Alessandra Pomarico
Alessandra Pomarico is a curator, writer, and educator at the intersection of arts, pedagogy, and community building. Co-founder of Ecoversities Alliance; of the artistic and pedagogic initiative Free Home Universit since 2013 , and of the radio platform Firefly Frequencies. Recent projects are The School of the We, The New Alphabet School, and Seeding~Grounding. Editor at artseverywhere.ca, she edited Pedagogies Otherwise; What’s there to learn; and When the Roots Start Moving, Resonating with Zapatismo (Archive Books 2021). Upcoming publications include The School of the We Workbook, and Unlearning and Uplearning: Free Home University at 10.
Bek Berger
Bek Berger (b. 1988) is an artist, curator and dramaturg originally from Australia, based now between Berlin and Riga, where from 2020 to 2024, she was curator of the International Festival of Contemporary Theatre, Homo Novus. Bek’s practice binds curiosity with innovation in order to design new models of connection, collaboration and reciprocity between artists and communities, across borders and art forms. Her expertise lies between festival making, dance dramaturgy and karaoke. In the last years she has instigated a number of large international collaborations such as Baltic Take Over Helsinki (LV, LT, EE, FI), The Shake Down with Rosendal Theatre (LV, NO), The Festivals Path with ANTI festival (LV, FI). As an artist she is currently concerned with exploiting magic, making new conditions for togetherness and improving the performing arts with pleasure centered design.
Pankaj Tiwari is a contemporary artist, performance maker, and Curator from Balrampur, India, currently based in Amsterdam. His works bring Eastern perspectives into the Western discourse on sociopolitical issues. Sustainability and connection to the East are some defining topics in his work. In the past and present, Pankaj’s works have been invited and supported by multiple festivals and production houses. A few of them include DESINGEL, Antwerp (23, 24) Grand Theater Groningen (24, 23, 20), Kaaitheater (24), Holland Festival (23), Belluard Bollwerk, Fribourg (23), wpZimmer, Antwerp (23), Zürcher Theatre Spektakel, Zürich (20 & 23), radialsystem Berlin, (22), Santarcangelo Festival, Italy (20 & 21), performingborderslive UK (20), Grand Theatre, Groningen (20,23) etc.
Emmanuel Ndefo (b. 1991, Kano, Nigeria) is a performance artist who uses his body as a tool to explore contemporary conversations, focusing on the metaphor of “Hacking” the human body as a network. His work, rooted in dance, performance, and installation, draws from both formal dance research and traditional African rituals, as well as urban dance styles like hip-hop and krump.
Ndefo has received the African No Filter Storytellers Fund (2021) and the ACCR Odyssée Artist Grant (2022). He has performed and exhibited at institutions including Tate Modern, Berlin Biennale, and Kampnagel Hamburg. Notable works include “Traces of Ecstasy” and “The Passage.”
Sibongile Oageng Khaveni Msimango is a Daughter, Sister, Rakgadi, Yoga Instructor and Practitioner. She is an arts researcher, arts administrator and cultural practitioner focusing on writing, translation, curation, public programming and urban practices. Her work looks at the role of archives and language in shaping collective consciousness, the possibilities of creative production and circular economies in the urban environment as well as artistic research on structures and systems that govern cultural activity in African capital cities.
Nikhil Vettukattil is an artist living and working in Oslo. Using a range of media such as sound, installation, performance, text, sculpture, and video, their practice questions modes of representation and image-making processes in their relation to lived experiences. They studied at Central St. Martins in London and the Center for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP). Recent exhibitions include Hothouse Flowers, Podium, Oslo (2024), Postproduction, Studiengalerie 1.357 Goethe University, Frankfurt (2023), Contaminators (with Halvor Rønning), FELIX GAUDLITZ, Vienna (2023) and Claustrophobia Alpina III, Ford, Geneva (2023). They are a founding member of. The Institute for Scene Experiments. Forthcoming solo presentations include Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo, Arcadia Missa, London and AGIT, Berlin.
Lena Kollender
Lena Kollender is a dramaturg and curator. Since the beginning of 2022 she has been working at Sophiensælen Berlin, where she is responsible for local performance and theater productions and international programming. Between 2013 and 2021, she worked for the Kampnagel International Summer Festival in Hamburg as a program curator and dramaturg for international co-productions and discourse programs.
Karoline Skuseth (b. 1983) is a curator at BIT Teatergarasjen, where she has been responsible for discourse since 2011. A graduate of the University of Bergen and the Institut für Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft in Giessen, her work centers on the political potential of the performing arts, exploring how they can challenge societal power structures. With extensive experience as a critic, moderator, and writer, Skuseth is dedicated to amplifying voices and bodies that are often marginalized in mainstream spaces. She has held several board positions within the performing arts and is a co-founder and member of the artist collective Walk of Shame (2012–present) and the punk band Scampi Chips Dip & Campari (2007–present).
Alina Anufrienko is a non-binary composer, sound researcher, and cellist from Omsk, Siberia. They have collaborated with Moscow’s Teatr.doc, the Gulag Museum, and the now-banned Novaya Gazeta. In 2022, Alina founded the Laboratory of Documentary Music, exploring the intersection of music and documentary art forms. Fleeing Russia due to the Ukraine invasion and LGBTQ+ repression, they secured a humanitarian visa and became an artist in exile.
In 2023, Alina composed Exile Promenade, premiering at the Berliner Festspiele, and created Resist and Love, debuting at the Eclat Festival Neue Musik. Their work often explores resistance, memory, identity, and LGBTQ+ activism. Based in Berlin, Alina continues to collaborate with diverse artists, using art as a means of societal dialogue, resistance, and healing.
