Ursulinenstraat
Laureates 2023
Laureates Lens op de Mens 2023 – POI 29
Fencing in front of the former Ursulines Convent
GPS 51.209632° NB 5.426287° OL
This outdoor exhibition is permanently accessible
Carrie Tomberlin | Gold professional photographers
Lecturer and Gallery Director Carrie Tomberlin received her MFA in photography from Clemson University and her BA in Visual Art and Creative Writing from Eckerd College. Before coming to UNC Asheville, Carrie taught photography in Seattle, WA, and prior to her teaching career, she worked with several non-profit organizations including the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. As a graduate of the liberal arts, Carrie enjoys teaching classes for the Department of Art and Art History, the Arts and Ideas Program, and the Sustainability Certificate. Outside the classroom, Carrie loves travel, photographing, hiking, cooking food from around the world, and playing support staff to a posse of llamas and her dog Arlo.
Carrie’s photographic work is regularly exhibited nationally and internationally. By visualizing consumer culture, overindulgence, and our ever-expanding technological dependency, she asks the viewer to consider how our actions impact each other and the natural world. In addition to her solo work, she and fellow artist, Eric Tomberlin, have been working on a long-term collaborative project on sea level rise in Bangladesh.
About her exhibited photos:
Long touted as a climate haven, Western North Carolina, USA experienced the unimaginable in late September 2024. Over the course of two days, the area received 12 to 30 inches of rain followed by wind speeds of 40 – 100 mph as Hurricane Helene came 500 miles inland from its first landfall in Florida. The impacts of the storm were catastrophic. Homes, cars, roads, bridges, trees, and entire communities were swept away by raging rivers, streams and over 2,000 landslides. Damage to infrastructure cut power, internet, and cellular service for days, hindering rescue efforts and leaving families with no way to find one another. In North Carolina, 106 people lost their lives with an additional 113 deaths across the southeast. As is the case in many disasters, those with the least means were hardest hit. Scientists called Helene a “once in 100 year flood,” with damage far surpassing the historic flood of 1916, but with the acceleration of climate change, can we be sure of anything?
Though the tragedy and damage were apocalyptic in scale, the outpouring of support from people across the country and the many ways residents of Western North Carolina came together have also been monumental. In rebuilding, we need to plan for the unprecedented, creating a more resilient and sustainable infrastructure, and looking for long term solutions for adapting to the challenges that climate change is on only just beginning to manifest.
Manuel Armenis | Silver professional photographers
Manuel Armenis is a street and fine-art photographer based in Hamburg, Germany. He was born in Mannheim (Germany) in 1971.
Strongly influenced by a filmmaking background the emphasis of his work is the realization of long-term projects with a focus on exploring the human condition in everyday urban environments.
His projects offer intimate views of ordinary spaces, examining traces of everyday life in fleeting moments and situations. His work touches on ideas of belonging, isolation, change and disconnect.
His work has been exhibited and published internationally.
Manuel began his study of photography at the Icart, École de Photographie in Paris, France. He is a graduate of the University of the Arts in London, England, with a BA in filmmaking.
Raf Willems | Brons professionele fotografen
Raf Willems is a Belgian photographer with 28 years of experience in advertising, portrait, lifestyle and aerial photography. After having worked and lived in Belgium, South Africa and Brazil, Raf is currently based in the
USA, since 2017.
Raf is a valued member of the Los Angeles Art Association and a Juror for the Emmy Awards at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Pacific Southwest Chapter. His work has been exhibited all over the world, and his images have been awarded by the Florida Museum of Photographic Art, International Color Awards, Miami Art Week, One Eye Land, Texas Photographic Society, Siena International Photography Awards, Fotofestival Pelt, Beverly Hills Art Show, and many more.
His exhibited series of 5 portraits was shot in the studio in Brazil.
Greet Urkens | Gold amateur photographers
Hi, I’m Greet. Been travelling for about 15 years with a small group of like-minded souls to very beautiful places all over the world. We mainly look for countries where we can still visit authentic populations. Villages that are still real and not overrun by many
tourists. Places where not only our money counts, but also their curiosity to meet us.
They are fascinating places but not always comfortable and easy to travel. Of the luxuries so normal for us, there is usually none at all here. Hotels are generally few and far between, so camping is necessary.
But all this is dwarfed by what you can experience and see there. From rituals to ceremonies, even their daily activities, are often difficult for us to understand.
My photos are not studio shots with models, but simply people living in the villages in their natural environment.
My series was photographed among the Mundari people in South Sudan.
Michèle De Meersman | Silver amateur photographers
The love for photography was instilled in me thanks to my father who worked as a photographer in the Ostend Navy. About 15 years ago, I started my photography story with the purchase of an SLR camera and followed a course to fully master it. The many hours at CVO De Verdieping in Heusden-Zolder gave me deeper insights and further strengthened my passion.
Reportage photography is close to my heart. This challenging and exciting form of photography allows me to tell stories with images, without staging or manipulating situations. I capture people as they really are, in pure and unforced moments. It’s all about showing what is really happening, with an eye for emotions, atmosphere and details.
The Hadzabe – Tanzania’s last hunters-gatherers
One particular project that I am happy to share is a series of photos taken during a visit to the Hadzabe people in northern Tanzania.
Eddy Verloes | Bronze amateur photographers
Eddy Verloes is a Germanist and photographer. He has published six books of photographs and poems, some of them with music accompanying them: No Time to Forlorn (2015), Cuba libre (2016), Zeezuchten (2020) with poems by Anne Meerbergen, Out of Senses/Losing Our Minds (2021) with poems by Benno Barnard and music by The River curls around the town and Aardelingen (2022) with poems by Geert Jan Beeckman and music by Jef Neve. January 2025 saw the publication of Donker je wolken: based on photos by Eddy Verloes, poet Geert Jan Beeckman wrote poems that were subsequently set to music by Belgian band River Time. At the end of 2025, his seventh book will be published: Of everything the last with poems by Elise Vos.
As a photographer, Eddy Verloes wants to tell a story with attention to detail. From his soul, not from the camera. Some form of humour and suggestion are never far away. The renowned American website All About Photo counts him among the best contemporary photographers in the world. Among other awards, he won the prestigious Travel Photographer of the Year 2020 Award (People of the World) and the Pangea Prize Siena Creative Photo Award 2021 (Open Theme) with his photos of Hasidic Jews on a Belgian beach that brought him name and fame and were exhibited all over the world. He received the 2022 One Shot Contest Award, a prize that honours the most exceptional photographers of our contemporary era, and in the same year he was also Photographer of the Year of the 17th Black & White Spider Awards in Beverly Hills (US). Because he won the Silver Medal in the PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris in 2023, he was selected for the International Photography Festival at the Expo Centre Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in 2024. In 2024 in the US, he was the winner of the World Photo Annual Refocus Award (Film/Analog) and immediately the “Discovery of the Year”.
In 2026, Eddy Verloes’ photographs enter into dialogue with the works of Ostend artist Léon Spilliaert and ten well-known domestic and foreign artists, including Dirk Braeckman, Luc Tuymans, Michael Borremans, Berlinde De Bruyckere and Hans Op de Beeck.
Hanna Neret | Creativity Award
Hanna Neret is a photographer and photo artist who particularly loves children’s and family photos and creative portraits – preferably with a good dose of Photoshop magic. She has been a winner in numerous competitions, both in the Swedish Photography Championship and several international competitions. She is based in Stockholm.
The Swedish photographer is no stranger to Pelt. One of the photos she sent in in 2021 could be admired in large format against the façade of the primary school in Rodenbachlaan. The sliding puzzle in the playground of ‘t Pelterke has also been made twice with a photo by Hanna Neret.
Hanna Neret is also one of our guest photographers of edition 2025. You can admire her series Mind Mattters in the B-Block at CC Palethe.
Raïs De Weirdt | Promising Young Photographer Award
Raïs is a destination wedding and elopement photographer from Belgium.
For six months of the year, she captures weddings across the globe; for the other six, she travels the world, fueled by a love for adventure. Her creativity has gifted her the freedom to live beyond borders. She has photographed over 200 weddings worldwide, been published internationally, and won over 100 photography awards.
Raïs also serves as a jury member, keynote speaker, guest writer, and board member of the Belgian photographers’ association.
www.raisdeweirdt.com
@raisdeweirdtdiaries
@raisdeweirdtwedding
Ivan Put | Humour Award
Born in Limburg as a son of a miner, Ivan Put (1971) moved to Brussels. He studied Political and Social Sciences at KU Leuven. And an additional year of Etudes de Développement at The UCL Louvain-la-Neuve. At the end of his university studies, he started studying Photography at the Academy in Leuven and shooting for the student newspaper Veto. After his studies, he moved to Brussels. He worked as photo editor for De Standaard while he started freelancing as a photographer for Bruzz, De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad, among others…
Brussels has always been an obvious interest for him as a photographer. He walks and cycles through the city and photographs the city in all its facets.
Ivan Put would like to become the town photographer of Brussels.
www.ivanput.be | instagram ivan.put.5
About his series of photos:
August Put, my father, worked 700 metres deep underground so that I could continue my studies. He shone numerous times on the amateur stage. From his descents in the mine, he occasionally brought out fossils with prints of ferns and with shiny pyrite in them. I felt like royalty with that brilliant fake gold.
In late 2023, he started having difficulty watching TV and reading his newspaper. A tumour in the brain was diagnosed. Surgery and radiation followed. With no results.
15 January 2024, my father died surrounded by much warmth at home. Rest in peace dad. Luv you, miss you.
