Echoes from the North: Creative Journeys is a curatorial and cultural collaboration between Bucharest Photofest and artists, institutions, and partners from Nordic countries. The project brings a multifaceted Nordic presence to Bucharest through exhibitions, screenings, artist talks, workshops, and a newly introduced mentorship program — all contributing to the festival’s 10th anniversary edition. This initiative aims to build sustainable cultural bridges between North and East, encouraging critical thinking, artistic innovation, and cross-border exchange.

It explores themes of identity, environment, memory, and belonging, offering audiences in Romania a deep dive into the richness and complexity of contemporary Nordic visual culture.

All exhibitions will be accompanied by curated guided tours, public conversations, and satellite events designed to foster engagement and interdisciplinary dialogue.

Highlights of the 2025 Edition

• Nordic Blue
  A powerful photography exhibition by Italian-Danish photographer Luca Berti, tracing the timeless relationship between people and nature across Denmark, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Shot entirely on medium-format analog film, the project captures rural and urban life with a strong sense of dignity, stillness, and respect for cultural continuity.

This exhibition is presented in partnership with Juhan Kuus Dokfoto Keskus (Tallinn), the Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest, and the Embassy of Estonia. It will be hosted in a landmark public venue in Bucharest.

→ About the artist: Luca Berti’s body of work documents disappearing traditions, landscapes, and human gestures with poetic realism. His long-term projects across Europe have been exhibited in museums and cultural centers in over 15 countries.

• Life on the Edge
  A gripping documentary film exploring mental health, resilience, and community structures in Greenland, created by a team of Nordic filmmakers with direct access to remote Arctic settlements. Through intimate interviews and breathtaking cinematography, the film unveils the layered complexities of life in one of the world’s most isolated territories.

Following the screening, the filmmakers will join a panel conversation with Romanian psychologists and educators working on youth mental health and marginalization.

• Visual Storytelling with Mats Grorud
  We are proud to welcome acclaimed Norwegian animation director and filmmaker Mats Grorud, whose unique approach blends animation, oral history, and documentary realism. Grorud, best known for his award-winning animated feature The Tower (2018), has worked extensively in conflict zones, refugee camps, and border communities — often building narratives rooted in memory, displacement, and generational trauma.

At Bucharest Photofest, he will lead a creative workshop and screening program, as well as present elements from his current research-based visual project that delves into archival material and unreleased testimonies.

→ About the artist: Mats Grorud is a multi-award-winning director whose work has been shown at Annecy International Animation Festival, Karlovy Vary, and IDFA, among many others. His films are characterized by an emotionally nuanced, human-centered approach, often combining mixed media, drawings, and real-life testimonies to explore exile, resistance, and belonging.

• Analog Explorations with Nathalie Ericsson
  Swedish photographer Nathalie Ericsson brings a highly personal exhibition focused on analog processes, poetic memory, and the emotional landscapes of solitude. Ericsson’s visual narratives often unfold through diptychs and contact sheets, revealing what lies between presence and absence, exposure and silence.

She will also hold an artist talk around materiality in photography and analog resistance in a digital era.

→ About the artist: Based in Gothenburg, Nathalie Ericsson works primarily with 35mm and medium format film. Her work has been shown in galleries across Sweden, the UK, and the Netherlands, and she is a frequent lecturer on experimental analog methods.

• Icelandic Group Exhibitions

  Is this North?
  Curated by Darí́a Sól Andrews and Hlynur Hallsson, this interdisciplinary exhibition challenges the perception of “northernness” by featuring artists working from Iceland, Greenland, Sápmi (Sami lands), Alaska, and Siberia. The show addresses questions of colonization, identity, myth, and memory through installations, photo-text pieces, and audiovisual material.

  Weathered
  A group exhibition by FÍSL – The Icelandic Contemporary Photography Association, this show brings together photographers who explore ecology, transience, and post-human presence in the Icelandic and Arctic landscapes. Works range from large-format photography to conceptual series examining the passage of time, erosion, and renewal.

• Mentorship & Portfolio Review with Deack CK Cox

Also, mentorship and portfolio review program led by photojournalist and educator Deack CK Cox (Sweden / USA).

This program provides selected photographers with in-depth portfolio critiques, guidance on project development, and conversations about ethics, authorship, and career pathways in contemporary visual storytelling. It is designed to support photographers working in documentary, conceptual, or hybrid formats, with a strong focus on personal voice and cultural context.

→ About the mentor: Deack CK Cox is an internationally published photojournalist and educator with over two decades of experience across conflict zones, social movements, and environmental crises. His teaching practice spans institutions in Sweden, the US, Hong Kong, and more, where he focuses on narrative structure, ethics, and sustainable photographic practices.

Echoes from the North: Creative Journeys is more than a showcase of Nordic visual culture — it is a platform for artistic encounter, mutual listening, and future-oriented collaboration. Together, these exhibitions, films, and conversations invite audiences to reconsider what “the North” means — geographically, politically, and poetically — in a time of global flux.