Merav Kamel (born in 1988, Israel) and Halil Balabin (born in 1987, Israel) are an artist duo based in Tel-Aviv, working together since 2012. Both of them received their BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem (Kamel in 2012, Balabin on 2014). Their works are divided into two types of practices — the first is sewing of dolls, and the other is site-specific installations. The installations deal with documentary and autobiographical content, through which they examine new possibilities of documentary representation. For example, how can the documentary film genre shed its cinematic identity, and how a human story can be told by using traditional artistic tools, without the use of a video camera. In contrast, their work with dolls brings out an associative way of thought — the attachment of different organs born of amputations, hybridizations and compositions that create a new object. They are mutations of lust and fantasy with a humorous tone, which mix together an array of familiar images: Cartoons, surrealism, poeticism, a mélange of the high and low, art history, and the conflicted and bizarre space of Israel. Their joint work cancels the masculine-feminine dichotomy of their works, and allows a fluid gender identity. An ever-changing, androgynous being is formed, with the ability to play more than one character. Their works has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions including: Buchum Museum, Germany; Brno house of art, Czech; Pram Gallery, Prague; PM gallery, Dusseldorf; Circle 1 Gallery, Berlin; Untitled art fair, Miami; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Tel Aviv Museum; Herzliya Museum; Bat Yam Museum; Ha’Kibbutz Gallery, Tel Aviv; Givon Gallery, Tel Aviv; Inga Gallery, Tel aviv; among many other venues. Their works are included in a number of public and private collection such as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Philara collection; Carry and Dan Bronner collection; Discount Bank collection; Roni and Allen Baharaff collection; Shoken collection; Ann and Ari Rosenblatt collection; Dubi Shiff collection; Alexander Farenholtz collection and other private ones. Both was awarded from Israel Ministry of Culture, Young Artist Award (Kamel in 2018, Balabin on 2016); Artis Residency grant; "Elhanani" Prize from Bezalel Academy of Art ; America- Israel cultural Foundation award for extra ordinary artistic achievement.

Georg Keller is an artist and theater director born 1981 in Zug, Switzerland. He lives and works in Zurich and Warsaw. Keller studied Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zürich and Warsaw (2002-2008).

In his work, Keller mainly focuses on the structures and functions of a globalized world and the effects it causes humans. He developed an artistic language, loosely following the postmodern theory of performative science by Jean-Francois Lyotard; performance in the sense of an artistic action and also as economic earnings. This allows him to introduce new narrations and perspectives on economic matters. Keller founded his own company, “Georg Keller Unternehmungen a brand like a friend”, which he uses as a source for artistic research on economics and inscenisation. His works have been shown in many museums in Switzerland and all over Europe. In recent years, he also started showing his work in theaters, where he develops his own plays.

Ruth Patir works with video, film, and performance in sequences that confuse the public and private spheres. Patir employs new technologies as tools for rethinking narratives, contemplating gender paradigms and exploring the aesthetics of power. Her latest solo exhibition “Love Letters to Ruth” showcased at Hamidrasha Gallery (2018, Tel Aviv) was centered around appropriating national narratives and their incorporating them within her autobiography by means of 3D technologies. Her film “Sleepers” (2017) was awarded The Experimental Cinema and Video Art Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival, and was showcased at Danspace Projects New York during president elect Donald Trump’s Inauguration. Patir’s work has been exhibited at venues such as CCA Center for Contemporary Art - Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Anthology Film Archives - New York, MoMA Museum of Modern Art - New York, Kav 16 Gallery - Tel Aviv, and Flux Factory New York among others. The artist holds a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem, and an MFA from Columbia University in the city of New York.

Dor Zlekha Levy (born 1990) is a multimedia artist, specialized in creating Audiovisual installations, video art and performnaces. Sound is a core element in Zlekha Levy’s work. Ongoing collaborations with musicians are essential to his working process, from conception to installation. Zlekha Levy’s latest works are inspired by the history and the cultural heritage of Arab Jewry (Jews living in or originating from Arab countries). His works bring to life voices that are excluded from the Israeli cultural discourse in a way that allows them not just to be heard, but be listened to. He has held solo exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Hamidrasha Gallery and Braverman Gallery, among others, and participated in group shows at The Petach Tikva Museum of Art, The Israel Museum, Kunsthalle Stavanger, The Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem and others. His videos have been screened at international festivals as Ars Electronica and institutions as Kadist Foundation and ICA London. Dor had conducted several major events, combining live musical performances and Audiovisual installations under the title “Songs of The Next War” (Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem film festival, Soundart Pazaz). His videos have been screened at international festivals as Ars Electronica and institutions as Kadist Foundation and ICA London. In 2017, Dor recieced the Israeli Ministry of Culture prize for young artist. He is the winner of ‘Zoom 2016’ prize for young Israeli artist. His works are held in the collection of The Israel Museum in Jerusalem and in private collections.

The work practise of Katharina Schücke evolves around the question of what constitutes an image today, in a time with constant overload of information and imagined desires through media. Her interests lies in identites, bodies and the shaping of both. Such as first and foremost the internet, where the background less and less frequently rises through the shining surfaces, she collects imagery from to create expressive drawings through collage.

Schückes work practise includes to also foster colaborations with further experts. After organising ephemeral exhibitions in hotel rooms called Soft Walls Become Water wwww, an intensive collective work has developed since 2016, she has been working as part of artist collective HazMatLab intensively. In sharing knowledge, supporting individual expertise and gaining knowledge in their experiment-based sculptural work with Sandra Havlicek and Tina Kohlmann HazMatLab pushes forward the boundaries of the perception of contemporary art practise. See interview on artfridge for some details.

Yael Frank's work deals with the connection between joy and authority. Her projects are made with humorous, analog means. They examine a fictional anthropomorphistic presence of political speech, proposedly embedded in objects of local cultural insignificance. Frank appropriates the performative potential of local esoteric readymades, to push forward a new kind of participatory relationship. On the spectrum between animating the Israeli National Anthem to creating a bad luck machine, she generates broken jokes; textual images that have a strong humorous appearance, and are conceptually manipulated to the point they become viscerally not funny. With no punchline they turn from a singular remark to an ongoing accumulating phenomenon of poetic and political unease. Yael Frank (1982, lives and works in Tel Aviv), earned her BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art in NY, and her MFA from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Her work is exhibited in internationally, among else at The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, The Israeli Centre for Digital Arts, The Petach Tikvah Museum of Art, FuturDome Milano, Brno House of Art, Czech Republic, Zachęta National Gallery Warsaw, The Wroclaw Museum of Contemporary Art in Poland, and Hezi Cohen Gallery in Tel Aviv. Frank is the recipient of the 2017 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize Established by Anslem Kiefer.

Ella Littwitz is a multidisciplinary artist, working with notions of landscape and nationalism. Her installations deal with territories and engage history, culture and politics. Her practice is research based and involves collaborations with different scientific fields such as botany, archeology and geography. Born in 1982, Littwitz received her BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (2005-09) and is a Laureate of the HISK in Ghent, Begium (2014/15). Littwitz exhibited worldwide, with solo exhibitions in Kunst Halle Sank Gallen (CH), Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida (ES), Salzburger Kunstverein (AT), Petach Tikva museum of Contemporary Art (IL), MWW Muzeum Współczesne Wrocław (PL) and group exhibitions in Ticho House - The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (IL), Tallinn Art Hall, Tallinn (EST), Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art (IL), Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània, València (ES), CCA Tel Aviv (IL) the 6th Moscow Biennial Special Program (RU) and the 12th Istanbul Biennial (TR), among others, Littwitz received the Swiss Guggenheim foundation Prize (2018 CH), Artis exhibition grant (2019, IL) Outset Studiomakers grant (2018 IL), the Lottery fund grant (2017 and 2018 IL), Igal Ahouvi The Most Promising Artist Prize (2013, IL) the Botin Foundation Prize (2012-2013, Santander, ES), Arbeitsstipendium Stiftung Kunstfonds (2012,DE) and Mitchell Presser Excellence Award granted by Bezalel Academy (2009, IL).

German-born Esther Kläs has developed a distinctive visual language that harks back to the great sculptural traditions of the twentieth century – including post-war abstraction and minimalism – while simultaneously challenging contemporary sculptural norms. Using malleable materials that can be worked by hand – cement, clay, plaster, Styrofoam and resin – Kläs is a process-based sculptor who maintains an intimate physical relationship with her work. Interested in the dynamics of group sculptures, Kläs often creates human-scale ensembles that seem governed by their own internal and external logic. Her practice frequently addresses stasis and movement, with her sculptures eliciting specific gestures and motions from viewers. Kläs is attentive to her inner experience as well as external reality, and her sculptures and works on paper appear at once as mysterious presences and projections of a poetic imagination. Differing relations of scale, asymmetry, and the contrast between light and dark colours, also play a central role in her work. Esther Kläs (b. 1981, Mainz, Germany) lives and works in Barcelona. Recent exhibitions include ola/wave, Proyecto AMIL, Lima, Peru (2017-2018); Our Reality, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania, Italy (2015-2016); Whatness, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany (2015); Girare Con Te, Marino Marini Museum, Florence, Italy (2014); Esther Kläs: Better Energy, MoMA PS1, NY, USA (2012).

Joanna Piotrowska (born Warsaw, Poland 1985), lives and works in London.  Piotrowska’s photographic, filmic and performative practice investigates man-made environments and domestic spaces in relation to self-protection and psycho-physical relationships. Selected current and forthcoming exhibitions include Being: New Photography 2018, MoMA, New York, USA, We don’t need another Hero, 10th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany, SUPERSTITION, Museum Marres, Maastricht, Netherlands, Daegu Photo Biennale, Daegu, Korea, Structures of meaning | Architectures of perception, Gateway, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Material Environments, The Tetley, Leeds South Bank, Leeds, UK, Big Towers , ICA Singapore, GAUDIOPOLIS , Off- Biennale, Budapest, Hungary, Untitled, Southard Reid, London, UK, These Rotten Words , Chapter Gallery, Cardiff, UK, Room, Sadie Coles, London, UK and Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, UK (2017); Give Me Yesterday , Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy, Frantic , Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, Portugal (2016); Hester, Southard Reid, London, UK, Jerwood and Photoworks Award Exhibition, Jerwood Space, London, UK (2015); s.w.a.l.k, Project Space, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland, UK, What love has to do with it, Project Space, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2014); Bloomberg New Contemporaries , Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK and Spike Island, Bristol, UK, Family Politics, Jerwood Space, London, UK (2013). Publications include Frantic by Humboldt Books (2017) and Frowst by Mack (2014).

Rudolf Samohejl (b.1987, České Budějovice, Czechoslovakia) is a visual artist living and working between Prague, the Czech Republic and Brussels, Belgium. He graduated from the Academy of Art Architecture and Design in Prague. Samohejl classifies his works as “sculptural situations.” As opposed to installations, his works are moreso experiences than presentations, drawing their strength from an active audience and oftentimes incorporating audience interaction. Samohejl’s work is not restricted to any one medium or material – instead the medium and material are specific to the concept and space he is working with. In the past, Samohejl has worked with concrete, found materials, and 3D-printed objects, among others. He has worked in a wide variety of disciplines, including video, performance, and drawing. Samohejl frequently draws processes and aesthetics from design and architecture. He is concerned with the present and future, particularly dealing with issues of technology, urbanism, and mass consumption. He is most interested in the physical and mental impact of these systems on the individual. Samohejl’s works reveal to us what goes unseen. They reveal what we take for granted: the systems that shape our lives, and yet are too large and complex to question. His situations disrupt our habits, thus illuminating and creating space to question them. In recent years, Samohejl has created “natural virtual realities,” using low-tech materials to speak about problems in high-tech. He often employs humor as a method of disruption. The unexpected size and construction of his works may undermine the context that a viewer might rely on to understand the work, thus liberating their relationship to it. The core of Samohejl’s current work can be found in the human obsession with an abstract future and the obsessive desire to project itself onto this imagined existence. Samohejl’s work has been exhibited in the Czech Republic and abroad since 2010. He received the Jan Naaijkens Prize 2015 in the Netherlands and was a finalist of ESSL Art Award in 2013. Samohejl has completed residencies at such institutions as AIR Sandnes (Norway), Flow East Art Hub Prague, INI Project Prague, Space Called Place (Krakow, Poland) and Egon Schiele Art Center (Český Krumlov).

Born in Riga, Latvia in 1986. Lives and works in Tartu, Estonia. Diana Tamane works mainly with photography and video using autobiographical elements such as memory, everyday routines and personal events. Starting with tiny movements and awkward gestures she is following long roads from the East to the West of Europe. Often her family members are the main characters of her work. Though Tamane’s work might be mistaken as centering purely on the micro-cosmic, ultimately it deploys the personal sphere and family nucleus to reflect on wider, macro-cosmic issues: historical and political transformations, working class life, of changes in global production and consumption circuits and labour conditions, suggesting those momentous shifts that occurred after the so-called ‘end of history’, through a decidedly anthropocentric and highly personal narrative. Tamane has graduated from the Tartu Art College (BA) and Sint-Lukas School of Arts Brussels (MA). In 2015–2016 she attended HISK post-academic program in Ghent, Belgium.  Tamane’s work has been exhibited at Fotomuseum Winterthur (Switzerland), 1st Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (Latvia), A Gentil Carioca gallery (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil), CCI Fabrika (Moscow, Russia), Riga Photography Biennial (Latvia),  Triumph Gallery (Moscow, Russia), Kathmandu Triennial (Nepal), Surplus Space (Wuhan, China), Kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Riga, Latvia), S.M.A.K. (Ghent, Belgium), Tartu Art Museum (Estonia) etc. In recent years Tamane has received Kim? Residency Award (2019, Riga, Latvia), the Riga Photography Biennial Award (2018 Latvia), Outset Estonia - Estonian Photographic Art Fair Acquisition Fund (2017 Estonia), Development grant from the Flemish Government, Ministry of Culture (2017 Belgium), ’Friends of the S.M.A.K. Prize’ (2016 Ghent, Belgium) and was selected as Young Belgian Talent by FotoMuseum (FoMu) (2016 Antwerp, Belgium).

Savannah Gorton (b. 1972, Santa Monica) is an American curator from New York, based in Copenhagen since 2014. Gorton received her MA in Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, London (2004) in partnership with Tate Modern. For over 25 years, she has curated, commissioned, and/or contributed to a diverse range of exhibitions, performances, public programs, artist books, publications, and limited editions. Gorton trained at art non-profits including SITE Santa Fe Biennial, Whitechapel Gallery, and Creative Time, and has worked at The Kitchen, Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair (NYABF), and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Gorton currently is Co-Director and Curator at Forever & Today as well as Curator of Friends with Books: Art Book Fair Berlin. In 2008, she co-founded the New York non-profit art commissioning organization Forever & Today with curator Ingrid Chu, featuring exhibitions and public programs at its Chinatown/Lower East Side storefront space. Forever & Today has also collaborated/partnered with Abrons Arts Center; ART2 International Platform on Contemporary Art, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, New York; Art Basel Miami Beach; Goethe-Institut New York; International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP); Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA); Performa Biennial; Printed Matter, Inc.; Participant Inc.; Swiss Institute, New York; among others. In 2018, Forever & Today became a nomadic curatorial office based between Copenhagen, Hong Kong, and New York. Additionally, in 2014, Gorton co-founded the non-profit “kunstverein” Friends with Books: Art Book Fair Berlin, with editor and publisher Vanessa Adler. Hosted annually at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, the festival features 200+ international artists and art publishers, with public programmes, performances, and art installations related to artists’ books. Gorton’s curatorial endeavors have received critical coverage in Art Asia Pacific; Artforum; ARTINFO; Artnet; CNN; Die Ziet; Flash Art; frieze; Gallerist NY; Hyperallergic; Performa Magazine; The MIT Press; Modern Painters; New York Magazine; The New York Observer; The New York Times; Tagesspiegel; The Paris Review; Vogue; and Whitehot Magazine, among others.

Benjamin Tejero is a French artist, living in Prague for the last three years. His practice and research are often inspired by personal experiences. Through artistic action he takes some distance in order to unveil the common essence of things. For him, the individual is a unity, but he is also made of differences. Benjamin Tejero is looking for the other side. He is interested in subjects that are illicit, surreptitious, unacknowledged, disgusting in the eyes of neophytes. With his publishing practice he wants to highlight stories from subcultures and marginal communities, largely invisible in our societies. Each of his works is the result of a collection of real testimonials and takes the form of drawings, photographs or ceramics to deliver social questions.