Gomma Photography Grant 2025
Breathlessness - Europe's Changing Borders
Photographer
Roland Schmid
Breathlessness - Europe's Changing Borders
14 Feb, 2026
A photographical investigation along shifting borders in Europe and beyond. In 2014, with Russia's occupation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, and especially since Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine in 2022, the ideological divides between the Western and Russian spheres of influence have deepened. Since then, some borders in Europe have been forcibly shifted, others closed or made more impermeable, from areas north of the Arctic Circle down to the south to the Black Sea and the Caucasus. Countries such as Georgia and Moldova are ideologically contested, with uncertain outcomes. Parts of this vast region behind the former Iron Curtain have never found peace – just think of the endless conflicts in the former Soviet Union: in Ukraine and the Caucasus countries, borders are still being shifted today without any consideration for the population, and the borders of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia are also volatile. „Breathlessness – Europe's Changing Borders“ aims to show understanding for people who have to deal with changing borders and thus their living realities, while at the same time highlighting the impact that big politics has on ordinary people, an aspect that runs through most of my photographic work.
About the photographer
Roland Schmid
Roland Schmid (born 1966) is a photographer born in Basel, Switzerland. He studied Slavic languages, art history and history at the University of Basel. However, his main interest has always been photography, so he dropped out of university and did an apprenticeship as a photographer with Hugo Jaeggi. Since then, he has been working as a freelance photographer for national and international newspapers, magazines and organisations. For almost 40 years, Roland Schmid has been working on topics related to the transformation of former Eastern Bloc countries, and for 26 years on a project about the consequences of the Vietnam War. His work mostly focuses on socio-political issues and the consequences of war. In 1992/93, he headed the branch office of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2007 and 2008, Roland Schmid was artist in residence at the Association Gwin Zegal in Brittany, France. He has won several prestigious awards, including a World Press Photo Award (2021) and several Swiss Press Photo Awards. Schmid has had solo exhibitions at the Nikon Gallery Tokyo, Centre d'art Gwin Zegal, Guingamp, the Klingental exhibition space in Basel, the Fons Gallery in Pardubice and the Fotobastei Zurich, among others. His work has also been shown at the Tbilisi Photo Festival and Images Vevey. Roland Schmid is a member of the 13Photo agency in Zurich.
