Paris Photo, Picto Foundation, and SNCF Gares & Connexions are partnering for the 8th year to develop a platform for discovery, visibility, exchange, and meetings aimed at young talents. Launched in 2017, the Carte Blanche Students program is designed for bachelor’s and master’s students from European photography and visual arts schools, aiming to foster emerging talent and encourage creativity and energy.

The projects of the four selected students, chosen from over 100 European schools, will be showcased at the Paris Photo fair from November 7 to 10, 2024, in a dedicated space where they will engage with the public. Additionally, an exhibition will be held at the forecourt of Paris Gare de Lyon from October 28 to November 30, 2024.

This project is supported by Hahnemühle, La Saïf, and La Copie Privée.

Joel Jimenez Jara
'Castle of innocence'
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) - Master

"'Castle of Innocence' delves into the Children’s Museum of Costa Rica, an imaginative educational space for children featuring ludic scenarios; set against its historical backdrop as the former central prison.

Drawing from archival material of the prison era and diverse elements from the museum, the project challenges the influence of power structures in shaping historical narratives and questions the authenticity of photography as a truthful document.

Both the prison and the museum serve as institutions to encapsulate physical and symbolic representations of collective identities. The project intertwines these spaces in a nonlinear narrative, confronting the echoes of trauma and violence from the building’s prison history with the imaginative environments of the museum.

Due to the secretive and foreboding nature of the prison, gaps and missing information emerge, leading to a retelling where stories blend factual details and myths, blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction.

Similarly, the Children’s Museum employs storytelling and imagination to educate on various themes, including historical events such as the prison’s past through replicas of different prison cells.

These parallels prompt reflection on the complex interplay of tensions, repetitions, and contradictions in the dissemination of knowledge, history, cultural heritage, and collective memory.

Simultaneously, it offers an exploration of the liminal space between protection and control, particularly relevant in our contemporary post-truth era."


Anna Jocham
'Every cloud has a silver lining'
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Germany) - Master

"The project “Every Cloud has a silver lining” was created in 2024 and shows fragmented everyday situations, photographed in analog form, printed on paper, scanned several times, enlarged and moved during the scanning process. The multiple scanning creates image errors that transform into a grid in the image. Not all areas become a grid; some are inscribed 1:1 in the image. The photographs are printed on Hahnemühle Baryta FB paper and come in various sizes. Some are framed in gray wooden frames with UV 70 glass and spacer frames, others would be presented as prints on the wall."

Toma Gerzha
'Control Refresh'
Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Netherlands) - Licence

"Control Refresh is the result of my research into the impact of political events on young people within a number of post-Soviet countries. Over the past three years I visited teenagers in remote cities in Russia and Eastern Europe. I made an extensive collection of photos of youngsters who shared their vulnerability with me, who joined me in their boredom and who told me about their dreams. The lives of these young people are strongly influenced by traditions, social media and politics.

In 2021, I made my first major photography trip across Russia. I contacted teenagers in small towns through social media and spent days (and sometimes weeks) with them. I documented their lives and surroundings with my camera. Took notes and wrote down their stories. My project was interrupted by the Russian invasion in Ukraine in 2022. I decided to include the change within my research and continued to visit my protagonists regularly.

By the end of 2023, I had built up a collection of stories of youngsters in Eastern Europe, recording how their lives and choices are affected by political decisions in their countries. Without realising it, I created a time document of my own. In it, I record how a free country closes itself off from the world within a short time and how its inhabitants try to adapt to the changes.

While Control Refresh was being made, the war in Ukraine started, forcing me to freeze it. I wanted to expand the series, but it was hard for me morally to overcome myself and return to Russia in 2022. New technologies became a way to get over myself and prepare myself for this trip. I used my documentary photographs from 2021 to create a database on the basis of which Artificial Intelligence programme worked. Using this machine, I began to mix my own photographs together, indicating which details I wanted to take from each image.

AI helped me not to stagnate and continue my journalistic work, in 2022 I returned to Russia and continued to capture my (real) main characters.




Alice Poyzer
'Other joy'
University of the West of England (United Kingdom) - Master

"Other Joys is a body of work that explores the intense elation and enthusiasm of special interests, which are deep obsessions often found in people with autism. The images featured represent items or subjects that I, an autistic individual, love and cherish.

The feeling that surrounds one's special interests is almost indescribable.

This heavy sensation of warmth, delight and intense excitement is something that many in the autistic community can understand, especially when given any opportunity to discuss or be around their own special interest. I wanted to make this body of work as a way to communicate that feeling.

Other Joys is a mixture of self-portraits and constructed imagery. This ongoing body of work not only captures subjects that bring immense joy but has now begun to act as its own source of joy. Whilst I move forward with this project, I have gained a better understanding of my own autism - and the process of making these photographs has given me more confidence in passions that others may deem different, weird and unusual."