Malte Brandenburg’s series STACKED focuses on post-war housing estates in Berlin, capturing them in images characterized by a minimalist, symmetrical aesthetics.

Usually indistinguishable from the urban landscape which they are part of, these tower blocks are rarely accentuated for their architectural qualities, but have rather come to be associated with economic and social burdens, in spite of initially being built to provide modern and affordable housing for middle class families.

By isolating the buildings from their surroundings and presenting them from a frontal perspective, Brandenburg shifts emphasis from their social to their formal aspects and individuality. The resulting images, with their linear focus and interplay of colour and surface are reminiscent of the modern, formalist painting of the mid 20th Century.

The name of the series refers to the particular mode of living offered by the tower block, in which people live ”stacked” above and below one another. At first sight the flat, uniform facades of these buildings do not betray much about the lives unfolding within. However, upon closer scrutiny irregularities of the surfaces emerge in the form of satellite dishes, flower boxes and differently coloured blinds, carrying small fragments of information about the inhabitants.

Naja Utzon Popov (born 1973, Copenhagen) is a Danish sculptor, textile designer and ceramicist based in the old Burmeister & Wein shipyard in Copenhagen.

Her creative genes are inherited from her grandfather Jørn Utzon, a Danish architect most notable for designing the iconic Sydney Opera House in Australia. Her mother, Lin Utzon, is a Danish artist as well and her father, Alex Popov, an acclaimed Australian architect.

Her childhood years in Denmark have always been an important source of inspiration for her work, as have the years she spent in Australia, where she studied painting, etching and drawing at the Julian Ashton Art School. After moving to England, Utzon Popov continued her formal artistic training at the University of Westminster (2002) School of Media Arts and Design.

Pauline Ballet (born 1988)

Pauline Ballet’s photograph work is delicate and poetic. Porous and strong at the same time. It is a contrast full artistic portrait of the Argentinian culture and land. The young artist´s use of colors is outspoken. They become almost neon and dramatically surreal in contras to the black background – the night sky. Ballet uses the darkness extensively in her artwork to portray the apparent beautiful and simple we all see each day of our lives. At the same time there is a feeling of intimacy to it referring to the existence of human life.

Ballet´s latest series Fantasias Argentinas was realized as part of a recidency at La Escuela Fotografía de Argentina in Buenos Aires in 2012.

Pauline Ballet holds a degree in literature and as well as a diploma from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieur de la Photographie d’Arles (2009). She has held numerous exhibitions, including Hopeless Romantic, Paris in 2014, muestra fotográfica “Miradas Cruzadas “, 2013, Rencontres, A french School, 2012, Explorations, Galerie Detaille, 2011.

Mathias Juel Christensen (b. 1982) is educated architect from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools in 2009 and has distinguished himself as both architect and photographer with various first and 2 prices in competitions in both disciplines. His photographic art is characterized by a raw simplicity and a strong architectural eye for lines and systems in his motives. He is especially known for his images of urban spaces – in Copenhagen, New York, Detroit or Shanghai – and to capture the beauty in the ugly in his work.

Martina Hoogland Ivanow (b.1973) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. She holds a BA in Fine Art, Major in Photography, from Parsons School of Design in both Paris and New York. Hoogland Ivanow has shown work in most of Europe and the US, and her work, which includes her award-winning photo series, Satellite, is to be found in major collections as V & A in London and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

This is how Martina Hoogland Ivanow describes her award-winning photo series, Satellite, exhibited in In The Gallery from 26th October to 22nd December ’12:

“Satellite deals primarily with questions and thoughts about alienation and community, but I also see the project as a reason to investigate a seemingly ever-growing phenomenon, or perhaps partly a growing need among young people to seek out other options of living.”