding to them – becomes part of the story. What begins as a gift turns into an invitation.
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Artist bios
Aimilia A. Theofilopoulos(b. 1993 in Herford, Germany, no pronouns) is a German photographer based in Bielefeld and Hamburg, Germany. Aimilia's work is primarily autobiographical, focusing on the exploration of identity. Key themes include mental health, gender studies, love, and the social constructs woven around these subjects.
wwww.instagram.com/aimiliatheofilopoulos
Ann-Sophie Krüger (b. 1999, Hamburg, Germany) works mainly with analog photography, video games, and film. Her practice explores themes of simulation and virtuality, and how digital media can replicate, distort, or reimagine the world. She is currently studying at HFBK Hamburg with Prof. Tobias Zielony and Prof. Robert Bramkamp.
https://www.instagram.com/annsophie.krueger
Bjørg Elttør (b. 1997, Faroe Islands) is a Faroese artist living in Hamburg. Topics of interest are traditions and religion rooted in modern welfare systems, poems about love affairs, and stories about migration. Her practice spans photography, video work, writing, and installation.
Emma Maiwald (b. 2002, Munich, Germany) lives and works in Hamburg. In her photographic work, she focuses on the magic of the everyday, documenting rather than staging. Through intimate portraits, she explores emotional observation and generational perspectives, often linked to socio-political themes. With an archaeological curiosity, she also investigates spaces and visual traces of social events. She studies at HFBK Hamburg in Prof. Tobias Zielony’s class.
Katya Kanke (b. 1985, Tolyatti) currently lives and works in Hamburg, Germany.
She is a photography- and performance-based artist whose work explores themes of corporeality, trauma, and crisis. The central question in Katya’s practice is the impulse to create within the context of contemporary art: Why does one autobiographical story become art, while another does not? The focus lies on the relevance of the story, the question posed—or the void in between. As such, the theme of artistic crisis remains central to her work.
Lena Kunz (b. 1993, in Halle, Germany) is an artist working with photography and performance, living in Hamburg. With an intimate and conscious photographic approach, she focuses on stories of positive transformation in the world through performing personal and family-related shifts. By focusing on oneself and one’s possibilities, she emphasizes our ability to positively alter our immediate surroundings and chances in life. Her work has been exhibited at Paris Photo / Goethe-Institut Paris, and she received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation.
@lenakunzx
Leonidas Kosmidis (b. 1995, in Konstanz, Germany) is a German-Greek artist working primarily with photography and installation. Exploring themes of identity, memory, and familial structures, his work follows a conceptual approach rooted in photographic theory. He is particularly interested in processes of belonging and separation, and in how individual and collective imprints manifest themselves within images and spatial arrangements. He is currently studying at HFBK Hamburg.
Marcela Vetter (b. 2000, Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian artist based between Lima and Hamburg. Her practice combines sculpture, painting, and photography to explore themes of identity, memory, migration, and grief. Vetter often integrates materials such as wool, ceramics, and textiles, emphasizing process and craft. Her work weaves intimate personal narratives with broader cultural reflections.
Matilde Søes Rasmussen (b. 1990, Denmark). After fifteen years of working as a professional model, I explore the commodification of the body in image-making and often appear simultaneously in front of and behind the camera. My work moves freely between photography, poetry, and filmmaking. I have participated in residencies at NARS Foundation NYC, the International Writers’ Workshop in Hong Kong, GlogauAIR Berlin, AiR351 in Cascais, and exhibited at Kunsthal Aarhus, Oblong, and Centrum för Fotografi, among others. I hold a BFA in Photography from HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design in Gothenburg and am currently studying for an MFA at the HFBK University of Fine Arts Hamburg.
Nanna Maria Wibholm (she/they) is a Danish artist based in Hamburg and Copenhagen. Her practice explores life lived at the margins, queering norms and narratives through lens-based media, essay documentary film, installation, writing, activism, and as a member of the artist collective Living Room. The works question queer inhabitation of spaces, identities, bodies, interpersonal connection, longing, belonging, and resistance through intimate yet ambiguous encounters of grief, trauma, healing, desire, freedom, and self-determination. After graduating with a BFA in Film from HFBK Hamburg, she is pursuing MFA studies in the class of Prof. of Photography Tobias Zielony and Prof. of Philosophy Dr. Juliane Rebentisch.
Omid Arabbay (b. 2001, Hamburg, Germany) is a German artist with Afghan roots.
His multidisciplinary work—spanning sculpture, installation, photography, and video—explores identity, belonging, and cultural hybridity. Drawing from personal and collective experiences, he investigates how places shape who we are. Influenced by the textures and colors of diverse environments, he creates a visual language reflecting the richness of human experience. His practice examines the tensions that emerge when cultures intersect. From 2021 till 2023, he has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and, since 2023, continues his studies at HFBK Hamburg with Kader Attia and Tobias Zielony.
https://www.instagram.com/omidorbit/
Pikhān Khu (b. 1994, Taipei, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese artist who lives and works between Hamburg and Berlin. His work primarily utilizes photography and installations, dealing with themes of identity, belonging, and cultural complexity. In particular, he is interested in memory, shared experience, and how identity and belonging are formed by different cultural backgrounds, or by something in between. Pikhān is currently studying at HFBK Hamburg with Prof. Tobias Zielony and Prof. Pia Stadtbäumer.
Robert Schmiedeknecht (b. 1994, Berlin, Germany) is a German artist based in Hamburg, Germany. Growing up in Berlin and Dresden, the observation of a challenging Western society from the East German perspective has profoundly influenced his work. His work focuses on identifying and connecting visual, societal, and personal patterns to reveal hidden stories behind surfaces.
https://robert-schmiedeknecht.com
Sanja S. Zdrnja is a visual artist from Belgrade, currently living and working in Hamburg. She has been exhibiting her work in both group and solo exhibitions since 2003. In her artistic practice, she explores physical, intimate, emotional, and intellectual space, along with the various possibilities of its conceptualization.
Sara Lucia Castillo Melgarejo (b. 2001, Bogotá, Colombia) is a Latin American artist based in Germany. Her practice unfolds through painting, sound, poetry, corporeal language, and the blending of other media, exploring the sacred and spiritual connection between the inner and outer worlds. Themes such as identity, diaspora, nature, and movement emerge throughout her work, shaping an intimate language where ancestral memory, transformation, and the expansion of the self are continuously intertwined.
Sebastian Stern (b. 1992, Augsburg, Germany) works and lives in Hamburg. After obtaining his master’s degree in astroparticle physics in 2020, he began his art studies at HFBK Hamburg. In his works, he examines his dysthymia (persistent depressive disorder)—emotionally and with regard to its underlying mechanisms.
Sergej Hufnagel (b. 1997) is an artist based in Hamburg and Berlin. His photographic work explores boundaries—geographical, sociopolitical, and abstract. He draws from everyday urban environments, architecture, and street scenes, often marked by a restrained visual language and atmospheric depth. He is currently studying at HFBK Hamburg with Tobias Zielony.
Sophie Darwisch (b. 2002, Berlin, Germany) is an artist working primarily with photography and painting. Her art is often accompanied by her own texts and poems, telling personal stories.
She mainly explores personal themes and experiences, frequently dealing with melancholy, change, and the transience of feelings, moments, and memories. She is currently working on a book about a club in Hamburg. Sophie is studying at HFBK Hamburg in the class of Tobias Zielony.
Tobias Zielony (b. 1973 in Wuppertal, Germany) is a photographer, video artist, and professor of photography at HFBK Hamburg.
Ulyana Nevzorova (b. 2001, Minsk, Belarus) is a visual artist and art activist based in Hamburg, Germany. The mediums in which she works are mostly installation, photography, and drawing. Her latest works are focused on the theme of memory, namely the connection between personal and collective memory and the aspect of deformation due to time. Ulyana emphasizes that art is an essential tool for preserving this memory through archives, documentation, research, and storytelling.
Vladislav Sili (b. 1996, Moldova) lives and works in Hamburg, Germany. Vladislav’s works explore themes of androgyny and self-expression, as well as perception by others. With both analog and digital works, the camera is mostly pointed at oneself and personal possessions. Though some photographs oscillate between figuration and abstraction, at times the installation itself invites reflection on its transformability and its context. Vladislav lived in Venice and South Tyrol for over a decade before moving to Germany in 2019.
@vl___aad
Yoav Perry (b. 1986, Israel) is a multidisciplinary artist working with photography, video, installation, and sculpture. Through a conceptual practice, his work explores the poetics of personal and collective memory. He addresses themes of identity, place, belonging, cultural context, trauma, war, and social norms. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Fine Arts at HFBK Hamburg.
Yufan Chen (b. 1996, in Chongqing, China) is a photographer and book designer living in Hamburg.
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Picture for advertising:
Credits: Sergej Hufnagel, 2025
