Alexandra Litaker
Artist- Iceland / United States. Her work involves the body in relation to witnessed /read experience. It is a moving act of translating as transformation and involves exploring the parameters of the autobiographical in acts of understanding through creating. Her practice is grounded in my experience of movement and migration and motivated by a desire to explore relationships between place /ecology and identity.

Annikki Wahlöö
is an actress and performative artist. Her background is within theatre, a field she started to work 25 years ago. The last 15 years she has been working more and more with experimental projects and within a more multidisciplinary field, with dancers, choreographers, musicians and visual artists.. She has been doing site specific, human specific, immersive, performative work. She has been in projects in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Italy and in the USA. In small and large scale productions from one to one to large scale.

Anthony Luvera is an Australian artist, writer and educator based in London. His photographic work has been exhibited widely in galleries, public spaces and festivals including the British Museum, London Underground’s Art on the Underground, National Portrait Gallery London, Belfast Exposed Photography, Australian Centre for Photography, PhotoIreland and Les Rencontres D’Arles Photographie. His writing appears regularly in a wide range of periodicals and peer-reviewed journals including Photoworks, Source and Photographies. Anthony is Course Director of BA (Hons) Photography at Coventry University, and has lectured for institutions such as Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London College of Communication, University for the Creative Arts Farnham and University College Falmouth. He also facilitates workshops and gives lectures for the public education programmes of the National Portrait Gallery, The Photographers’ Gallery, Barbican Art Gallery and community photography projects across the UK.

Beatriz Lozano was born in Trenton, New Jersey. She is an artist who works as an office manager, graphic designer and gallery assistant at Espacio Ronda cultural centre in Madrid.  She graduated from an Arts High School at IES Ramiro de Maeztu in Madrid, has a BA in Fine Art from Universidad Complutense in Madrid and a MA in Studio Art from the College of New Rochelle in New York State. She hass participated in several collective art exhibitions in Madrid, New Rochelle (USA), New York City and Nagoya (Japan). Her training as an artist has been mainly academic and her work is figurative. Her favourite mediums are painting and drawing. Her work is based on photographs and notes she takes and it revolves around the ideas of wandering, seeking, observation, and contemplation, by reflecting upon the idea of space and people’s surroundings, acting as metaphors for human connection, loneliness and longing. She is interested in how art and creativity, besides being tools for self-expression, can also contribute to the betterment of society. With that motivation she recently attended the Drawing and Cognition International Symposium in London.

Catherine Dormor is an artist, research and lecturer at Middlesex University, UK.  Her background is in textile as a mode of thinking-through-practice, building upon the materiality, language and processes of textile production.  She exhibits internationally and has works in private and public collections. Her forthcoming text, A Philosophy of Textile: between practice and theory (Bloomsbury) explores the textile-based processes of seaming, fraying and folding alongside textile behaviours, namely shimmering, viscosity and caressing as a means by which to position and locate textile practice in contemporary culture.

Cecilia Runesson is an MA student in Contemporary Performative Arts, Academy for Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg. She is a member and co-funder of ForceMajeure since 1997 and HYPERLINK. Cecilia was educated at Nordisk Teaterskole in Århus, 94-97, at Teatro LOT, Lima, Peru and at Lee Strasberg Studio, London, 89-91.

Disa Kamula is an independent theatre and drama researcher, theatre director, dramaturge, teacher and performer. She graduated as Master of Arts from the University of Tampere 2007 majoring in theatre and drama research. Her practice based research interests lie in listening, Japanese theatre training methods and improvisational compositions. Recently she has also been working with audience development work in theatre and contemporary dance. She is the founder of a Finnish art collective called Jotain Odottamatonta (Something Unexpected) and she is currently the chair of this artist association that develops artistic events, organizes workshops and makes research projects. She is currently also writing collaboratively a handbook about audience development work in theatre in Finland. Her latest piece was premiered in April 2015 and it’s a tricking based nonverbal spectacle based on the story of Parsifal that she is preparing for a possible tour in Finland and abroad.
www.parsifal.fi

Dmitrijs Petrenko is a stage director working in Latvian theaters since 2011. He graduated Latvian Academy of Culture in 2012. In the theatrical season of 2014/2015 two of his performances were nominated for the National Theatre Prize (nominations for the Performance of the Year and the Performance of the Year for Children and Youth), he himself was nominated for the prize of the Director of the Year. His previous experience include journalism and social research, working as a political news correspondent for 10 years in printed media and television, an editor of a NGO portal politika.lv and as a researcher in the Institute of Political and Social Research. He is currently a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Latvia.

Elina Saloranta is a visual artist living in Helsinki. She works mainly with the moving image, which she studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA 2001). Currently she is a doctoral student at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts. Her research concerns the relationship between image, word and sound.

Erica Böhr‘smulti-media, inter-disciplinary fine art practice is concerned primarily with identity and gender politics.  Her practice critiques the social construction of gender and how gender is performed in a patriarchal matrix. Her practice is unapologetically political and encompasses text, performance, drawing and installation. The female hyena forms a central motif that recurs throughout the South African-born artist’s practice. The hyena performs a shamanic and allegorical function, and also exists as a metaphor for radical lesbian feminist resistance to Patriarchy. In her performance, “Totem II”, 2016, in Riga, the artist intends to interrogate notions of colonialisation, appropriation, exile, identities and intersectionalities. Erica has degrees in both Fine Art and Literature. She has worked for many years as a teacher and lives and works in Berlin. ericabohr.tumblr.com

Freï von Fräähsen zu Lorenzburg is a choreographer, performance artist and writer currently based in Gothenburg Sweden. He has a BA from Trinity Laban conservatoire of Music and Dance (London) and a MA Contemporary Performative Arts from Gothenburg Academy of music and drama. In his own practice, as a writer and performer, he deals with questions of liminality, taboo, sacrifice and usurpation. Frej is passionate about the idea that an individual has to claim humanhood for themselves in a series of performative gestures. In this sense human life, and all its activities, takes on a ritual/mythic dimension wherein one creates oneself as a sovereign subject through knowledge and deep inquiry into oneself and one’s environment. Artistic practices become a means, not merely of representing or mirroring oneself and the world, but of creating oneself and one’s world. Thus every act of art is a declaration of independence. On December 1 2014, Freï initiated the process to declare independent the city sector where he grew up. He has been known as His Serene Highness Prince Freï of Lorenzburg ever since.

Gemma Meek is aPhD researcher at MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research project aims to construct a critical framework in which to read socially engaged book art through the selection of case studies and the mapping of connections, practices, themes and book forms. Although not yet fully defined, socially engaged book art involves artists/organisers engaging with various social groups (homeless groups, education collectives, mental health participants etc.) through the process, exchange, creation, collaboration and production of books in an artistic manner. The inclusion of various agents in the process of making book art is to challenge perceptions and power systems in a desire to improve individual and collective lived experience. Her previous experience as a Learning Officer at Watford Museum has put education, partnership and community outreach at the heart of my practice. Her role as learning officer included creating and running a diverse and engaging education and events programme for a wide range of users.

Gints Zabarovska graduated bachelor (2013) and master (2015) programs in the Art Academy of Latvia metal design department. While studying she actively participates in various exhibitions and competitions. The artist draws her inspiration in traveling and by contacting with interesting personalities. As an important source of impact in the artist’s activities she considers studies at the Art Academy of Strasbourg in 2012/13. Due to the semester spent in France, the artist has found a growing interest in contemporary jewellery history and now continues her studies in the Art Academy of Latvia as a PhD student working on jewellery art history in Latvia during the Post-Soviet period.

Henrik Andersson is a stage director, performer, composer, playwright and teacher at the Academy for Music and Drama (Gothenburg University). After an MA of fine art in theatre from the Academy of Theatre in Malmö (Lund University), he now works with art performance, workshops, theatre, opera and music. He is driven by a critical view of established patterns/images, by finding ways of influencing political settings through art and interested in how psychological and social factors interact. Structures and norms that maintain specific ideals and hierarchies (gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.) is at the core of his practice and research. Right now he is engaged as playwright for West Coast Story, a community theatre performance discussing conflicts of young peoples lives in Swedish country side. Summer 2015 he worked as an actor in the theatre performance “Vi är typ Kärlek” (We are like Love), reviewing being 11 years old being in between adult and child, friends, gender and sex. Henrik is since 2013 a part of the board for the theatre group Frau Division, he collaborates with various artists, independent groups and institutions.

Inta Balode is a Latvian dance writer and since 2011 editor of www.journal.dance.lv. She writes for magazines, daily papers and online platforms in Latvia and abroad, she is co-editor of the publication “Expeditions in Dance Writing. Writing Movement 2012-2014” dedicated to dance writing issues in Nordic Baltic region. Since 2004 Inta has been doing management for various dance projects, including curating of seminars for artists, journalists and managers, regional programs and a travelling mini festival called “New Dance into the New Venue”. Inta holds MA degree in theory of culture, and training in dance writing was acquired in several programs in USA and Europe. Since 2007 Inta has been working also as a dance dramaturge, in 2014 performance “OUT” got awarded as the best contemporary dance piece of the season. While working as a dance expert at the State Culture Capital Foundation and jury member at the annual theater prize, she managed to do significant lobby for the status of contemporary dance. Inta is a member of Latvian Dance Council – a consultative group at the Ministry of Culture. Since January 2016 is involved in the working group of the Latvian National encyclopedia.

Jaana Kokko is working on her practice-based PhD for Aalto University Helsinki, Arts department. In “Contemporary Art as A Form of Worldalization – Approaches to Understanding Political and Social Dynamics” she suggests ways to explore forms of critical art, borrowing from Hannah Arendt’s concept to “worldalize”, i.e. to take part in the world as a political being.

Janis Balodis is a playwright, holding the position of dramaturg in the non-governmental theatre Dirty Deal Teatroin Riga, Latvia. He is an author of 15 plays and stage texts. Balodis has a significant experience with verbatim theatre techniques and is predominantly interested in social and political themes.

Jo Darnley is a PhD researcher at MIRIAD/ESRI, Manchester Metropolitan University. Primarily her research seeks to enrich the historical analysis of co-operative women’s everyday political engagement in the socio-political and economically unique landscape of interwar Britain to articulate their identity and agency. Whilst encouraging new audiences in contemporary engagement with the historical materials through Participant Action Research to explore educational processes, curriculum development and the cultural role of the NCA and archives. As a researcher on the AHRC PGR ‘Creating Our Future Histories’ (COFH) Programme 2014–15 (MMU), she participated in extensive interdisciplinary and Public Engagement training. She investigated, co-designed and carried out oral history interviews with STRIDE, a boys’ dance initiative, to co-create their legacy co-developing a pop-up exhibition at the People’s History Museum, Manchester. As an experienced Primary School Teacher she nurtures children’s learning experiences through creativity, self- expression and investigative processes using a ‘hands-on’ approach. As a Community Dance Practitioner (2010 onwards) she delivers language/creative dance movement workshops, developing and publishing her own website www.dialoguedance.co.uk.

Joanna Neil is currently working on her PhD at the University of Glasgow. She is based in the school of Education where she is bringing together her research interests: Arts, Education and Technology. The PhD explores themes around conversational reflection and how technology can support and enhance creative and reflective processes.  A recurring theme through her work has been an interest in the ‘making’ process, the process of making work, sometimes the work being about process and the process being visible in the work. She is interested in what can be made visible by reflecting and re-seeing through different media and using digital auto-ethnography as a methodology to do this. Recently her own making practice has explored how recorded descriptions of objects or ‘verbal sketches’ can serve as pre-action reflection to become a more formative part of her making process. Drawing is central to her practice in an expanded sense and she happily moves from pen to sewing machine to digital voice recorder to explore this. Joanna teaches drawing, research methodologies, reflective practice and textiles at University Centre Blackburn College. Her research blog: https://feltlikeit.wordpress.com/ An example of a digital auto-ethnographic research project here: https://drawnconversation.wordpress.com/

Joanna Sperryn-Jones  is officially a ‘Dr. Of breaking stuff’ – she completed her PhD ‘Breaking as making: in what ways can making sculpture contribute to understanding perceptions and experiences of breaking’ in 2013. She also encourages other people to break stuff, in fact, this is a significant element in her sculptural installations. Not wanting to stop there she developed a methodology of breaking for her PhD which she applies to writing practice and frequently in giving conference papers. She is currently Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) Fine Art at Blackburn College.

Jon Irigoyen is an artist, independent curator, organizer and cultural agitator born in Bilbao, Spain. He was a founding member of the experimental contemporary dance collective Liikë in Barcelona. He has been on the Board of Helsinki’s Pixelache Festival Since 2009. Jon Irigoyen grew up in the dirty, punk, post-industrial city of Bilbao. In the last 14 years has lived in different European cities: Madrid, Bristol, Barcelona, being currently based between Helsinki and Barcelona. His research interests and projects span the intersecting relationships between artist and spectator; the interaction between public and urban space; the perception of reality; as well as concepts such as autonomy, body, resistance and memory. Irigoyen has devised and implemented projects, exhibitions and workshops in Finland, Spain, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Colombia, Russia, Berlin, Peru, USA and elsewhere.
Nowadays he holds his PhD in Art at Aalto University with the supervision of Finnish philosopher Juha Varto.

Lisbeth Sandvall works as an artist and as researcher / senior lecturer at Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden. She has a PhD in social work and her research has been centered on studies of financial difficulties and debts. The title of her thesis is “The faces of over-indebtedness. Pathways into and out of financial problems.” She has been working with a research project on non-take-up of debt relief financed by the Enforcement Authorities in Sweden. During the last years Lisbeth has tried to combine her two professional pathways with the purpose of using an artistic approach to collect research materials and convey results from the research to public in the form of an exhibition. Lisbeth Sandvall mainly uses oil painting for artistic expressions but also photography to illustrate research results. She has had many solo exhibitions in Sweden, where she also lives, but also in Spain and France. She has also participated in group exhibitions in countries such as France, England, China and Norway. www.lisbethsandvall.se  http://lnu.se/personal/lisbeth.sandvall

Luisa Greenfield is a visual artist working predominantly in video and often in collaboration with sound artists. Her grounding in painting, theater and a keen interest in film history inform her video projects and have led her to create visual essays that analyze the material and function of filmic phenomenon. In her work, new forms of narrative are developed through looking at the interconnected elements of documentary and fiction inherent to the visual essay. She considers the visual essay a form of thought where she draws connections between her video projects and essay writing. Ms. Greenfield’s artwork and essays have been presented and screened internationally in galleries, conferences and video art festivals. She received a BFA in from Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles with a focus in painting and drawing and an MFA from American University where she studied in Washington DC and Rome, Italy. Over the years, she has worked as a set decorator for photography, film and theater projects, later working in theater costume design. She has taught visual art, film and writing courses at the university level in the US and Europe, often designing courses that combine students from varied disciplines such as architecture and new media studies. She has recently participated in artist residencies at the Banff Centre in Canada and the Valand School of Fine Arts in Sweden, as well as co-coordinating the Artistic Research group, Nordic Summer University (NSU). Luisa Greenfield lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Monique Wernhamn is an artist and set designer, working with performance, participatory driven projects, workshops, interventions and installations. She is driven by a community involvement and interested in the psychological and social factors that affect people and makes us to whom we are. As well as the structures and norms that maintain different ideals and hierarchies (gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.). Since august 2014 she is working with THE SUSTAINABLE WOMAN, a project focusing on methods for survival and sustainability in life. 2012-2014 She was working in long-term processes with youths, exploring how artist along with participants can create open, norm-critical and trusting spaces for dialogue. She was collaborating with youths and culture institutions, the work was also a part of MFA education in Contemporary Performative Arts, University of Music and Drama, in Gothenburg. (From before Monique has background and MFA in fashion/textile art.) Monique is working in projects where she is the auteur and performer and in projects where she is the artistic director, facilitator/curator. She collaborates with artists, cultural actors, independent groups and institutions. She does work for both art venues and theatres, public spaces, site and context specific places.

Nathalie Fari is a performer, teacher and researcher. She received a degree in art education from the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado University in São Paulo and in acting from the TUCA theatre school of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo and at the Centro de Pesquisa Teatral Theater Institute under the direction of Antunes Filho. Since 1997, she has been performing in Brazil and Europe at the most various contexts: art- exhibitions and projects, performance art-, performing arts- and multimedia festivals, theater-, opera-, and film productions, architecture-, design-, and fashion events and as well at the public space. In 2004 she moved to Berlin, where she has realized several performance- projects in cooperation with galleries, project spaces, theaters and artist-in-residence spaces. In 2006 she established the production label atelier obra viva to develop collaborative, educational and research based projects with artists and scholars from different fields. In 2009, she received an MA in Space Strategies ‘Exploratory Art in Public Contexts‘ from Kunsthochschule Weißensee Berlin. Her final thesis was on global migration processes entitled MY SPACE – An investigation into the loss of certainty. From 2011-2015 she was also part of the organizational team of the community-based platform Month of Performance Art Berlin realizing projects with the emphasis on performance practices in public space. For more information: www.atelierobraviva.org

Olga Zitluhina is the artistic leader and the choreographer of the company Olga Zitluhina. She is also the founder and leader of the department of the Contemporary Choreography at the Academy of Culture of Latvia and the director of International Contemporary dance festival “Time to Dance” that since 2006 takes places every year in June in Riga. Olga Zitluhina Dance Company dedicates a lot of effort to the development and recognition of contemporary dance in Latvia. Company sees its work as never-ending exploration of movement and its ways of communication with audience. The company has always worked on international scale, knows how beneficial the collaboration projects are. The company always has particular interest in collaborating with people and countries where contemporary dance as young or even younger as in Latvia.

Per Roar is an Oslo based choreographer who in his artistic work merges socio-political interest and contextual enquiry with somatic approach to movement, particular influenced by Gindler-Jacoby work or Sensory Awareness. He studied choreography at Oslo National Academy of the Arts, contemporary dance and performance in New York, gained his MA in Performance Studies from New York University, and his doctorate in artistic research in choreography from the University of the Arts Helsinki. In his artistic work, however, he also draws on his background with earlier studies in history and social sciences from the University of Oslo,  Corvinius University, Budapest and Oxford University. His artistic works include: White Lies/Black Myths (1995) – on the construct of ‘the other’ (see: Anne Britt Gran, 2000); Shot in the Recliner – the art of camping (2000) – a low-tech interactive camping happening that toured caravan sites in Norway; and the trilogy Life & Death (2006) in which he – by looking at grieving – explored a contextual approach to making choreography. An approach he furthers in the performance If this is my body (2013) and addresses in his doctoral research Docudancing Griefscape (2015).Per Roar is a recipient of US-Fulbright scholarship (1998-1999), the Norwegian Government fellowship for artists (2000-2003) and was research fellow in choreography at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (2003 – 2006). In 2012 he was awarded the Norwegian Government’s Guarantee Income for Artists.

Pēteris Krilovs is a professor, film maker and director. He graduated from the All-Union Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. He started his directing career at the Riga Film Studio, and made his debut with the 1977 film “Un rasas lāses rītausmā”. His documentary film “Starp debesīm un zemi. Augšdaugava” won the Lielā Kristapa award in 1994. He has taught acting and directing since 1988. In 1992, he received the Latvian Theatre Union prize for work in theater pedagogy. He is now a professor at the Latvian Academy of Culture.

Ragnhild Freng Dale is a freelance writer and theatre maker. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge (UK), where her thesis explores conflict and consent around extractive industries in Sápmi and the Norwegian North. Ragnhild’s experience in theatre ranges from workshops and residencies with OBRA, Teatro la Madrugada, Theatre Association Chorea and Moon Fool, to her role as Academic Collaborator with Studio Matejka. She has studied anthropology at UCL (UK) and the University of Bergen (NO), where her work focused on performance training and arts as a force of social change in Germany and Poland. In 2013-14 she was devising actor and researcher for Moon Fool’s emerging performance Storm, with showcases in Kent and London. Alongside her PhD research, Ragnhild is developing Mountain Code Movements, a performance lecture which explores how to navigate in a world of social, environmental and political change. This work happens partly through residencies at Secret Hotel’s center (DK).

Rafael Dernbach is a writer and filmmaker. He studied media theory and social anthropology in Maastricht (NL), San Diego (US), Berlin (DE) and Cambridge (GB). Some of his works have been featured at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, in ZEIT and on ZDFinfo. Currently, he works as a Gates Scholar towards a PhD at University of Cambridge. His research interests are in documentary theory and visual anthropology. For his PhD he investigates negotiations of future in contemporary non-fictional practices. This summer he was blogger-inresidence
at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts Salzburg (AT) and a doctoral fellow at the Nida Art Colony in Lithuania and the Friedrich Schlegel School in Berlin.

Salla Myllylä is a visual artist with an MFA from Department of Printmaking, Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki (FI) Web: www.sallamyllyla.com

Sam Skinner is an artist and producer currently undertaking a practice/industry based PhD between MIRIAD, Manchester School of Art and FACT, Liverpool researching the original Liverpool Observatory (established in 1845 and now defunct) and how it might be reimagined in the 21st century, using different ‘amateur’ and ‘collective’ observations, measurements, devices and modes of inscription. Sam’s work operates between place and media, matter and information, via a range of practices, including drawing, printmaking, animation, writing, curation and publishing, with a strong emphasis on collaborative and multi-platform processes and outcomes. Recent projects
include: sandstone street-furniture and schools ecology project for a new green space in Brighton; a newspaper on privacy and surveillance produced at Tate Liverpool with contributions from over 100 gallery visitors and accompanying talks programme; the Torque series of symposia, events and publications on conflations of mind, language and technology (torquetorque.net) and Syndrome (syn-dro.me) affect and interaction performance
programme (in collaboration with Nathan Jones); and long-term community arts development work for Peabody Housing in Thamesmead.

Sezen Tonguz,  Balıkesir, 1981. She studied contemporary dance at ÇATI Dance Studio (Istanbul) and completed Choreographic Creation, Dance Research and Training Programme (PEPCC) at Forum Dança (Lisbon, 2009). She collaborated with many artists such as Tetsuro Fukuhara, Ali Moini, Özlem Günyol&Mustafa Kunt, Anouk van Dijk, Vera Francisco, Marcus Neves and Sinan Kestelli in various interdisciplinary projects. She has been a resident artist at Atelier Concorde (PT), Devir/CAPA (PT), CENTA (PT), Forum Dança (PT), CDO (PT), Tanzquartier Wien (AT), Uruzcunzeiro (BR) and Buitenwerkplaats (NL) since 2009. She received Klauss Vianna Dance Grant 2011 (Funarte, Brasil) for dance/performance piece Recipe co-created with Julia Salaroli and Kultur Kontakt Austria Dancer in Residence 2012 grant for her project invisible act. Her works were presented in Turkey, Europe and Brasil. She has recently completed her master studies in Communication and Arts in New University of Lisbon (NOVA). She continues her research and activity on artistic research and curatorial practices in performing arts.

Shona Thomson is a curator and creative producer facilitating and delivering successful cultural participation projects across cinema, live music and sound art under the banner of A Kind of Seeing. Projects in development include: a live music and cinema tour of Scottish fishing communities with international beatboxer Jason Singh; and Sensing Place, an action research project identifying new models for creative participation in remote communities.

Stephanie Hanna holds a BA in theatre design (HKU, Netherlands) and the MA „Art in Context“ (UdK, Berlin). Based in visual arts, she works process-oriented as well as site- and situationspecific in various media: spatial and interactive installations, participative art works, video works and performance. She is the inventor of the participative art project “senior street art”, developing more than 30 workshops, excursions and performative actions on Street Art and Graffiti created with and by people above 50 years of age (2005-12). Her performance practice is informed by training in movement (capoeira, butoh, contemporary dance, BMC, contact improvisation a.o.), acting (Meisner Technique a.o.) and last not least life-long pluridisciplinary improvisation practice in the fields of visual arts and theater. Next to all of that, she has been curating the independent art space „Donau- Ecke Ganghofer“ in a former department store window in Berlin, Neukölln since 2011. http://www.stephaniehanna.de/

Ulla Ohlson is aartist and graphic designer with numerous of solo exhibitions and  group exhibitions in Sweden, Belgium, Italy, France, Island and USA. One of the founders of the Nordic Watercolor Association, member of the Swedish Artists Organisation, KRO, Swedish Illustrator Association and Swedish Designer. Living in Gothenburg, Sweden.Working primarily in glass and watercolor, but also in mixed media with metal, photography and graphics.  Teacher at  Art College of Gothenburg in Graphic Design and Fine Art, former tutor at the Academy of Art at the University of Gothenburg. She has received a number of acclaimed adornment and design assigments, including among others, the Opera House of Gothenburg, Medals for the European Championships in Athletics in Gothenburg, for which she also received awards from the Royal Academy of Arts, Stockholm, Sweden. Recently Ulla worked with a project at a Swedish hospital concerning the Art´s importance to health.

Wanda Zyborska is a candidate for PhD in Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.  She has received several awards from the Arts Council of Wales to aid in production and developing links with eastern European countries. She uses textile methods and industrial materials such as recycled rubber inner tubes, working within a theoretical context of skin, the body and identity situated in the politics of place, and gender.  Recent and forthcoming exhibitions and performances: Rocio Boliver: Between Menopause and Old Age, Alternative Beauty. LADA collaboration Nov 2015, Textile interpretations (Curator: Ina Mindiuz) Meno Parkas, Kaunas, Lithuania 2015, Stanley Re-Veiling, collaborative protest performance. (Art Monthly February 2015), I am woman, CAM Casoria, Naples, 2014-5, IN & OUT of the CITADEL, Kobro Gallery, Lodz, Poland. 2014, Collaboration with Martin Zet, Czech Republic, Ogwen Valley 2014, Silent Scroll, collaboration with Martin Zet (Czech Republic) and Rhys Trimble (Wales) 2014, Material Matters, Gwynedd Museum and Art Gallery, 28 Sept – 16 Nov, Royal Cambrian Academy Open Exhibition. First Prize 2013, One Person Seven Hurdles, collaboration with Jelili Atiku, Nigeria 2012

Wiktoria Furrer & Slow Spicy Curatorial Practices Collective is a group of artists, theorists and curators at the Zurich University of the Arts, who run «Donate to Curate»: Katja Gläss, Hannah Horst, Kaspar König, Lucie Tuma, Stefan Wagner, LIU Pei-Wen, Angela Wittwer and Wiktoria Furrer. Wiktoria is a political and cultural scientist and research assistant at the Institute for Critical Theory at the Zurich University of the Arts, where she works mainly in the field of participatory art and conducts micropractical workshops. Together with Sebastian Dieterich she has developed the concept of «Micropractice».

Zane Radzobeis a theatre researcher and critic writing about the Latvian contemporary theatre for the last decade, is a member of the National Theatre Prize committee. She holds a PhD in arts and her academic interests include contemporary European theatre and performance studies. She has worked as a journalist covering cultural policies at a national newspaper for a decade, has been a lecturer at the Latvian Academy of Culture, Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia, and is currently an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Latvia.

Coordinators

Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt
Ami Skånberg Dahlstedt is a Swedish performer, choreographer, filmmaker and writer. Her performance Dust falling, rain falling (2012) was dedicated to the archived cross-gender performers Shirabyōshi. The performance 20xLamentation (2013) looked at different schools of suffering in Christianity, Buddhism, modern dance, Kabuki, Noh, karaoke etc. Hybrid Heart(2014) was a walking performance through Gothenburg Botanical Gardens. Her documentary film on Japanese dance, The Dance of the Sun, was recently shown at Dance on Camera in New York, Lincoln Center. Her 90 min solo performance A Particular Act of Survival premiered in April 2015 at Atalante in Gothenburg and also shown at Urban Guild in Kyoto, received a performing arts award by Scenkonstguiden in Sweden in 2015. Ami has a MFA in acting from Gothenburg University and an MPhil from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Lucy Lyons is lecturer in drawing research at City and Guilds of London Art School and visiting lecturer in MEd at Imperial College, London. She explores drawing as a participatory experiential activity that involves slow looking. Intervention, collaboration and gifting are central elements to her work. Her encounters are with material real, shocking and horrific as well as overlooked, undervalued, overly familiar aspects within medical sciences. As artist in residence at Barts Pathology Museum she coordinated a UCL and UAL Share Academy funded project titled ‘Drawing Parallels’, investigating audience responses to pathological specimens. Her PhD research was based at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and she was Postdoctoral fellow at Medical Museion, Faculty of health and medical sciences, University of Copenhagen. She has had solo exhibitions at the Hunterian Museum London, Medical Museion Copenhagen, Fábrica de Braço de Prata Lisbon and Panum Institute Copenhagen. She is also a member of the Medical Artists’ Association of Great Britain and is currently “Art/Science/Life” artist in residence at Ipswich Museum.