Alumni of Vila Sul

2024

Brazil/Germany

Ana Paula dos Santos is an artist born in Santos/Brazil. She lives in Frankfurt am Main and studies Fine Arts at the Städelschule in the class of Willem de Rooij. She studied cultural anthropology and human geography at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and with her artistic practice and research, she engages in critical,decolonial, post-colonial and identity debates. Dos Santos works with photography,installation and videos. Metaphors and symbols are very present in her work.

Her last institutional work was a photographic intervention in the permanent collection of the historical museum in Frankfurt am Main and pointed out racist elements and images in the collection of the museum. The name of this project is „Change of view – Tracing Racism (2022). Dos Santos co-curated this intervention with a group of BIPoC artists based in Germany. Some of her photographic work became part of the collection of the historical museum in Frankfurt am Main afterwards. In the same year she was with The Städellschule and Professor Willem de Rooij in Ghana to exchange art experience with the art collective blaxTARLINES in the department of Painting and Sculpture at Knust, Kumasi. She was shorlisted in 2022 to the Wi Di Mimba Prize of the Savvy Comtemporary and AKB Stftitung for artists of color in Germany and she is a member of the artist and architect collective Commune 6x3. The next show of Ana Paula dos Santos will be a group show in May 2024 with tha name „City of Women Photographers“, Frankfurt 1844-2024“ in the historical museum in Frankfurt am Main.
Canada

It was through travelling that Gabrielle Lebeau reconnected with her childhood passion: writing. She has studied at London School of Journalism (United Kingdom) and Creative Writing at Université de Montréal. Since 2015, she has published many short stories and three books. In October 2017, she released her first journalistic work, "Biographie, Claude Dubois". In January 2018, she finished the manuscript of her first novel "Partie", which was published in October 2018. In March 2018, after a three-month trip to Brazil, she started working on a new novel and an essay. This essay, "Nos ancêtres, les premiers hippies", was granted a price by the Union des écrivains du Québec (UNEQ) and was published in September 2023. Gabrielle Lebeau is currently finishing her novel "12 femmes", which received a grant from the Conseil des arts du Québec.
Germany

Stephan Lanz, Prof. Dr., is an urban researcher at the Europa-Universität Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) and at the metroZones Center for Urban Affairs (www.metrozones.info) in Berlin. He conducts research at the cultural and social science intersections of urban studies and has published numerous scholarly articles and books (most recently 2021: Governing the Favela ... in Rio de Janeiro). Lanz has co-curated international research and cultural projects. This includes 'Ersatzstadt' (Volksbühne Berlin, 2002-2006) and 'Global Prayers - Redemption and Liberation in the City' (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, metroZones, in collaboration with various Goethe-Instituts, 2007-2014).

Empirically his urban research focuses on immigration and racism, popular culture and social struggles (e.g. in the Brazilian favela). He has written theoretical contributions on urban governmentality, postcolonial and Southern urban theory, and urban religion.
Germany

Cate Lartey is an artist and curator based in Düsseldorf, Germany. She studied retail and communication design at the Peter Behrens Kunstschule in Düsseldorf. She is also completing a postgraduate degree in Art and Media Studies from the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne. Her artistic and curatorial practice is dedicated to visual and material culture, with a particular focus on Africa, its diaspora and beyond. She explores this through photography, publications and media art. An aesthetic and intellectual dialogue is at the heart of her work.

She has collaborated with Kunstsammlung NRW, Kunstverein Köln, Dortmunder U and Fachhochschule Düsseldorf and Dortmund. In 2020 she exhibited her photographic work "Clothes of dead white people" at "Fluctoplasma" in Hamburg. As a freelance curator at the Dortmunder U, she curated the accompanying programme for the exhibition EFIE. The Museum as Home. Art from Ghana. In 2023 she co-curated the exhibition "Point of" as part of the f2 photo festival at the Kulturdepot Dortmund.

"The fellowship in Salvador da Bahia excites me in many ways, not only because it will be a unique and enriching experience, but also because it will open up new ways for me to connect and relate to the richness and boundlessness of Afro-Brazilian hybridity, especially in Salvador da Bahia."

Instagram @ceitii
South Africa

Huda Tayob is a South African architect, theorist and architectural historian. Her research focuses on minor, migrant and subaltern architectures. She is co-curator of the open access curriculum Racespacearchitecture.org, and lead curator of the digital platform the Archive of Forgetfulness. She exhibited at the 18th International architecture exhibition in Venice (2023), with a project titled Index of Edges, which traces watery archives, methods and stories of migrant architectures along east African coastal edges, from Cape Town, South Africa to Port Said, Egypt. She is currently working on a manuscript project titled 'Opaque Architectures:Black Markets as Infrastructures of Care' - a project which draws out trans-national sites established by African migrants, as sites of possibility.

"Opaque Architectures is a research and writing project which draws together the everyday life of architectures and urban environments, with postcolonial, decolonial and subaltern studies literature and Black studies frameworks to ask how we might reconsider sites and spaces inhabited by marginalised African populations. At Vila Sul, I would like to extend and develop the theoretical framework for this writing project, by engaging with a range of global south scholars to ask what a ‘sustainable urbanism’ might look like when foregrounding marginalised and migrant populations, amidst forced displacement increasing linked to climate crises and ongoing high levels of urban violence? How might we develop practices and theories for understanding overlooked urban processes? How do ‘black urbanisms’ speak to the fungible and fugitive practices of making an urban life, across the globe, within and beyond the south?"

Grantee under the "Rethinking the South - Repensando Sul" program from the KfW Foundation.

Instagram @hudatayob
Brazil/ Germany

Jota Ramos (b.Brazil, 1989) is a transmasculine non - binary multidisciplinary artist based in Berlin. Beginning with autobiographical artistic experiments, Ramos explores the practices of performance, video, installation, photography, and poetry. Creating peripheral dissident subjectivities that dialogue with symbolic, etymological, and Black and gender identity references, he seeks to bring a poetic reflection as a healing space thinking about how to portray the authenticity of the brown body in a genuine way, as a light-skinned Black person. His research investigates tools to build an antiracist and powerful representation of Black trans people’s sociality, identity, and their historical journey.

"The Vila Sul residence holds immense significance within my research journey. As a black trans person who is also part of the ballroom community, this residency opens up a connection between Brazil and Berlin. As a Brazilian living in Germany "Private Property" emerges as a performance series that delves into the intricate dynamics of accessing trans bodies without consent. This residency provides a unique lens through which to examine the complexities of the Brazilian context."

Instagram @iamjotaramos
Germany

Paula Hildebrandt (*1976 in Berlin) is an author, filmmaker, and urban researcher who, in her works, combines literary writing, photography, video, performative actions, and experimental teaching. Her texts have been published in numerous art and culture magazines, academic collections, anthologies, and online. Her latest book, "Welcome City" (adocs 2022), portrays Hamburg as a welcoming city and has been recognized as one of the "Schönsten Deutschen Bücher 2023" (Most Beautiful German Books of 2023).

"Esu killed a bird yesterday with the stone he threw today. Can we really do that - make time our own? The riddle of time. How to deal with a haunting past while simultaneously acting in the present, with its stratifications, crossroads, traces? Together with artists/researchers based in Salvador I hope to explore ways of telling, showing and performing stories."

paulahildebrandt.de

2023

Clarissa Rebouças is a theater and film director with a master's degree from Université Laval/Canada. She holds a postgraduate degree in screenwriting and a bachelor's degree in Film and Video. She has directed and written several short films that have been shown in national and international film festivals. Among them are the award-winning films "Desvelo" (2012) and "Émergence" (2018). Clarissa also worked as a collaborator for the writing of the Brazilian TV series "Santo Forte" and "Meu irmão nerd". Currently she is dedicated to her feature film project titled "Cine Ruby".

Fellow of the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec (CALQ) at the Vila Sul residence
Quasi-artist born and raised in the outskirts of São Paulo, in the neighborhood of Parada de Taipas. Grandson of Rosa (Rose) and Esmeraldo (Emerald), Diego Crux is of the color that recalls memory. He researches intimate and personal callings, collective experiences, representation, design, visual samples, words. Crux has participated in exhibitions in São Paulo, Curitiba, Accra (GH), Arles (FR) and Copenhagen (DK) and in residencies, such as Pivô (2020) curated by Thiago de Paula Souza and MAM Rio (2021) coordinated by Camilla Rocha Campos.

Fellow of the program "Rethinking the South - Repensando Sul" from the KfW Foundation.
The Berlin-based Venezuelan artist Gotopo is making waves with her debut EP, "Sacúdete," set to release on May 16 under the prestigious Waxploitation Records label. A multi-talented singer, composer, producer, and performer, Gotopo draws inspiration from her South American heritage, blending folkloric stringed instruments with techno-inspired beats to explore her Afroindigenous legacy. Her music seeks to confront the historical erasure of her people due to colonialism, finding answers through ancestral futurism and weaving together the beautiful and painful stories of her ancestors. Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Gotopo received her musical training in Barquisimeto, renowned for its musical conservatory and the youth orchestra system, El Sistema, which produced Gustavo Dudamel.

Recently moving to Berlin, she has transitioned from street busking to participating in cutting-edge music events at the prestigious Humboldt Forum. Gotopo aims to blur the boundaries between classical and club music, academic and pop culture, merging the traditional with the contemporary. Her musical project began with the single "Malembe," exploring her Afroindigenous roots and spirituality. Fusing electro-beats with fuzzy guitars and synths, the song draws from an AfroVenezuelan hymn intended to provide spiritual farewells to enslaved relatives. Gotopo's upcoming album continues this exploration, reinventing folkloric music by infusing it with the vibrant electronic energy of Berlin's club scene.

The EP "Sacúdete" is a collaboration with producer Don Elektron (Ulises Lozano), a member of the Mexican electronica band Kinky, who has worked with various artists. Gotopo's unique blend of classical training, knowledge of traditional instruments like the cuatro and guitar, and her pursuit of ancestral memory through music make her stand out as a true innovator.

Her music has been well-received in Berlin, with performances at events like the X Jazz Festival and an opening act for Bomba Estereo. The city's innovation, creative energy, and support for women artists of color have been inspiring for Gotopo's artistic journey.
While she adapts to life in Berlin, she continues to learn the German language, as depicted in the award-winning mini-documentary, "Gotopo: The Sound of My Destiny." Embracing the gritty yet sexy atmosphere of Berlin, Gotopo is determined to push her artistic boundaries and explore new horizons in this vibrant city.

Fellow of the MusicBoardBerlin in the Vila Sul Residence
Odun Orimolade engages her practice in an experimental and multifaceted perspective of trans-disciplinary approaches, research and collaborations. She keeps an open contexture to her pedagogic, artistic and curatorial practice attending to a mix of ideologies and worldviews cultivated from different resource areas. This leads her into explorations of human behavioural tendencies, orientation and interaction as mechanisms for navigation. Orimolade’s research interests revolve around approaches to practice, creative engagement, navigation and influences that challenge and inform creative production for positive external impact. She explores possibilities for professional practice development, learning mediums and pedagogies that provide fresh avenues for flexible creative exploration. Her research also interrogates issues and initiatives that promote or confine practice. She pursues an interest in participatory research practices, as artistic intervention into a range of different spaces. Orimolade is passionate about creating mentorship avenues and contributes to different fields of creative activity alongside community projects.

Fellow of the program "Rethinking the South - Repensando Sul" from the KfW Foundation.
Mba Bikoro is a visual artist merging archeology, sonic radio, writing, textiles, sculpture, live art performances, film & archives for immersive installations. Her work analyses processes of power & science fictions in historical archives critically engaging in migrational struggles & colonial memory focusing on queer indigenous and feminist biopolitics. She is lecturer in visual cultures & philosophy at TransArt Institute and is Artistic Director of Lukulule e.V. in partnership with the MARKK Museum. She curates Nyabingi Lab with projects “Decolonise The Green; Nature, Nudism and Colonial Continuities ”and“ Free State of Barackia: 150 Years of Decolonial Urbanism, Solidarity & New Berlin Utopias ”in collaboration with Z/KU and HAU Berlin. She moderates the annual Berlinale Film Festival & is a co-beneficiary of the “Somatic Charting” project of the Institute for Endotic Research.

Instagram @nbikoro

www.anguezomo-bikoro.com
Caroline Gueye was born and raised in Senegal where she grew up immersed in an artistic environment under the influence of her grandfather Paul Ahyi who designed the Togolese flag.
She pursued her higher education in France, the United States and China and she holds degrees in astrophysics, atmospheric physics and Chinese. Currently she ist working on a PhD in art and science at the university of Lyon in France.

Her work in the studio of the Chinese artist Qin Chong (亲冲) in 2016 inspired her in her preference for volume. Since then she has participated, all combined, in more than thirty group exhibitions, solos and residencies on four continents. At the Dakar Biennale 2022 she received the prize for the best artist in West Africa (ECOWAS prize).

Grantee of the "Rethinking the South - Repensando Sul" program, supported by the KfW Foundation

Instagram @StudioCarolineGueye

www.carolinegueye.com
Kalaf Epalanga (1978) is a writer and musician born in Benguela, Angola, and based in Berlin. As a musician, he co-founded the record label Enchufada and is a member of Buraka Som Sistema (on hiatus since 2016). He has written columns for the Portuguese newspaper O Público, GQ Magazine (Portugal), the independent Angolan online magazine REDE Angola. He is currently a columnist for the Brazilian literary magazine Quatro Cinco Um. In Portugal and Angola he published two collections of literary chronicles; ‘Estórias de Amor para Meninos de Cor’ <Love Stories for Colored Kids> and ‘O Angolano que Comprou Lisboa (Por Metade do Preço)’ <The Angolan who Bought Lisbon (at Half the Price) >.

He curated the 2021 Berlin African Book Festival 'Também os Brancos Sabem Dançar' <Whites Can Dance Too>. His debut novel, will be translated to English by Daniel Hahn and published by Faber in the summer of 2023.

Instagram @kalafepalanga

kalafepalanga.com
Rafael Giles Martinez is an international writer who was born in 1985 in Mexico. He graduated at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Communication of La Salle University/Mexico in 2008. Afterwards he pursued his career working in communication, publishing, and production at different editorial offices. He has a postgraduate degree in Programme Evaluation from the Université du Québec at Ecole Nationale D'Administration Publique (ENAP) and besides Spanish, he speaks English and French. Rafael can show a broad range of professional experiences having worked at the forum of the film festival Festival of Nouveau Cinema (FNC), for the international organisation of the French-speaking world, l'Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) and at the Canadian university l'Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Furthermore, he has gathered experiences working in the Ateliers of Digital Literary Creation and at the project The Publication as a Space for Artistic Exhibition at the Center for Digital Culture (CCD)/Mexico. Apart from that, Rafael takes part in two programmes of the Canadian government board “Les Offices jeunesse internationaux du Québec” (LOJIQ), firstly, their Career Development Programme and, secondly, their programme Engagement Citoyen.

He obtained the residency at VILA SUL supported by the Goethe-Institut SalvadorBahia and the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (CALQ).
Lisa C Soto is a visual artist based in Puerto Rico and Ghana. Imagery of actual and imagined cartography is used in her work to address local and global interactions, tropical flora and cosmic connections. Her multi-medium, large-scale installations – including , flora and earth-based materials, instruments/games, and industrial materials, question hierarchies and binaries, reflecting on rhizomatic patterns in nature and challenging Western “rational” approaches to knowledge.

Selected exhibitions include Negro/A/X group exhibition at Corredor Afro gallery, 2020, Loiza, Puerto Rico; the Getty Foundation initiative PST LA/LA, Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, traveling group exhibition from 2017 – 2019; “Convergence”, a 2018 collaboration with Adjaye Associates creating her first permanent installation in the public realm in Newark, NJ. Artist lectures include MIT, Ford Foundation, KNUST, Claremont Graduate University and Rutgers University. Soto is currently an MFA candidate at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST)/Ghana.

Grantee of the program "Rethinking the South - Repensando Sul" from the KfW Foundation.

lisacsoto.com
Olivia Hyunsin Kim works internationally as a choreographer and curator. She won first place in the 2019 Amadeu Antonio Art Prize/Germany, and completed her MA in Choreography and Performance at the Institute of ATW Giessen with honours. Prior to that, she also completed her BA in German Studies with a focus on International Politics at Seoul National University with honours and has also studied dance at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and Falmouth University/ Great Britain. She has held fellowships at Impulstanz 2017/ Vienna, Goethe-Institut Montréal and Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique 2022, and at the Tarabya Cultural Academy in Istanbul/ Turkey, among others. In the 2022/23 season, she is composer-in-residence at the Staatsoper Hannover/Germany, where she curates and creates artistic works.

Her works have been shown at Sophiensælen Berlin, tanzhaus nrw Düsseldorf, Schwankhalle Bremen, Rote Fabrik Zurich, Art Sonje Center Seoul and Museo Universitario del Chopo Mexico City, among others. Under the name ddanddarakim she works in recurring constellations with artists from different disciplines on choreographic works with a queer-feminist and postcolonial focus.

ddanddarakim.net
Choreographer, dancer, curator and activist Raphael Moussa Hillebrand was born in Hong Kong in 1982, rooted in Germany and West Africa, raised in Berlin and trained through Hip Hop. In June 2014, he completed his master's degree in choreography at the University of the Arts - HZT Berlin. Based on this background, he picks up his instinct for socio-political issues as well as translating cultural facets and identities and transfers them into his choreographic works of Hip Hop Dance Theater. With the same passion, he has been working with children and young people as well as students and teachers on a wide variety of levels since 1998, empowering through dance.

As an idea generator and founding member of the world's first hip-hop political party: Die Urbane. A Hip-Hop Party, he advocates decolonization as well as empowerment and cultural diversity, among other things. His current theater piece, produced at Ballhaus Naunynstraße/ Berlin "On my shoulders" premiered in September 2019. In 2020, he was honored by the German Dance Award for his outstanding artistic development in dance.

raphaelmoussa.com/de/

2022

Émilie B. Guérette is a nomadic filmmaker whose roots are in Quebec and heart in Brazil. She directs documentary films related to social justice, human rights and migrations. Her multidisciplinary background in anthropology, political science, poetry and music is reflected in her socially engaged, sensitive and sensory approach, taking the side of those left behind. She sees documentary as an art of the encounter which aims at building bridges between human beings.

Fellow of the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec (CALQ) at the Vila Sul residence
"ASIAN BERLIN PUSSY POWER" is what the talented MC from Neukölln calls her attitude, which not only stands for empowering Rap, but also makes her the voice of many concerned people. The self-confident newcomer enriches the German rap scene with her unique mix of attitude and distinctive skills, a strong, political awareness and humorous as well as devastating punchlines.

Fellow of the MusicBoardBerlin in the Vila Sul Residence
João dos Santos Martins (Santarém, Portugal, 1989) is an artist, who studied at the Escola Superior de Dança (Lisbon), at P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), at e.x.er.c.e, (Montpellier) and at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies (Giessen). His work, usually developed in collaborative processes, encompasses various forms that focus on dance, whether through choreography or exhibition. These forms are traversed by questions concerning genealogies of dance history, processes of transmission, the relationship between practice and discourse, and paradoxes about the activity of dancing. Together with Ana Bigotte Vieira, he has created a structure for the collective mapping of dance in Portugal - Para Uma Timeline a Haver. He has performed in dance pieces by Ana Rita Teodoro, Eszter Salamon, Moriah Evans, Xavier Le Roy, Jérôme Bel, Manuel Pelmuş, Rui Horta, among others. In 2014, he founded Parasita, a cooperative of artists of which he is a member.
Koffi Mensah, an autodidact visual artist is born in Lome, Togo, in 1982. As a youth, Koffi Mensah catches a virus and develops a passion for the visual art in all its dimensions. Thus, he absolved several training and workshop at drawing. With the excitement to acquire more knowledge and eager to satisfy his soul and achieve his dream, the boy of 17 years old started a long journey full of adventures and leaved his country, Togo to undergo many training workshop in Accra, Abidjan, Niamey and Cotonou.

After these experiences Koffi Mensah has finally decided to establish himself at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where he makes more exposure for himself by demonstrating his technique skills on visual art.
The multi-dimension artist never stopped astonishing his admirers with his art work.

Combining the esthetic and comfort via sculpture and painting, the creative artist strongly believes that all creatures are the result of a symbol of two faces of the same coin.

Besides the influences of his mentors or elders such as Ousman Sow from Senegal and El Anatui from Ghana, Koffi Mensah is inspired of new relevant technique borrowed from the nature by creating the figurative arts and portraits. He claims to the world that he emancipates himself from all dogmatic theories. He always reflects his intimate relationship of his art and lives accordingly. Today, Koffi Mensah is a spiritual minded person and believes that the instinct has a capital impact on his art. He realizes several institutional artwork such as the portrait of Burkina Faso’s first President, Maurice Yameogo (4 meters height).

In 2018, the artist received an award, Grand Prix du Dessin d’art in Burkina Faso.
Mario Pfeifer (*1981, Dresden, Germany) lives and works in Berlin and Dresden. In his work, he explores representational structures and conventions in the medium of video, film and new media in places such as Mumbai, California, the Atacama Desert, the Brazilian Quarter in Lagos or the Western Sahara. He conceives each project starting from a specific cultural situation, exploring socio-political backgrounds and weaving cross-cultural art historical, cinematic, technological and political references into a multi-layered body of work ranging from film and video installations to text installations and photography.

Mario participated in the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018), the 11th Bienal do Mercosul (2017), the 3° Montevideo Biennale (2016) and the 4th Marrakech Biennale (2012). Survey exhibitions were held at the GfZK Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig in 2016 and at The Power Plant in Toronto in 2019. Numerous solo exhibitions at Museum Folkwang, Edith Russ House for Media Art, Berlinische Galerie, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile, among others. A solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Winterthur is planned for 2023. His films have been shown at film festivals around the world. Several monographs have been published by Sternberg Press and Mousse Publishing. His works are in private and public collections in Europe and North America, including the Getty Center Los Angeles, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Bundeskunstsammlung Bonn, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Oliver Hardt is a film director, author and filmmaker. His documentaries regularly explore Black culture and history, including "Black Germany" (2006), "The United States of Hoodoo" (2011), "David Adjaye - Collaborations" (2015) and "The Black Museum" (2018). In 2021, he curated the film series "Black is not a colour" for the Kunsthalle Schirn in Frankfurt. He is currently working on the screenplay for his first feature film.
Alexandra Rodríguez (Culturalex) is a multimedia artist, curator, and educator based in Montreal. Born in Venezuela, she has lived in Brazil, Switzerland, Mexico and Canada. This multicultural upbringing, combined with her love for nature, folklore and culture, often converge into creations that are recognizable by their vibrancy, diversity and multisensory dimensions.

In 2015, Alexandra created "Bio Electro Sounds", an interactive musical installation that she has presented around the world. She equally enjoys creating and curating experiences and events where different art disciplines meet, such as the online exhibition "Curando" (2020) in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Salvador-Bahia, the "Festival de las Artes" in partnership with the Tuxtla Gutiérrez City Museum (2016), and "Alegría", an independent food & art pop-up (Montreal, 2018). The artist is also active as a DJ and educator offering workshops on creative multidisciplinary practices.

Some of the places she has presented her work include the Berlin Food Art Week, The Tuxtla Gutiérrez City Museum and The Modern-Fuel Artist-Run Center in Kingston/ Canada.

Fellow of the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec (CALQ) at the Vila Sul residence
Florencia Romano is a professor at Fundación Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, teaching as assigment supervisor in the History of Cinema, Film Semiotics and Film Aesthetics departments. As a filmmaker, her first feature film "La noche polar" premiered at the Entrevues Belfort International Film Festival/ France in 2016. She also works as a film critic collaborating for different publications (La Vida Útil, Otra Parte Digital, TranceZonda). Currently, she holds a PhD scholarship from CONICET ( Consejo National de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), working on a research proyect about contemporary Argentine and Brazilian Cinema.
Jackie Thomae was born in Halle/Saale, grew up in Leipzig, and moved to Berlin in 1989, where she still lives today. She is a journalist, television writer and author.
Renata Martins (São Paulo, 1980) is a social worker, art critic, translator and freelance curator based in Bonn, Germany, where she works since 2018 in the Latin America Department of Deutsche Welle. For 10 years, she worked in various departments of the Goethe-Institut in São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Montevideo (cultural program, pedagogical cooperation, German teaching and administration). She writes for various media outlets in Brazil, Germany and Argentina on visual arts, culture and society, especially on South American artists. In 2021, she curated and organized for the Goethe-Institut Salvador the virtual catalogue "Arte+ Panorama of Transvestigeneres Visual Artists in Brazil".

2021

Dio Coutt, born in Alvorada/RS. Graduated in business administration, gay, black, peripheral cultural producer and performance artist. In 2015 he joined the theater collective Levanta Favela. In 2017 he joined the film collective Cipó, in the production of short films. March 2020 returns to his hometown where, in a collective way, he integrates and creates cultural movements such as Parque da Solidariedade, O Beco das Artes, Horta Umbuntu, Artistas Aqui, in exhibition at Museu Baldio. The last performance was "O Sujeito da Incúria" (2021), dragging a pine tree from the park to the exhibition.
Franz Thomas is a student of psychology, a facilitator of transformative processes, and a fan of various kinds of sports, especially sailing. Franz has experience in socio-cultural programs. He is restless and passionate about working with people development. With the proposal of rescuing the NGO where he grew up, he founded the Navegando nas Artes initiative, which intends to integrate children/adolescents with nature through nautical experiences, in order to promote the preservation of the environment and the occupation of public spaces with leisure activities and graffiti art.
Vitória Leona (br. 1998) is a photographer born in Belém do Pará. She works with portraits, where celebrates the diversity of the Brazilian people and records human expression with great transparency, using vivid colors that refer to the Amazon, and wanders between analogical and digital to record the streets digital to record the streets and the bodies that pass by her.
Leona had her first international exhibition in London in 2017. After living in the southeast, from 2018 to 2020, she began to focus on fashion photography and worked with brands such as Nike, Converse and Adidas. Since then, she has been considered by Vogue Brazil and FFW as one of the leading photographers in the Amazon region and part of the future generation of women photographers by the Malala Fund.
Caroline Ribeiro
Environmentalist and researcher
Ivana Magalhães
Visual artist and pedagogue
Marília Reis
Accountant and educator
Tata Ribeiro
Visual artist and researcher

2020

Jade Maria Zimbra is at this time tarot reader/witch/poet. The artist digs lost traces inside and outside western time, investigating antidotes to colonial poisons spread through mind-body-soul. Crossing the languages that permeate and guide her spirituality, she uses her hands and voices to weave advertisements that come from investigations in dry and abyssal lands, where oracles are magical tools of manifestation and healing.
Visual artist, master in art/education and PhD student in Arts at the Instituto de Artes da Universidade Estadual Paulista UNESP where he is part of the coordination of the Human Rights Commission and the Nucleus of Black Researchers of Unesp, Nupe-IA. She conducts research in art/education and ruptures of hegemonic paradigms as a focus on decolonization of educational practices. In the last years she has been organizing exhibitions, courses, workshops, lectures, teaching formation activities and consulting in several national and international institutions, among them the Nucleus of Ethnic-Racial Education of the Secretaria Municipal de Educação of São Paulo, Sesc, Vera Cruz Institute, Federal University of Ceará, Museu Afro Brasil, MAM-SP, Masp, CCSP, Google Brazil and the Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna in Austria and Bouge B festival Antwerp Belgium. She has been a guest lecturer in the post-graduate program in Art History at Faculdade Belas Artes and is currently a substitute teacher at the Instituto de Artes da Unesp.

She has been working in video, painting, performance, photography and multimedia. Juliana has been investigating the blue color of the flower Clitória Ternátea as a possibility of color as a sensitive experience in the process of expanding the senses. Her research takes place at the intersection between art, history and education, with interest in the way black artists have engaged in practices to deal with the limits of representation. She held her first solo exhibition in 2018, as an invited artist/teacher at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts residency. Her first national solo exhibition was for the 2019 Paço das Artes Project Season. She was awarded third place 16 Visual Arts Salon of Ubatuba. This year she was selected at the 12 Abre-Alas of Gentil Carioca gallery's (RJ). Still this year, she participated in the 12th edition of the Mercosur Biennial and is part of the Sesc Sorocaba Arts Triennial team (2020/2021).
Kika Carvalho was born in Vitória (ES), she has a degree in Visual Arts from the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES). She uses different techniques and scales to explore her constant search for individual and collective memories in order to resignify hegemonic narratives. She is also an art educator, working on projects that are in line with her artistic practices.
The artist was born in the historical city of Sabará, Minas Gerais, and began her artistic training in Belo Horizonte, at the Centro de Formação Artística do Palácio das Artes (CEFAR) and at Grupo Jovem Compasso. She worked together with many important Brazilian choreographers, among them Morena Nascimento, Mário Nascimento, Patricia Avellar, Tindaro Silvano, Gal Martins, Firmino Pitanga, Mário Lopes and Luciane Ramos. Currently, she develops her artistic work in the city of São Paulo, with partnerships and independent projects. Her latest works were developed through her body research "Corpo Negro: Tensão e Urgência", collaborating with the project "RÉS" of Corpórea Companhia de Corpos, awarded by the public notice "RUMOS' and having as highlight Elza Soares' clip "O que se cala", which she choreographed. In 2019, he participated in the PlusAfroT residency at Villa Waldberta (Munich), starting and deepening two researches, a dance performance called "1300° - What is the health of a volcano?", with the opening of the process in Munich, and the "Lesbian Sauna", a relational installation work that had its first edition in the second artistic residency program of the Valongo International Festival (Santos/2019). The core of the artist's research starts from the grounding of this dissident body that lives in a constant state of alert and has an urgency for the movement that circulates in a mystery that comes from within and overflows beyond the speeches that crystallize it.
Alexandra Rodríguez (Culturalex) is a multimedia artist, curator, and educator based in Montreal. Born in Venezuela, she has lived in Brazil, Switzerland, Mexico and Canada. This multicultural upbringing, combined with her love for nature, folklore and culture, often converge into creations that are recognizable by their vibrancy, diversity and multisensory dimensions.

In 2015, Alexandra created "Bio Electro Sounds", an interactive musical installation that she has presented around the world. She equally enjoys creating and curating experiences and events where different art disciplines meet, such as the online exhibition "Curando" (2020) in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Salvador-Bahia, the "Festival de las Artes" in partnership with the Tuxtla Gutiérrez City Museum (2016), and "Alegría", an independent food & art pop-up (Montreal, 2018). The artist is also active as a DJ and educator offering workshops on creative multidisciplinary practices.

Some of the places she has presented her work include the Berlin Food Art Week, The Tuxtla Gutiérrez City Museum and The Modern-Fuel Artist-Run Center in Kingston/ Canada.

Fellow of the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec (CALQ) at the Vila Sul residence
Iris Helena is a multi-disciplinary artist with a degree in Visual Arts from the Federal University of Paraíba, an MA in Contemporary Poetics, and currently enrolled in a PhD program in Displacements and Spaciality in Contemporary Art at the University of Brasília. Born in João Pessoa (PB, Brazil) in 1987, she lives and works in Brasília (DF, Brazil).

Her research is characterized by the critical, philosophical, aesthetic, and poetic investigation of the urban landscape, taking a dialogic approach between the image of the city and the surfaces/supports chosen to materialize it. The precarious and ordinary supports are often taken from their everyday use and allow a (re)construction of memory linked to risk, instability, and, above all, the desire for erasure. Iris is also a member of the group of researcher artists VAGA-MUNDO: poéticas nômades, of the University of Brasília (CNPq). The group is engaged in residencies and expeditions thinking of geopoetics and poetics of the landscape.
João dos Santos Martins (Santarém, Portugal, 1989) is an artist, who studied at the Escola Superior de Dança (Lisbon), at P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), at e.x.er.c.e, (Montpellier) and at the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies (Giessen). His work, usually developed in collaborative processes, encompasses various forms that focus on dance, whether through choreography or exhibition. These forms are traversed by questions concerning genealogies of dance history, processes of transmission, the relationship between practice and discourse, and paradoxes about the activity of dancing. Together with Ana Bigotte Vieira, he has created a structure for the collective mapping of dance in Portugal - Para Uma Timeline a Haver. He has performed in dance pieces by Ana Rita Teodoro, Eszter Salamon, Moriah Evans, Xavier Le Roy, Jérôme Bel, Manuel Pelmuş, Rui Horta, among others. In 2014, he founded Parasita, a cooperative of artists of which he is a member.
Mario Pfeifer (*1981, Dresden, Germany) lives and works in Berlin and Dresden. In his work, he explores representational structures and conventions in the medium of video, film and new media in places such as Mumbai, California, the Atacama Desert, the Brazilian Quarter in Lagos or the Western Sahara. He conceives each project starting from a specific cultural situation, exploring socio-political backgrounds and weaving cross-cultural art historical, cinematic, technological and political references into a multi-layered body of work ranging from film and video installations to text installations and photography.

Mario participated in the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018), the 11th Bienal do Mercosul (2017), the 3° Montevideo Biennale (2016) and the 4th Marrakech Biennale (2012). Survey exhibitions were held at the GfZK Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig in 2016 and at The Power Plant in Toronto in 2019. Numerous solo exhibitions at Museum Folkwang, Edith Russ House for Media Art, Berlinische Galerie, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile, among others. A solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Winterthur is planned for 2023. His films have been shown at film festivals around the world. Several monographs have been published by Sternberg Press and Mousse Publishing. His works are in private and public collections in Europe and North America, including the Getty Center Los Angeles, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Bundeskunstsammlung Bonn, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Nana Adusei-Poku, Ph.D., is Senior Academic Advisor and Luma Fellow at the Center for Curatorial Studies and Contemporary Art at Bard College. She was previously Visiting Professor in Art History of the African Diaspora at The Cooper Union in New York City. She held the position Research Professor for Visual Cultures (2013-2017) at the Willem de Kooning Academy and was Guest Lecturer at the University of the Arts, Zurich from 2012-2018.

Her articles have been published in Nka- Journal of Contemporary African Art, eflux, Kunstforum International, Flashart!, L’Internationale, and Darkmatter a.o. She curated a.o. the event Performances of No-thingness at the Academy of Arts Berlin in 2018 and the program: Longing on a Large Scale in conjunction with Todd Gray's Exhibition Eucledian Gris Gris at Pomona College Museum of Art 2019-2020.
Amongst No Martins’ most recent exhibitions are the individual shows: Social signs at Jack Bell Gallery, in London, UK (2020); Tudo sob controle, at the 29th Program of exhibitions of the São Paulo Cultural Center (CCSP), in São Paulo, Brazil (2019), and; Aos que se foram, aos que aqui estão e aos que virão, at the Pretos Novos Institute, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2019). Amongst the collective shows in which he has recently participated are: The discovery of what it means to be Brazilian, at the Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Chicago, USA (2020); 21st Sesc VideoBrasil Contemporary Art Biennial, at which he received the Sesc Contemporary Art Award (2019), and; Histórias Afro-atlânticas at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) and Tomie Ohtake Institute, São Paulo, Brazil (2018).

His artistic production connects painting, performance, and experimentation with objects, through which Martins investigates everyday interpersonal relations, especially in regard to how the Black population lives in urban settings, questioning social conflicts such as racism, violence-led mortality, and over-incarceration of the Brazilian population. Martins uses his comings and goings in the city as a tool in his creative process. Often, Martins’ work carries what the artist refers to as “social signs”, a range of representations of objects, scenes, and recurring situations in the Brazilian social structure.
Born in Belém, Pará, in 1992. Rafael BQueer lives and works in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Rafael BQueer has an undergraduate degree in Visual Arts from the Federal University of Pará (UFPA). The performative practices of Rafael BQueer set out from investigations on political art, gender, sexuality, Afrofuturism, decolonization, and intersectionalities. Drag queen and LGBTQI+ activist, BQueer’s work dialogues also with video and photography, satirizing references of the pop universe in order to pose attentive criticisms to contemporary issues.

Rafael BQueer has taken part in many residencies, as well as national and international exhibitions, amongst which are: Despina, in Rio de Janeiro (2017); Red Bull Station, in São Paulo (2017); Finalist of the EDP Arts Award, Tomie Ohtake Institute, in São Paulo (2018); Selected artist by the EAV Parque Lage for the artistic residency grant AnnexB, in New York (2019); Nominated for the 7th edition of the Marcantonio Vilaça award, in São Paulo (2019); Awarded in the 7th edition of the Foco Art Rio Award (2019). Recently, the individual exhibition UóHol took place at the Museum of Art of Rio (2020). BQueer’s work is part of the collection of the Museum of Art of Rio (MAR).
Daughter of the mysterious viscera of mother Bahia, where arteries of spirited waters sustained in faith are abundant. Ventura Profana prophesizes multiplication and abundancy of Black, indigenous, and transvestite life. The mist is pierced: erotic, atomic, she makes red a religion. Indoctrinated in baptist temples, she is a missionary pastor, evangelist singer, writer, composer, and visual artist, whose practice is rooted in the research of the implications and methodologies of Deuteuronomism in Brazil and abroad, through the diffusion of neo-pentecostal churches. The oil of daisies, boa snakes, and queen snakes flows powerfully through the crevices until they flood her in desire: anointment. She praises, like the stab of a dagger wetted with wax and rust in Pharisean hearts.
Émilie B. Guérette is a nomadic filmmaker whose roots are in Quebec and heart in Brazil. She directs documentary films related to social justice, human rights and migrations. Her multidisciplinary background in anthropology, political science, poetry and music is reflected in her socially engaged, sensitive and sensory approach, taking the side of those left behind. She sees documentary as an art of the encounter which aims at building bridges between human beings.

Fellow of the Council of Arts and Letters of Quebec (CALQ) at the Vila Sul residence
Koffi Mensah, an autodidact visual artist is born in Lome, Togo, in 1982. As a youth, Koffi Mensah catches a virus and develops a passion for the visual art in all its dimensions. Thus, he absolved several training and workshop at drawing. With the excitement to acquire more knowledge and eager to satisfy his soul and achieve his dream, the boy of 17 years old started a long journey full of adventures and leaved his country, Togo to undergo many training workshop in Accra, Abidjan, Niamey and Cotonou.

After these experiences Koffi Mensah has finally decided to establish himself at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where he makes more exposure for himself by demonstrating his technique skills on visual art.
The multi-dimension artist never stopped astonishing his admirers with his art work.

Combining the esthetic and comfort via sculpture and painting, the creative artist strongly believes that all creatures are the result of a symbol of two faces of the same coin.

Besides the influences of his mentors or elders such as Ousman Sow from Senegal and El Anatui from Ghana, Koffi Mensah is inspired of new relevant technique borrowed from the nature by creating the figurative arts and portraits. He claims to the world that he emancipates himself from all dogmatic theories. He always reflects his intimate relationship of his art and lives accordingly. Today, Koffi Mensah is a spiritual minded person and believes that the instinct has a capital impact on his art. He realizes several institutional artwork such as the portrait of Burkina Faso’s first President, Maurice Yameogo (4 meters height).

In 2018, the artist received an award, Grand Prix du Dessin d’art in Burkina Faso.
Renata Martins (São Paulo, 1980) is a social worker, art critic, translator and freelance curator based in Bonn, Germany, where she works since 2018 in the Latin America Department of Deutsche Welle. For 10 years, she worked in various departments of the Goethe-Institut in São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Montevideo (cultural program, pedagogical cooperation, German teaching and administration). She writes for various media outlets in Brazil, Germany and Argentina on visual arts, culture and society, especially on South American artists. In 2021, she curated and organized for the Goethe-Institut Salvador the virtual catalogue "Arte+ Panorama of Transvestigeneres Visual Artists in Brazil".
Andreas Dauerer (*1978) is an author and photographer. After studying cultural and media sciences in Düsseldorf, he completed his journalistic training in Munich after a short break from travelling. Since 2008 he has worked as a freelance author and photographer for various magazines, newspapers and online media, mainly in the areas of travel and culture, but not only. In addition, he conceives and administrates various web projects.

Andreas Dauerer is a member of the Hamburger Autorenvereinigung Writersroom (Hamburg Writers' Association), in the course of which he organized various readings in the local cultural scene. However, his passion is increasingly for photography. Since 2018 some of his works are listed in the Hamburg gallery Roschlaub.
THÓ SIMÕES, visual artist, was born 1973 in Malanje, Angola.

He did his art education at the National Institute of Art and Culture (INFAC) in Luanda / Angola and is a graffiti artist working in various art disciplines, including painting, spraying, photography, film, installations and performances. Thó combines in his work the symbolism of old African traditions with the graffiti language from the streets of São Paulo and with this he creates his vision on life in African inner cities. In his own country Thó belongs to the national top and is one of the key artists in the international Leba Murals project in which 6000 m2 of murals are realized in the provinces of Namibe and Huila. He has participated since 2001 in many solo and group exhibitions in various countries, including Angola, Brazil, South Africa, Ghana, Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands.
Lindiwe Matshikiza is a Johannesburg-based artist with a background in theatre-making. She works as a writer, performer and director in a variety of contexts such as visual arts projects, public performances, stage plays, film and other media. Her approach is predominantly collaborative, exploratory, process-based and cross-disciplinary, and her projects often take on more than one form over time.
Lindiwe is co-founder and co-director of Mother Box: Organisation for Cooperation in the
Arts, a non-profit, artist-led organisation studying self-determined artistic research and
processes with the aim of articulating them in a language that embodies the processes
themselves.
Sibel Kekilli (*1980) is a multiple award-winning actress. Her film debut "Against the Wall" (2004) has won numerous national and international awards, including the German Film Award for Best Actress or Best Actress at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. This was followed by other excellent productions such as "Winterreise", "Eve Dönüs" or the TV multi-part "Gier".

As best actress Sibel Kekilli will be honoured for her role in the movie "Die Fremde" for the 2nd time with the German Film Award and at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. "Die Fremde" is also a German contribution to one of the coveted Oscar nominations in the category "Best Non-English Language Film".
In addition to other film roles such as the successful comedy "What a Man" (2011), Sibel Kekilli was the detective in Kiel's "Tatort" from 2010 to 2017 and achieved worldwide fame through her role as Shae in the HBO success series "Game of Thrones".

Apart from acting, Sibel Kekilli is committed to women's rights. She has been Terre des Femmes' ambassador for many years and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit 2017 for her fight for equal rights for girls and women. She also supports the aid organisation Papatya, where she acts as patron of the online consultancy Sibel, and is a founding member of the women's network UNIDAS, with the aim of strengthening the rights of women between Latin America, the Caribbean and Germany.
"For the music industry,” Daniel Haaksman told Afropop Worldwide, “it’s the worst time ever. But for new music, it’s the best time ever. With the internet, everything is circulating.” As a DJ and producer, and as head honcho of Man Recordings, Berlin-based Daniel is right in the eye of this exciting storm. He recognises no boundaries or borders, rejoicing in the free-flow of creativity as he absorbs all the rhythms and shades of this planet of sound in his productions. He’s got an especially keen ear when it comes to Africa or Brazil, and is an artist who never neglects the power of a strong melody when it comes to satiating a hungry dancefloor, be it a wiry guitar riff or some tinkling balafon. Full-flavoured and 100% proof, a Daniel Haaksman DJ set takes no prisoners, nor leaves a single person unmoved.
João Renato Orecchia Zúñiga is a Peruvian Italian Brooklyn-born Johannesburg based artist, musician and composer.

Through experimentation and improvisation Orecchia explores sound’s connective capacities through both its physical properties and material preconscious properties, seeking a balance between computer technology, hand-made electronics and real world sounds like the human voice, field recordings and traditional musical instruments.

Orecchia’s background as a self-taught musician is in improvised performance and composition for video art, film and theatre. His practice extends to public performance and intervention and his recently completed master’s degree in Digital Arts brought a shift towards a more spatial and physical approach to composition, where sound, vibration, space, music and audience become connected in experience.

Orecchia has released several recordings, has received a South African Film & Television Award for sound design and has published in the Leonardo Music Journal and the Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies.