FUTURES talents 2026
The Capa Center selected five young photographers, who can represent the Hungarian photography and the Capa Center in the FUTURES – European Photography Platform in 2025.
Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, Futures is a platform focused on amplifying emerging talents in photography in Europe. The FUTURES Photography Platform has been granted Creative Europe funding to extend its programme until 2028. In the coming years, FUTURES will launch and promote a plurality of activities aimed at driving innovation, inclusivity and sustainability.
The current members of the platform are CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia (IT), Centre Photographique Rouen Normandie (FR), Copenhagen Photo Festival (DK), Triennial of Photography Hamburg (DE), Der Greif (DE), FOMU (BE), FOTODOK (NL), Fotofestiwal Lodz (PL), Fotogalleriet (NO), Fotograf Magazine (CZ), Organ Vida (HR), ISSP (LV), PhotoIreland (IE), Photo Romania Festival (RO), Bienal Fotografia do Porto (PT), Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (HU), Void (GR), Photoforum Pasquart (CH), Photo Elysée (CH), and Centre de la photographie Genève (CH), Tblisi Photo Festival (GE), Odessa Photo Days (UA) and a research member, Eurokleis s.r.l. (IT).
Members of the Capa Center x FUTURES 2025 professional jury:
Katalin Kopin,
curator of the Capa Center
Emese Mucsi,
curator of the Capa Center
Zsófia Rechnitzer,
artistic director of TORULA, owner of the Rechnitzer Gallery
Dániel Szalai,
photographer, visual artist, doctoral student at MOME, FUTURES Talent2020
István Virágvölgyi,
artistic director of the Capa Center
The FUTURES talents of Capa Center in 2026
Ákos Levente | akos.levente
Ákos Levente is a Budapest-based visual artist. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in photography in Hungary at MATE Rippl-Rónai Institute of Art (Kaposvár) and at Budapest Metropolitan University. He spent one semester at the Brno University of Technology, Studio of Photography. Since 2020 he has been a member of DRUKKER Community Letterpress and since 2021 a member of the Studio of Young Photographers. He is actively involved in the professional community work and in the organization of different photography-centered workshops and camps. His interests are centered on DIY and alternative photographic approaches, with a particular focus on environmentally conscious and sustainable practices. His long-term goal is to build his autonomous practice around these principles and to establish a creative community based on a similar mindset.
In his practice, Ákos Levente repositions analog photography in relation to 21st-century image-making processes and the contemporary media environment. Applied photography continues to rely predominantly on the visual language of analog (film-based) photography. In this field—prior to the emergence of freely accessible, AI-based image generators—digitalization primarily brought about significant change through the acceleration of image processing and publication. For photojournalists this shift has been a crucial factor, while contemporary artists, by contrast, often return in their creative processes to the distinctive aesthetics of analog image-making and to the intellectually productive slowness of its workflow. The use of analog techniques frequently remains on the level of stylistic exercises; in Ákos Levente’s work, however, analog processes are not employed merely for the experiential appeal of film development, but are consistently examined in relation to their connections with contemporary culture. In his project BIOLABOR, ethical questions of social responsibility, sustainability, and environmental awareness emerge through the images themselves, the materials used, the experimentally developed processes, and a manifesto. In another project, IN MEMORIAM D UEDD UDD (2022–2023), the photo album becomes a tool of authentication, drawing attention to the ways in which images generated by artificial intelligence can “infect” archival structures and, depending on context, begin to function as credible memories. His biography reveals active engagement in community-based, knowledge-sharing contexts (DRUKKER Community Printing Workshop, Studio of Young Photographers, Creative Camp Kővágóörs), as well as a deep and practical relationship with large-scale photographic archives through his work at the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. Together, these experiences may serve as a rich source of inspiration for his future autonomous photographic practice.
Emese Mucsi,
curator of the Capa Center
Vanessa Lucrezia Francia | vanessafranciaph
Vanessa Lucrezia Francia (1994) is an Italian-Hungarian photographer who works in fashion and advertising. Her multicultural background has influenced her artistic work over the years, developing a particular focus on familiar and intimate environments, pursuing research to understand how cultural differences and intergenerational gaps can shape and reshape relationships and personalities. a Through archival research and newly created images, she constructs puzzle of stories and interactions between past and present, with an ironic component. In October 2024, she was exhibited at the NARNIIMMAGINARIA International Photography Festival with her project “Home is where your heart beats the fastest”. In 2024/5, she attended the PHmuseum’s CURAE masterclass with Erik Kessels, during which she developed her latest project “MANUAL OF HOW TO BECOME A GOOD GIRL-from 1 to 30 with zero expectations”, selected for Phest Opencall 2025 and the Perimetro Awards 2025 by the editorial staff and published in Elle Italia.
Using the photographic medium in a reflective, sensitive and refreshingly playful way, Vanessa Lucrezia Francia explores issues of identity, female roles and the peculiarities of intergenerational and intercultural relationships. Although her work is almost always personal in origin, her series explore issues that affect broad sections of society, addressing current topics in an accessible manner and inviting viewers to discover more. Her work is characterised by a subtle blend of vernacular archival photographs and images created as part of a conscious creative practice, as well as the occasional physical or digital manipulation of images. She portrays her subjects with dignity and, according to her creative statement, with love. However, no matter how accepting her gaze may be, her images reveal a keen awareness, as evidenced by the frequent self criticism and humour present in her mature, consistent yet spontaneous visual world. Her progressive outlook and articulate political and social commitment are evident; yet, thanks to her ironic gestures and visual language, her works do not weigh heavily on the viewer. Perhaps the layered and complex nature of her work stems from her own background, including her Italian-Hungarian roots, her parallel careers as a fashion photographer and artist, and her access to the social experiences of both millennials and Generation Z. Her commitment, desire for continuous development and experimental photographic approach promise an exciting artistic career.
Dániel Szalai,
photographer, visual artist, doctoral student at MOME, FUTURES Talent 2020
Anna Kereszty | annakereszty
Anna Kereszty (b. 1997) is a Hungarian photographer who graduated from École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in 2025. Her work weaves past and present into intimate visual essays that explore memory and time. Born in Budapest but having lived abroad for many years, she has the impression of moving between two parallel realities—one grounded in the present, and the other shaped by nostalgia, memory, and echoes of a past. This duality informs her research driven practice, which examines how personal and historical narratives overlap, blur, and transform one another. She often incorporates archival photographs and uses associations, visual parallels, and a literary approach in her creative process. She currently lives and works between Paris and Budapest.
The central focus of Anna Kereszty’s photographic work lies in narrative image-making. In her research-based series, stories unfold at the border between reality and fiction, where observation, voyeuristic elements, and a pseudo-documentary attitude coexist. Her lyrical series often evoke historical periods and figures, while deliberately unsettling the viewer regarding the boundaries between documentation and fiction. In her project Adrian Alcott, family history, archival material, and fiction intertwine through the figure of a observed neighbor, reflecting on the psychology of observation and questions of authenticity. In the series Sky Meets Water, a personal, multi-generational family space at Lake Balaton becomes a vessel of memory and timelessness, where private archives, the spirit of place, and the gestures of storytelling connect past and present. Kereszty’s work consistently explores how stories emerge between and behind images, and how photography becomes a tool for navigating the space between reality and imagination, present and past.
Zsófia Rechnitzer,
artistic director of TORULA, owner of the Rechnitzer Gallery
Emma Szabó | emmaxszabo
Emma Szabó (b. 1995, Budapest) is a contemporary photographer whose work focuses on identity exploration and human portraits. She graduated from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Photography in 2023 and is expected to complete her master’s degree in 2026. Her personal experiences, including early motherhood, shape and inspire her visual world; her work is authentic, self-reflective, demonstrates a distinctive artistic vision, and is committed to long-term projects. Her first photo book, EXIT, was featured multiple times at PolyCopies and the UNSEEN Photography Fair. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally and was the first recipient of the MOME Photography Succession Award. In 2022, she received a scholarship from the Association of Hungarian Photographers; in 2023, she won the 1st Prize in the Different Worlds international photography competition; and in 2024, she received the Budapest Photography Scholarship. Since 2024, she has been aof the Young Photographers’ Studio. Her images have appeared in Punkt, Index, Artnews, ZEIT, and SEE-ZEEN magazines. Emma’s portfolio is consistent, highquality, and professionally credible, continuously engaging with both personal and societal issues through her lens.
Emma Szabó is one of the promising and sensitive authors of the younger generation of photographers, who approaches contemporary social issues with an analytical perspective. Winning the 2024 Budapest Photography Scholarship and the MOME Photography Travel Award both prove that her work goes beyond mere documentation; she is able to depict the isolation and identity search of generations Z and Alpha with intimacy. Her creative attitude also has international potential because she expresses universal anxieties and generational feelings through local contexts, and her visual language is free from clichés, raw and honest. Emma Szabó’s presence on the Futures platform is a guarantee that one of the newest, most relevant voices of Hungarian contemporary photography will have the opportunity to make an international debut.
István Virágvölgyi,
artistic director of the Capa Center
Emese Tóthova | mse_t
Emese Tóthová (1997) was born in Slovakia and currently lives and works in Paris and Budapest. She graduated in 2022 with a BA in Photography from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, and in 2024 pursued her Master’s at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Since 2019 she is a member of the Studio of Young Photographers. She held her first solo exhibition at the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center in 2024.
Emese Tóthová’s practice is grounded in the experience of liminality: in the suspended states between childhood and adulthood, separation and connection, inherited pasts and preparation for the future. Within her photographic practice, personal space, family memory, and the dreamlike impressions formed through travel become sites of inquiry, where the image functions not merely as a document but also as a tool for self-reflection. Her photographs render visible questions of absence, silence, and emotional attachment through a sensitive, poetic, and performative approach. In Tóthová’s work, childhood appears not as a closed chapter of the past but as a continuously reinterpreted foundation of becoming an adult, while the possibility of motherhood, the sense of destiny bound to her name, and the dilemmas of responsibility grow increasingly pronounced. Drawing on experiences across diverse cultural contexts, as well as literary and cinematic inspirations, she develops a visual language that reflects on the uncertainties of contemporary existence through personal memory, while consistently seeking the possibility of an authentic artistic presence.
Katalin Kopin,
curator of the Capa Center
