Gem Fletcher is a hybrid creative focusing on visual culture at the intersection of life and art. Through explorations in film, photography, sound and language, she creates stories that provoke emotion and challenge perspectives. In addition to her personal research practice, she works across a range of contexts including editorial, commercial and fine art. In 2019, Gem launched The Messy Truth podcast, a series of candid conversations that unpack the future of visual culture and what it means to be a photographer today.Gem is a freelance writer specialising in photography, art and the creative process and how they manifest in contemporary culture. She is a Photo Director of Riposte Magazine, contributing editor of Creative Review and The September Issues and writes for publications and platforms including: It's Nice That, BJP, The Guardian, Riposte, Sleek, AnOther, Elephant and Ladybeard. She has also written essays for a variety of photo books including Flower Men by Ken Hermann and Silence by Flora Hanitijo.

Dana Lixenberg is known for her stripped-down portraits that revel in the elemental characteristics of her subjects. She uses a large-format field camera – a cumbersome tool, which necessitates what the artist refers to as a ‘slow dance’ between her and her subjects. The resulting portraits contain an enormous amount of detail and texture, and are as revelatory as a personal encounter. The power of the work arises from its intimacy, compositional rigor and, importantly, the absence of social stereotyping. Besides her extensive editorial practice she pursues long-term projects with a primary focus on marginalised communities. Lixenberg’s most extensive body of work to date is Imperial Courts, 1993-2015 (2015), which she begun in the aftermath of the 1992 Rodney King riots. Spanning 22 years, the project tracks the changing shape of an underserved community in Watts, Los Angeles. In contrast to the often one dimensional, sensationalised media coverage of this neighborhood, Lixenberg employs a more subdued and collaborative photographic approach. Like her other projects, Imperial Courts consists of a series of photographs and a publication. Dana Lixenberg lives and works in Amsterdam (NL) and New York, NY (US).

Alastair McKimm’s bold and modern aesthetic allows him to reconstruct fashion in any context. Born and raised in Northern Ireland, McKimm began his styling career in London after studying fashion design at Nottingham Art School. McKimm’s talent for creating clean, precise looks has garnered the attention of designers such as Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello, Calvin Klein, Jil Sander, The Row, Alexander Wang, and Versus Versace, who request him for their campaigns, consultations and fashion shows. Additionally, his editorial collaborations are with noted photographers such as Craig McDean, David Sims, Mario Sorrenti, Willy Vanderperre, Inez & Vinoodh, Mikael Jansson, Dan Jackson, Amy Troost and Paolo Roversi. McKimm is Editor-in-Chief of i-D. Prior to his appointment at i-D, he contributed regularly to T, The New York Times Magazine, British Vogue, Vogue Italia and Self Service.

Emma Bowkett is Director of Photography at the FT Weekend Magazine and a curator focussed on lens-based arts and contemporary visual culture. She is Associate Lecturer at UAL: University of the Arts London, and regularly participates at international workshops, portfolio reviews, festivals and awards. Emma is a visiting speaker for various photography programmes across the UK and abroad. Emma is the curator of a Financial Times special supplement and talks programme at the annual Photo London photography fair and is on the advisory board for Peckham 24, the annual festival that celebrates established and early career artists working with an expanded photographic practice. Emma is based in London, UK.

Kalpesh Lathigra, born in London, England in 1971 and studied photography at the London College of Printing. After leaving the course in 1994, he was awarded The Independent Newspaper Photographer Traineeship. Kalpesh worked for The Independent as a staff photographer for one year before freelancing for the national newspapers in the UK for 6 years covering news and features. In 2000 , he gave up working for newspapers and made the decision to work on long term projects and magazine and commercial assignments. In the same year he was awarded a 1st Arts prize in the World Press Photo. In 2003, he embarked on a project documenting the lives of Widows in India, receiving The W.Eugene Smith Fellowship and Churchill Fellowship. His first book “ Lost in the Wilderness” , a body of photographs on the Oglala Sioux and Pine Ridge Reservation was published in 2015. Noted by Sean O Hagan – The Guardian critic as one of the photo books of the year. In 2022, He published Memoire Temporelle, the first of a trilogy series exploring his South Asian heritage.

Derek Wiafe’s work champions the power and contributions of youth-led thinking to collaborative projects.Over the last year, D has written an innovative new BA course in Photography, which he now is the course leader of at the London College of Communication (UAL). There, he has pushed the possibilities of online learning by introducing ‘New Waves’; a series of live-streamed talks and workshops with key figures in photography, produced by students.Alongside Adrian Wood, he is also co-founded Content Lab, a hub designed to give creatives at LCC their first steps into the industry. Each project at the lab is a collaboration that gives students opportunities to respond to live campaign briefs from renowned brands.D continues his work in mentoring as Photofusion’s Youth Programme Manager. He developed and runs the Creator Studio and the Young Curators programme which is behind the BLK BXY JOY Exhibition (2022).

Lola Paprocka is a photographer with a practice centring on documentary imagery. Her focus is on creating work with sentimental narratives that are authentic and honest in their representation of the subject whilst retaining her personal clean and unfussy aesthetic.Lola has curated the Independent Photography Festival in London, in addition to a number of solo exhibitions and book launches. She founded and curated Palm* Studios, photo book publisher that showcases photographers and artists through creative projects, online features, exhibitions, events and book launches. It was founded in 2015. Alongside her personal practice, she also shoot as part of a photography duo with Pani Paul under the moniker Lola & Pani. This work as well as parts of her personal practice overlap into the fashion industry where they have contributed stories to magazines including The New York Times, British Vogue and i-D Magazine.