“More than 117 million individuals have been forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations. We are now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record.”

— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, June 2025

“Borders & Boundaries” serves as the chosen theme for this 2026 edition of a long-running, annual, collaborative exhibition of work by a cross-section of Nordic photography students. This collection features emerging picture-makers from Finland, Iceland, and Sweden. Their contributions take the form of triptychs, some in black & white but most in color. And it’s worth noting that, for the first time, taking advantage of what internet technology enables, all of this year’s entries include audiofiles in which the participants talk about their work, personalizing it even further. The dividing lines with which they engage in their images include those between male and female, life and death, human and animal, private and social, safety and danger, anxiety and security, the natural and the man-made, the born and the unborn, even the earthly and the celestial.