ROGER BALLEN is one of the most important photographers of his generation. He has published over twenty-five books, and his photographs are collected by some of the most prominent museums in the world. His oeuvre, which spans five decades, began with the documentary photography field but evolved into the creation of distinctive fictionalized realms that also integrate the mediums of film, installation, theatre, sculpture, painting, and drawing. commonly referred to as Ballenesque. Ballen has also been the creator of several acclaimed and exhibited short films that dovetail with his photographic series. Ballen was one of the artists that represented South African at the Venice Biennale Arte 2022.
GABRIELE TINTI is an Italian poet and writer. He has worked with the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the British Museum (among many other institutions), and his poems have been performed by actors including Abel Ferrara, Willem Dafoe and Kevin Spacey. His work is focused on the theme of death and suffering and is mostly composed in the form of ekphrastic and epigrammatic poetry. In 2018 his ekphrastic poetry project Ruins was awarded the Premio Montale with a ceremony at the Museo Nazionale Romano in Palazzo Altemps.