Biography / Version 3
SOMA AHMAD studied political science and Islamic studies at the University of Vienna and works for the League of Emancipation Development Cooperation (LEEZA), a humanitarian organization active in the Middle East.
CANA BILIR-MEIER studies art and digital media at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where she also earned her degree in art education in 2015. She works with film, digital media, video, and video installations. She is an author, teacher, and curator at the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival. She was a fellow at kültüř gemma! and received the Birgit Jürgenssen Prize in 2016.
HANS GROISS is an editorial team member at Ö1 Kunstradio – Radiokunst and an editor for Ö1 Radiokolleg, Ö1 Kinderuni, and Ö1 Nachtquartier (also involved in concept development). Since 2012, he has been a university lecturer in radio production and broadcasting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. He earned his PhD in Philosophy in 2016.
MANFRED GRÜBL represents a broad concept of art. His diverse work spans installation, performance, photography, video, and sculpture, pushing the boundaries of these media. Grübl intervenes in public space, turning viewers into active participants in his art. His approach is characterized by the idea of art as a subjective, immersive experience—one that is not a static object in space but rather an act of interaction and communication.
YASMINA HADDAD lives and works as an artist and photographer in Vienna and Basel. Together with Andrea Lumplecker, she has run the art space school and the event series Performative Screenings since 2011. Starting from photography, her artistic practice expands into set design, styling, sculpture, and sound. In the 2000s, she was a member of the band Rashim. She is a guest lecturer at the Institute of Fashion Design at the Academy of Art and Design in Basel, and the Department for Applied Photography (and Time-Based Media) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
MICHAEL HIESLMAIR studied architecture in Graz and Delft. He lives and works as an artist, curator, and architectural theorist in Vienna and is a co-founder of the research platform Tracing Spaces. Together with Michael Zinganel, he collaborates on workshops, exhibitions, and publications focusing on mass tourism in modernity and on cartographic representations of urban and transnational mobility and migration—most recently, from 2014 to 2016, in the research project Stop & Go. Nodes of Transformation and Transition at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies (IKW) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
ANA HOFFNER is an artist and cultural theorist. In their artistic practice, they* explore conflict-laden moments in history and politics, seeking out queer aspects within their visual-cultural representations. Through performances, video, and photo installations, they* create temporalities, relationships, and spaces between established perspectives, iconic memories, and highly performative events.
LINDA KLÖSEL studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is a freelance writer, editor, and a member of the Public Relations Office at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She has conceptualized and carried out projects such as Art, Music & Environment (together with Gertraud Presenhuber) and Version (together with Manfred Grübl). Her publications include: Birgit-Jürgenssen-Preis 2004–2013 (2013) and Georg Kargl – Fine Arts since 1998 – BOX since 2005 (2006).
ESRA KÜÇÜK is a member of the executive board of the Maxim Gorki Theater and heads the Gorki Forum. She is a native of Hamburg and holds a degree in social sciences. Esra Küçük completed a dual German-French diploma at WWU Münster and the Institut d’Études Politiques in France. Following positions at the Mercator Foundation, the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration, and Humboldt University of Berlin, she led the nationwide educational program Young Islam Conference, which she initiated.
ANDREA LUMPLECKER lives in Vienna and works at the intersection of artistic, curatorial, and educational practices. Together with Yasmina Haddad, she has run the art space school and the event series Performative Screenings since 2011. Her photos, films, objects, DJ sets, and lectures serve as starting points, vehicles, and products of feminist inquiry and strategy.
FRIEDERIKE MAYRÖCKER is considered one of the most important contemporary writers in the German-speaking world. She owes this standing primarily to her poetry, although she has also achieved success with prose and radio plays. She co-wrote four of these with Ernst Jandl, with whom she lived from 1954 until his death in 2000. From 1946 to 1969, Friederike Mayröcker worked as an English teacher at various secondary schools in Vienna, after which she devoted herself exclusively to writing. In 2008, the biographical documentary Writing and Silence about the author was released. Her 2016 poetry collection fleurs earned her the inaugural Austrian Book Prize that same year.
SELMA AND SOFIANE OUISSI are key figures in contemporary dance in the Arab world and have collaborated with filmmakers and choreographers such as Fadhel Jaziri, Hichem Rostom, Martino Müller, and the Michèle Anne De Mey ensemble. The duo has performed live internationally, including at Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Tanzquartier Wien, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, and the Carthage Festival. In 2007, they founded the collective L’Art Rue, which focuses on the production and dissemination of contemporary art in public spaces in Tunis, and they developed the arts biennial Dream City.
NECATI ÖZIRI studied philosophy, German studies, and modern German literature in Bochum, Istanbul, Olsztyn, and Berlin. He was a Heinrich Böll Foundation scholar and taught formal logic at Ruhr University Bochum. Öziri is a dramaturge at the Maxim Gorki Theater and writes short stories (e.g., Da kommt er, in entwürfe, No. 71). His debut play Vorhaut (Rowohlt) premiered in 2014 at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Since the 2014/15 season, he has been the artistic director of Studio Я. In May 2017, the Gorki Theater staged the world premiere of his play Get Deutsch or Die Tryin’.
OLIVER RESSLER creates installations, public art projects, and films dealing with topics such as economy, democracy, migration, climate change, forms of resistance, and social alternatives. He has held over 60 solo exhibitions, including at the Berkeley Art Museum (USA), Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum (Egypt), Wyspa Institute of Art (Gdańsk), LENTOS Art Museum (Linz), Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo – CAAC (Seville), SALT Galata (Istanbul), and the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest. In 2016, he received the inaugural Swiss art award Prix Thun für Kunst und Ethik.
BELIT SAĞ is a video artist from Turkey currently living in Amsterdam. She completed the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York. She studied mathematics in Turkey and art at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in the Netherlands. Her video practice is rooted in her involvement with various alternative video activist and artist groups in Ankara and Istanbul, where she co-founded collectives such as VideA, Karahaber, and Videoccupy.
XENIA SIRCAR is the press spokesperson for the Gorki Theater. She grew up between Bavaria, Berlin, and Bengal, and studied comparative literature in Munich, Siena, and Shantiniketan. She completed a journalism traineeship at Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk in Leipzig and, after 10 years as a culture journalist in TV and radio, transitioned to working in theater.
ELISABETH ZIMMERMANN is the producer of the Ö1 radio series Kunstradio – Radiokunst. From 2010 to 2014, she served as chair of the Ars Acustica Group of the European Broadcasting Union and has been its vice-chair since 2015. She is involved in the development and realization of international radio art projects and series, most recently Radio Revolten in October 2016 in Halle/Saale.
MICHAEL ZINGANEL studied architecture in Graz, art in Maastricht, and contemporary history in Vienna. He lives and works in Vienna as an artist, curator, cultural theorist, and architectural theorist, and is a co-founder of the research platform Tracing Spaces. His work focuses on planning mythologies and everyday architecture, the productive power of crime in the development of security technologies, architecture and urbanism, as well as tourism as a driver of transnational mobility. Together with Michael Hieslmair, he collaborates on workshops, exhibitions, and publications about mass tourism in modernity and on cartographic representations of urban and transnational mobility and migration.