Iman Jabrah

Iman Jabrah is a Palestinian American multidisciplinary artist currently located in Cincinnati, OH. She is a recipient of the full scholarship from China Scholarship Council, currently pursuing masters in Fine Art at China Academy of Art with a previous BFA in New Media Art from Northern Kentucky University. In early 2022, Jabrah received the Artswave’s Truth and Reconciliation grant to sponsor Amid exhibition during her curator-in-residence at Wave Pool gallery; Amid exhibition showcases artworks at the Cincinnati Art Museum by ten Palestinian women and queer artists from the West Bank and diaspora. Her latest exhibition was part of Women of Crypto Art in collaboration with DoinGud for the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Most recently, Jabrah is set to exhibit with the Professional Artistic Research (PAR-) Projects at Studeō PAR-, in July 2022 at Cincinnati, OH. Many of Iman’s initiative projects aim toward community; to build collaborative cultures and to continue to increase exposure to displaced Palestinian artists through shared exhibitions, residencies, and collective projects.

Image 1: Protest. Sculpture, 2022.

Image 2: drop. Sculpture, 2022.

Image 3: Woman. Sculpture Photography, 2021.

Image 4: Make America Great Again. Sculpture, photography & digital art, 2021.

Nastassja Nefjodov

Nastassja Nefjodov is a German-Russian lens-based artist living in the Netherlands. She graduated (with honor) from the Fotoacademie Amsterdam in 2021. Currently she is a participant in FOTODOK's Talent Development Program: Lighthouse and  the Graduate Mentoring Scheme 2021 from Redeye: The Photography Network. Nefjodov is also an active member of the online educational community and platform Work Show Grow School.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at festival Encontros da Imagem in Braga, Portugal (2021), Neue Schule für Fotografie Gallery in Berlin, Germany (2020) and  Rotterdam Photo, The Netherlands (2019). Her book My grandfathers, the war and I won the EI Photobook Award 2020 and her book Into the blue was shortlisted for EI Photobook Award 2021. She has contributed to publications including Mini Albums East Central (2021), United, Work Show Grow Publication (2021) and home is... of Julia Borissova (2020).

Her practice stems from her family stories which relate to ruptures in European history. She focus on the emotional impact, rather than factual, theoretical, or political aspects. Through her art, she wants to invite people to rethink history from a personal perspective of what it does to a person, to families. Not only in the present but across generations, as a second, often neglected layer of war stories.

The entry point of her projects is often the family archive, her and her family members memories which she then reflects on in combination with her own imagery and words. Another central element of her exploration is the immersion into the places of the past using the camera both to find traces of the stories and documenting emotions and reflections of the now.

The results of her projects often turn into three dimensional objects/installations allowing the viewer to experience the multilayered stories by stepping into, immerse themselves within Nefjodov’s world and therewith feel encouraged to connect to and to tell their own stories.

Image 1: From the book „Meine Großväter der Krieg und ich“ 2020

Image 2: Book: „Meine Großväter der Krieg und ich“ Foto by @the_bookphotographer

Image 3: Untitled, from the work „Ins Blaue hinein“, 2021

Daria Pugachova

Daria Pugachova is an artist, performer and art-activist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. She studied architecture at Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. From 2013–2019 she played drums in the female trio Panivalkova. After musicians split up Daria dived into a field of contemporary art. 

In her projects, Daria uses participatory practices to unite a community and integrate art into daily life. She works with performance, video and artivism. Her artistic approach lies in the presence of the artist and direct interaction with the audience in public space. Her work explores history of place to awaken memories with the community, and to visualize its possible future. “By performing in public places, I connect with all kinds of people” says Daria, “Some of them may never attend exhibitions. So art should step out of galleries and become a part of everyday life, thereby changing it”.

Daria received the Golden Aesop Grand Prix at Gabrovo Biennial of Contemporary Art for the work ’Stones’ and the project Dasha+Zhanar. In 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Daria left Kyiv and to continue her artistic practice in Europe.

Khalid Shatta

Khalid Shatta’s work is inspired by modernist painting, but also by the art of ancient civilizations and by the culture of his birthplace, Sudan.

Shatta says: “I’m inspired by painters such as Hussein Gamaan, Kerry James Marshall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paul Klee and photographers like Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keïta and Gordon Parks. Ancient Sudanese history is another significant inspiration. Being of Nuba descent, I believe in trying to uncover the cultural heritage we lost under Islamic conquest and European colonialism.

I am currently exploring a theme I call the migration of the soul – the sensation of being out of place. We live in a time where many people feel a disconnection from their own bodies and existence. I make use of ancient Kemetic and Cushitic symbols from the historical kingdoms of the Nile valley civilisations. I believe that everything is connected through our shared history, even in this chaotic state of migration.”

Yanina Zaichanka

Yanina Zaichanka is a Belarusian artist, currently studying for a BFA at the Oslo National Academy of Arts. Prior to moving to Oslo, she had been actively involved in the contemporary art scene in Minsk. In 2018-2019, she studied Contemporary Art and Drama at the European College of Liberal Arts, Belarus. Her work has been shown at two solo exhibitions – Freedom (of Speech) from the Unbearable at Pradmova Festival of Intellectual Literature in 2020, and Being a Woman at ECLAB in 2019. She has contributed to group shows, including CIAHLITSY - an exhibition of “queer art” - and Halasy - an exhibition of art de-stigmatizing people with mental health conditions.

Image 1: The Inhuman Face of War, 2022

Image 2: Still Counting, 2021-

Image 3: My Family’s Paths, 2020-

Image 4: Illustration for Paval Lubetsky’s essay Leviathan-2020: When They Are Eager to Make Sacrifice, But Are Sacrificing Others For Some Reason, 2020

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Gary Zhexi Zhang

Gary Zhexi Zhang is an artist and writer, whose films and essays are interested in private and political narratives of the digital. He studied at Glasgow School of Art and University of Cambridge, and is a staff contributor to Frieze Magazine. Recent exhibitions include Tenderflix ‘Futures' at ICA, London and Would you like help? at EMBASSY Gallery, Edinburgh.

Video: Gary Zhexi Zhang, lacoste1, 2015

Johanna Zanon

Johanna Zanon (b. 1988, FR) is a curator, researcher, and art concierge currently based in Oslo. She holds a PhD in History from the University of Oslo (2017), a graduate diploma from École Nationale des Chartes in Paris (2012), and an MA in Art History from École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris (2011).

Her research interests include among others fashion production, labor, and consumption. She has published a range of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters (Manchester University Press, Dress, Apparence(s), and LHA). In 2019, she co-organized the fashion labour conference at OsloMet. In 2019, she curated a film cycle on the depiction of the French fashion industry from the early twentieth century. As an art concierge at Clarion Hotel Oslo, she has curated the After 'After Munch' programme (2019-2020).

Her latest curatorial project entitled As Handsome As the Chance Encounter will be on display at RAM Galleri in Oslo in February-March 2020. During the residency at Praksis, she would like to explore the link between fashion production and fashion consumption in late capitalist society.

Image 1: 'The "Sleeping Beauties" of Haute Couture: Jean Patou, Elsa Schiaparelli, and Madeleine Vionnet,' PhD diss., University of Oslo, 2017. Image: Gustave Doré's sixth engraving for Charles Perrault, La Belle au Bois Dormant / Gallica, Public Domain, BNF.

Image 2: Screenshot of the 'Labor in the Creative Industries: The Case of Fashion' conference website, co-organized by Johanna Zanon, at OsloMet on June 11-12, 2019 / Johanna Zanon.

Image 3: Screenshot of the 'Brodeuses' film, screened at Cinemateket i Oslo as part of 'Siste skrik fra Paris: Fransk mote på film,' curated by Johanna Zanon / Cinemateket i Oslo.

Image 4: After 'After Munch', curated by Johanna Zanon for Clarion Hotel Oslo / Clarion Hotel Oslo.

Monika Zak

Monika Żak (b.1989) is a self-taught photographer and scientist with a special interest in visual perception. She graduated in 2015 from University in Oslo with a Master of Philosophy in Cognitive Neuroscience.

In her latest research, she explored the origins of human colour vision, attempting to investigate whether seeing colours in faces may affect emotion recognition. Through her interdisciplinary work Żak delves into the substance of perception, searching for possible explanations of what determines how we see and what we actually perceive.

Ola Wlusek

Ola Wlusek is an independent curator based in Canada and Poland. She earned an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She also studied Art History and Cultural Anthropology at McMaster University. For the past ten years, she worked in curatorial and educational departments at public art institutions in Canada and abroad. From 2011 to 2015, Wlusek was the curator of contemporary art at the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ontario, Canada) where she organized multidisciplinary projects that explored the contesting social, cultural and community histories.

She’s interested in transnational frameworks for the interpretation of art through exhibition-making that is accessible to an audience from culturally diverse backgrounds. Her research focuses on new curatorial strategies and museological methodologies for exploring non-Western, indigenous, and comparative approaches to global modernities. While working collaboratively, she considers exhibitions as experiential, flexible and accessible spaces for cultural production and exchange. Prior to joining PRAKSIS, she will be attending the Curatorial School: Curating the New, at the University of Malta, and conducting research in Krakow.

Rachel Wolfe

Rachel Wolfe, born 1984 in rural Illinois. Foundational training in dance, vocals, and piano developed into interdisciplinary work in images, installations, drawing, video, fiber, writing, and performance. Wolfe studied formally and practically in several areas including advertising, interior design, sociology, photography, energetic arts, contemporary art, and language. She graduated with a BA in 2006 and MFA in 2015. Her work has been collected and exhibited in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Water, ice, and rocks are repeated themes in Wolfe's work. Ideas about Place, Subjectivity, and the Irrespirable drive her aestheticised constructions. With literal and material focus on the relationship between Vision and Body, the works mediate sensual experiences on The Nature of Desire, or what moves a Body. Her art making runs parallel to research in the field of Embodied Cognition.

Maria Wang Kvalheim

Maria Wang Kvalheim (NO) works within the field of acoustic scenography. She holds a BA from the Norwegian theater academy. Her work seeks to draw out the sound/acoustic potential of architectural space. She is interested in the relationship between movement and space, and how sensorial work can affect the movement of an audience.

Maria works with Dresden based theater network, fachbetrieb rita grechen. During 2020 she has initiated a online writing circle where ownership of material is shared, and texts are "recylcled" other group members. This project began as a workshop alongside fachbetrieb rita grechen's former work Piece of silence.

Asya Volodina

Asya Volodina is a writer, games designer and artist based in Moscow. Using the medium of larp (live action role play) she challenges the audience to become a part, participant and co-author for her artworks.

Asya sees larps as an experience of a transgressive glissade to unusual reality register. It ives a possibility to talk about post humanity and trans humanity (“1597 seconds”, “Justice Against The Grain”, “Deus Ex Machina”, “Wir. Malevich”, “Escritoires”), time (“Low Season”, “Happy Birthday, Alice!”, “Evening in the Museum”), structure of communities and societies (“The Cost of Living”, “Deus Ex Machina”) in the language of personal experience and fictional situations.

Asya’s larps have been presented in Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow), Khodynka Gallery (Moscow), Bonniers Konsthall (Stockholm), Bard Graduate Center (New York), Kampnagel Theatre (Hamburg), Live Action Theatre (Moscow). She also collaborated with V-A-C foundation and works with Arseny Zhilyaev.

Image 1: “Justice Against The Grain” by Asya Volodina in collaboration with Sarah Culman, Yury Kviatkovsky, V-A-C foundation, Moscow, 2019

Image 2: “Escritoires” by Asya Volodina, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2020

Image 3: “Happy Birthday, Alice!” by Asya Volodina, Live Action Theatre, Moscow, 2020

Geraldine Vanspauwen

Geraldine Vanspauwen recently graduated in art history and philosophy at the universities of Brussels, Oslo and Ghent. She has written on the topics of visualising sound, political philosophy, religion, poetry and language and is currently curating poetic cahiers and evenings as part of the open collective and underground publishing house BRAAK. Together, they believe in the power and use of the written and spoken word, and aim to create a contemporary platform for poetry and thought.

Her current research interests include the poetics of noise and sound as both materiality and magic, interconnecting nature, society and the sacred. She is writing and working on music around Brussels.

Gustavo Valdivia

For almost a decade anthropologist Gustavo Valdivia (PE) has been ethnographically exploring the worlds that are emerging in the high Andes of Peru as the Anthropocene unfolds. His work is principally based in the Quelccaya, the largest tropical glacier on the planet, and articulates an eclectic body of theory, methods, and practices to provide an ethnographically grounded account of those significative moments in which Nature challenges human comprehension and control.

This project, which he started as a Ph.D. student at the Anthropology Department at The Johns Hopkins University, has led him to carry out long-term fieldwork among indigenous alpaca herders, collaborate as a field assistant in 5 scientific expeditions to obtain ice cores from the Quelccaya’s summit, work as a field producer for the documentary BBC series Frozen Planet, and participate as a chapter scientist in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). In 2014, together with Tomás Tello –an experimental musician living in Portugal— he founded the Sonic Melting collective to start producing a set of field recordings of the ice of the Quelccaya as it melts. These recordings offer a sonic narration of Valdivia’s encounter with the Quelccaya that seeks to present an alternative approach to the complexity of the Anthropocene: namely, one which is not limited by visuality.

His work on sound includes collaborations with various sound artists including Stuart Hyatt, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Gazelle Twin, and Mary Lattimore, and has been featured in Motherboard – Vice, The Wire Magazine, GlacierHub, and other media.

Sam Williams

Sam Williams (b. 1985, Essex, UK) currently lives and works in London, where he studied MA Sculpture and Moving Image at the Royal College of Art.

Sam has exhibited and screened nationally and internationally at institutions including Estuary 2016: Points of Departure (alongside artists including John Akomfrah and Adam Chodzko, curated by Gareth Evans and Sue Jones) Focal Point Gallery (Southend), ONCA (Brighton), Outpost (Norwich), Baltic39 (Newcastle), Independent Dance, Sadler’s Wells, V&A, Lychee One, Tate Britain and Jerwood Space (London); Fragment Gallery (Moscow) and Korai Project Space (Cyprus).

He was awarded the RCA residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (2015), the Relax Digital Commission (2016) and the Stuart Croft Foundation Award (2017). In 2018 he received an Artist Network Professional Development Bursary to organise a series of choreographic workshops for non-dance artists, and was also artist in residence at ArtHouse (Jersey) and JOYA Arte + Ecología (Almería).

As part of the audio-visual group Emptyset he has performed internationally at institutions including BOZAR (Brussels), Arnolfini, Spike Island (Bristol), La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris) Kunsthalle Zürich and Kraftwerk (Berlin).

For several years prior to her passing, Sam was a close collaborator with the seminal British choreographer Rosemary Butcher MBE. Together they showed work at The Place (London), Nottingham Contemporary and Akademie der Künste (Berlin). Sam is a founding trustee of the Rosemary Butcher Foundation and will work with her extensive archive towards a gallery retrospective.

Image 1: until they feel – ahead of them – a barrier (2016), film still

Image 2, 3: the actual structure is the material (2018) two channel film installation, film still

Image 4: here and not (2017) two channel film installation collaboration with Joe Moran, film still

Jessica Williams

Jessica Williams (b. 1986, US/NO) is an Oslo-based artist who works freely within the realms of publishing, photography, text, and new media. She holds a BFA from the Cooper Union in New York City (2008) and a MFA from the National Academy of Art, Oslo (2014). Her working methods echo those of a hunter gatherer: collecting objects (both physical and metaphysical) that stand in as metaphors for intangible, shared feelings and experiences. The power of language and everyday physicality in the increasingly digital world are constant themes.

Between 2011-2014, she was the driving force behind the small, yet internationally recognized artists' publisher North, South, East, West – NSEW for short. Since 2012, she has regularly given talks and held workshops related to self-publishing and Risograph printing. In 2016, she started producing printed works under the moniker Hverdag Books and in 2018 she co-founded the Norwegian Risograph Society.

Williams' work has been exhibited widely over the past decade, notably at Good Press, Glasgow (solo); KRETS, Malmö (solo); High Tide, Philadelphia (two-person); The New Museum, New York City; Art in General, New York City; Capricious Space, Brooklyn; Open Space, Baltimore, among others. She has also had solo exhibitions in Oslo, Bergen, Barcelona, and Austin, Texas.

Piya Wanthiang

Apichaya Wanthiang (b. 1987, Bangkok, Thailand) holds a BFA from Sint-Lukas Brussel (2009) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2012). Wanthiang constructs environments in order to explore how they influence our perceptions, behaviours and interactions. She often works with painterly installations and architecture/scenography. She has exhibited widely in Norway and currently works as an assistant professor at Trondheim Academy of Fine Art.

Image 1: Driftwood and Ghost Hunters, 2018. Landsforeningen Norske Malere, Oslo, Norway. 182cm x 321cm; canvas, acrylics, nails, wood, concrete

Image 2: While The Light Eats Away at the Colors, 2017. Stiftelsen 3,14 Bergen, Norway. Installation view: a painterly installation consisting of 8 large paintings. Measurements variable; canvas, acrylics, wood, nails

Image 3: Driftwood and Ghost Hunters, 2018. Landsforeningen Norske Malere, Oslo, Norway. Installation view and detail; canvas, acrylics, wood, concrete

Image 4: Evil Spirits Only Travel in Straight Lines, 2018. UKS (Young Artists’ Society), Oslo, Norway. Installation view showing entrance corridor, heated clay sculpture, alternating ‘breathing’ led cycles, heated clay scuptures and Spirit Festical and Mayflies video. Measurements variable; wood, drywall, foam, clay, textile, projection, heating cables

Merve Ünsal

Merve Ünsal is a visual artist based in Istanbul. In her works, she employs text and photography, possibly beyond their form. Merve holds an MFA in Photography and Related Media from Parsons The New School of Design and a BA in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University.

She was most recently a participant at the Homework Space Program 2014-15 at Ashkal Alwan, Beirut. She has participated in artist residencies at the Delfina Foundation and at the Banff Centre. Merve is the founding editor of the artist-driven online publishing initiative m-est.org.

Ahmed Umar

Ahmed Umar (1988) is a Norwegian/Sudanese cross-diciplinary artist based in Oslo. He came to Norway as a politcial refugee in 2008. In 2016 he received an MFA in Medium and Material-based Arts from  the department of Ceramic Arts at the National Academy of the Arts, Oslo (KHiO).

Since his graduation, Umar has exhibited in several galleries and museums, both nationally and internationally including; FORMAT, Kunstnerforbundet, Kunstnernes Hus, Museum of Cultural History (Oslo), and Kunsthall Oslo. In 2017, Umar won the Debutante prize for his installation Hijab (Annual protection) at the Norwegian Annual Art and Craft exhibition. His work have been collected by institutions such as Drammen Museum of Art and Cultural History, and Oslo Municipality Art Collection. He also is a board member of Oslo Open art festival.

Bianca Turner

Bianca Turner (Brazil, b.1984) is a multimedia artist, holds a BA in ‘Performance Design and Practice’ from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design (2011, London, UK) and a Master of Arts in “Scenography” from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2013, London, UK).

She exhibits regularly since 2014. A special mention should be made to the individual exhibition “Memory, body as resistance”, at Airez Gallery, (Curitiba, Brazil) in 2018; Among her collective exhibitions the most relevant is at Mostra Verbo of Performance, at Vermelho Gallery in São Paulo, Brazil. She also exhibited in São Paulo at the Red Bull Station, Galeria Ponder 70, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Itaú Cultural, Municipal Theatre of São Paulo, SESI Digital Gallery, DAHAUS, among other collective exhibitions. In New York at the residency ‘Arts, Letters and Numbers’, in Leipzig at the residency ́Pilotenkueche ́.

Her research is on the subjectivity of memory: Is memory material or immaterial? Is memory embedded in objects? – A quest that doesn’t have the intention to be solved but yet to be the source for many artworks. ‘My work explores the documentation of the ephemeral. I explore the immaterially of an object or a place; the invisible, the subjective, and the unspeakable. I think of memory as built in the present rather than something from the past; and I am interested in traces and layers as textures of memory and nostalgia.’

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