ARTISTS - missyou

ALEXANDRA KAMP

(*1966, Baden-Baden) won a national recitation contest at the age of eleven. After high school she studied acting in Paris at LES COURS FLORANT and in New York with Stella Adler. She celebrated her cinema debut in 1998 in the French arthouse film RICHES, BELLES ET CRUELLES starring Claudia Cardinale, followed by other international films, where she has played opposite Steven Seagal, Anouk Aimée, Marisa Berenson, Rosel Zech, Benjamin Sadler, Uwe Ochsenknecht and others. Hape Kerkeling recognized her comic talent and engaged her for the main female part in the cinema movie ISCH KANDIDIERE. Alongside film and theatre projects, her great love is literature. She lent her voice to the audiobook version of Henry Miller’s SEXUS (published by Deutsche Grammophon)and participated with it in the International Literature Festival in Berlin and the International Theatre Festival in Bielefeld.

Her current project is the lead in the German premiere of the stage play EINE VERHÄNGNISVOLLE AFFÄRE (Fatal Attraction) at the Hamburg Kammerspiele in the role of Alex Forrest (played by Glenn Close in the film). It is planned to reopen the play on 8 April 2021.

www.hamburger-kammerspiele.de

SIBYLLE FENDT

(*1974, Karlsruhe) 1993–1995 Master’s programme in art history, sociology and philosophy at Karlsruhe University. 1996–2002 photography studies at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences. 2003 Swart Masterclass, Word Press Photo Foundation. 2004–2006 guest study programme at the Städel School in Frankfurt am Main with Wolfgang Tillmans. 2008–2019 lecturer at the Ostkreuz School of Photography in Berlin. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2010. Published GÄRTNERS REISE (Gardner’s Trip), Kehrer Verlang, Heidelberg, in 2012. 2019–2020 administrative professor at Hochschule Hannover in the discipline of photojournalism and documentary photography. 2020 group exhibition TRAUERN (Mourning), Kunsthalle Hamburg; publication HOLZBACHTAL, NOTHING, NOTHING, a book about waiting and nothingness in the refugee camp H8 in the Black Forest. Published by Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg.

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ALEXANDRA POLINA

(*1984, Tashkent/Uzbekistan) is a photographer. She studied at the National University in Tashkent and at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and is currently working as a freelance photographer in Hamburg. Corresponding to her own biography, her works focus on emotional aspects of identity, migration and immigration. “We automatically think in stereotypes; we don’t need to be ashamed of this,” says Polina. “But my pictures want to question them” (Uni-Spiegel 06/2018).¹

She has won numerous prizes, including the PHOTONIC MOMENTS AWARD (2014), and the most important German young talent award for photography, GUTE AUSSICHTEN. JUNGE DEUTSCHE FOTOGRAFIE (2017), and the prize of the Łódź Photo Festival (2018). Her current project STEINDAMM is nominated for the Georg Koppmann Prize for Urban Photography of the city of Hamburg.

www.alexandrapolina.com

HEINRICH HOLTGREVE

(*1987, Bochum) he studied from 2006–2013 at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences in the field of photography with Axel Grünewald and Roman Bezjak. 2011 semester abroad in Seoul, South Korea, with a DAAD scholarship. Group exhibitions provided a look at his work, such as 2013 OWL3 – Nutzflächen in the Marta Herford Museum in North Rhine-Westphalia, MY SECRET LIFE 2013/2014 in C/O Berlin, VISUAL LEADER 2015 in the House of Photography, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, or at the 2015 Noorderlicht International Photo Festival in Groningen. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2016. 2017 solo exhibition DAS INTERNET ALS ORT, German Technology Museum, Berlin. In 2021 he participated in the festival PHOTO in Melbourne, Australia.

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ANDREI LOGINOV

(*1975, Minsk/Belarus) is an artist. He studied at the art school in Minsk and at the Düsseldorf Art Academy with Gerhard Merz and Magdalene Jetelová. His works have been exhibited internationally. He combines different artistic media, often blending sculpture with photography, to create works situated between nature, science and art. When Johanna-Maria Fritz photographed him for MISS YOU, he was working on his latest series, BIOSYNTHETIC. The sculptural forms he designs are the result of an interaction between artist and nature with the fascinating precision of honeycombs as perfectly uniform hexagons made of wafer-thin processed material. The sculptures describe the process of discovering new solutions for shaping forms. BIOSYNTHETIC shows new perspectives on avantgarde techniques for architecture and art.

www.andreiloginov.com

JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ

(*1994, Baden-Baden) 2012–2016 photo assistance with Daniel Josefsohn. 2013–2015 studied photography at the Ostkreuz School of Photography, Berlin. 2013–2015 worked on the project LIKE A BIRD about circus in Muslim-oriented countries. In May 2017, ZEIT MAGAZIN published her series on circus life in the Near East, in which she demonstrates that there can be normality in the absurd. In 2017 she won the Inge Morath Award, 2018 the Lotto Brandenburg Art Prize for Photography, and 2019 the German Peace Prize for Photography, as well as other awards. Group and solo exhibitions followed, including LIKE A BIRD, Anne Clergue Galerie, Arles/France. A member of OSTKREUZ since 2019. She is currently photographing in the Sudan.

ANDREJ UGOLJEW

(*1986, Berlin) is a jazz musician and composer. As a child he spent many years in Moscow. Then he studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin, at the Conservatoire de Paris, the Rhythmic Music Conservatory Copenhagen, and completed the European Jazzmaster Program.

He is the founder of the band projects DUNKELGOLD TRIO, KPYTO [kurta] and BLUE MORNING. As a freelance trombonist he has played, for example, with Bonaparte, Megaloh, Toni Allen, WDR Big Band, the Omniversal Earkestra und MALI70, Andromeda Mega Express, the Moscow Art Trio and Nils Frahm, and performed in the theatre production of Claudia Bauer’s METAMORPHOSEN [overcoming mankind] in the Volksbühne Berlin. The digital premieres are scheduled for 3 and 16 March 2021, 7 pm.

www.andrejugoljew.com

SIBYLLE FENDT

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ANNE IMHOF

(*1978, Gießen) is a painter and performance artist. SEX, her latest work cycle, was shown in solo exhibitions in 2019 in the Tate Modern in London as well as in the Art Institute of Chicago, and is currently in Castello di Rivoli in Turin. For FAUST, her contribution to the Biennale di Venezia 2017, she was awarded the Golden Lion. Her exhibition NATURES MORTES is supposed to open in spring 2021 in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. She also publishes music together with Eliza Douglas and others on the Berlin label PAN.

www.galeriebuchholz.de/artists/anne-imhof

JORDIS ANTONIA SCHLÖSSER

(*1967, Göttingen) studied 1988–1996 at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts with Arno Fischer and Gisela Scheidler. Member of OSTKREUZ since 1997. In 1998 she was taken into the World Press Masterclass. 1999 DAAD scholarship and finalist in the Grand Prix Care International du Reportage Humanitaire. She has received national and international photo awards, including the YANN GEOFFROY COMPETITION and a WORLD PRESS PHOTO AWARD as well as the HANSEL MIETH PRIZE. She has had numerous solo exhibitions, e.g., 2003 HAVANNA ZWISCHEN DEN ZEITEN, National Museum Breslau; 2004 EINE STADT VERSCHWINDET, Bieler Photo Days, Switzerland; 2008 AM RANDE EUROPAS, ABSCHIED VON GESTERN, Goethe Institute, Paris and Bordeaux; 2009 AUF DER KIPPE, Clervaux—Cité de l’Image, Luxemburg; 2017 at the Katara Photography Festival, Qatar; 2020 DER ABGRUND, DER MAL HEIMAT WAR, Open Air Wander Exhibition in 20 different cities, organized by Greenpeace.

ATA MACIAS

(*1968, Frankfurt am Main) is a DJ, operator of the club Robert Johnson (founded in 1999 in Offenbach), co-founder of the label Playhouse, as well as a café and restaurant owner. Like almost no one else he has placed his mark on the club culture of the Rhine-Main district. The Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt devoted the exhibition GIVE LOVE BACK to him in September 2014 and shed light on the so-called “Ata Principle”.

Due to Corona restrictions, the Robert Johnson Club, like other cafés, clubs and bars, is closed. “… when everything is finally back to normal, we will open again. Not with masks and not limited. A club, namely, needs the sweat and the closeness on the dance floor. We have a responsibility towards our fellow creatures. The worst thing would be that the Robert Johnson would become a super-spreader. We won’t do that, that would be unthinkable” (quoted from the interview by Moritz Serif, Frankfurter Rundschau, 9.11.2020).

www.atamacias.com

HEINRICH VÖLKEL

(*1974, Moscow) studied photography from 1996–1999 at the Lette Verein, Berlin. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2004. His works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions and published in books: TIRANA — MON AMOUR (2009) in Studio im Hochhaus, Berlin; 7KM — FELD DER WUNDER/THE TERRIBLE CITY — GAZA 2009, with Kirill Golovchenko in 2010 in the Freelens Galerie, Hamburg; ALBANIA — GERMANY: A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY, Tirana Art Lab, Albania; TALES FROM THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN, Jordan National Museum Amman, Jordan. In 2010 and 2017 he received the VG Photo Art Scholarship, followed in 2010 by a solo exhibition. In 2011 his works appeared in the book EMERGE 011, emerge Verlag, Berlin. 2013 Audience Prize of the International Welde Art Prize for Photography. 2014 solo exhibition. 2017 publication PROVINTSIYA, ROUND-NOT-SQUARE, Berlin.

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AYA OKUMURA

(*1990, Tokio) is a solo dancer at the Staatsballett Berlin. She studied at the Rumiko Yamaji Ballet School, Tokyo, and at the John Cranko School, Stuttgart. In 2006 she won First Prize of the Nihon Ballet Association (NBA) in Japan and in 2009 a gold medal at the international dance festival TANZOLYMP in Berlin. Since 2017 she has been a soloist with the Dutch National Ballet, Amsterdam, and since 2019 with the Staatsballett Berlin.

The planned ballet gala on the big stage of the Deutsche Oper Berlin at the turn of the year 2020/2021 had to be cancelled due to Corona restrictions. Nevertheless, the State Ballet danced: Aya Okumura and Alejandro Virelles danced the pas de deux from THE NUTCRACKER. Instead of live before an audience, it was online. It was a masterful achievement of the duo to focus the energy so intensely that the spark sprang over to the viewers on their monitors. And perhaps it is possible to see at home what could be lost in the expanse of the huge hall and beyond the orchestra pit: the fine movements, extreme body tension, and a lightness that we can only hope to see again.

www.staatsballett-berlin.de

JORDIS ANTONIA SCHLÖSSER

BE VAN VARK

(*1965, Berlin) is a choreographer and university lecturer. The breadth of her choreographic work is marked by the passion for bringing different people and styles together and to move not just one, but hundreds of people at a time and to develop projects for the stage and the public space.

In 1994 she founded the Kompanie van Vark (until 2002). Since 2002 she has been working with the concept she developed: TANZTHEATER-GLOBAL, which brings amateurs together with professional performers. Since 2011 she is chairperson of the association TÄNZER OHNE GRENZEN e.V. (Dancers without borders). Since 2016 she has been working with the foundation Genshagen in the framework of the format NOMADIC LABORATORY in order to initiate international transcultural dance projects. From 2011–2018 she has choreographed education projects of the Brandenburg State Orchestra with up to 300 performers. The piece KLEINES GEDICHT FÜR GROSSE STOTTERER (Small poem for big stutterers) was an award-winning project at the competition CHILDREN TO OLYMPUS! of the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States. Since September 2017 she has cooperated with the Halle civic trust to realize the intergenerational dance project EINE STADT TANZT (A city dances). As a lecturer she teaches, e.g., at the Berlin University of the Arts, the Zurich University of the Arts, and, in the winter semester 2020/2021, at the Leipzig Institute for Theatre Studies as Bertolt Brecht Guest Professor.

Federal President Steinmeier honoured her in 2018 with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, with ribbon. The eulogy captures the core of her work (and systemic relevance of culture in general): “Be van Vark shows that culture is not an elitist luxury pursuit, but rather belongs to the existence of each and everyone.”

www.bevanvark.wordpress.com

STEPHANIE STEINKOPF

(*1978, Frankfurt/Oder) studied from 2001–2008 and received her Master’s degree in comparative music studies, modern history and Latin American studies at the Free University Berlin. 2009–2012 she studied photography at the Ostkreuz School of Photography, Berlin, 2013–2015 masterclass with Ute Mahler and Robert Lyons. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2014. She has won numerous awards: 2012 first place at the Vattenfall Photo Prize, and 2013 the young talent prize at GUTE AUSSICHTEN — JUNGE DEUTSCHE FOTOGRAFIE, 2013 the European Photo Exhibition Award (epea), and 2015 the Lotto-Brandenburg Photography Art Prize. 2014/2015/2017 artist’s residence at the Goethe Institute in Helsinki and the Helsinki International Artist Program. Her works have been shown throughout Europe in group exhibitions, including in the C/O Berlin, in the Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, and in the House of Photography, Hamburg. In 2019 she was awarded the working scholarship of the Hans und Charlotte Krull Stiftung.

CAROLIN JÜNGST

(*1990, Dachau) is a freelance choreographer and performer. For more than ten years she trained in horseback acrobatics, studied theatre and dance as well as philosophy in Munich, Stockholm and Berlin, and completed a dance trainee programme at the Leipzig Dance Theatre in 2013/2014. In 2014 she was part of a research project with the choreographer Richard Siegal and the Göteborgs Danskompani in Sweden. She completed her performance studies in Hamburg in 2017 with a Master’s degree. Among other things, she has performed in works with Marina Abramović. 2019/2020 she was a scholarship holder at the Claussen Simon Foundation. As an artistic duo with Lisa Rykena she regularly produces pieces at Kampnagel Hamburg and in HochX Munich, e.g., ARIE/ELLE 2018, SHE LEGEND, 2019/2020, ROSE LA ROSE, 2021, and in 2021 for the first time in brut, Vienna. They have developed choreographies on such topics as queen feminism, social inequality, and transformation of normative body images, and searched in a humorously grotesque way for paradoxical expressions of the body and conditions of the “in between”.

Their current production ROSE LA ROSE, which, due to Corona, will first be published in a film version, is to be seen at Kampnagel from 25 February 2021 on, together with an audience discussion after the online premiere on 25 February.

www.kampnagel.de

HEINRICH HOLTGREVE

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CARSTEN NICOLAI

(*1965, Karl-Marx-Stadt) is an artist and musician. He creates his works on the interface between the visual arts, music and the natural sciences. His hybrid objects transform scientific phenomena that are barely visible to the human eye into aesthetic images of cool beauty and minimalistic elegance. He has participated in the internationally important exhibitions documenta X and the 49^th and 50^th Art Biennale in Venice, and his works have been shown worldwide in solo and group exhibitions. For his musical oeuvre he uses the pseudonym Alva Noto. Together with Olaf Bender and Frank Bretschneider he founded the label “raster-noton. archiv für ton und nichtton”. Carsten Nicolai composed the music for the multiple Oscar-nominated film THE REVENANT, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritus.

MAURICE WEISS

(*1964, Perpignan/France) studied photography, film and design from 1989–1993 with Ulrich Mack and Arno Fischer at the film academy in Dortmund. Member of OSTKREUZ since 1995. In 2004 TABORI ZIEHT UM. WIE SOLL MAN EINE WOHNUNG FINDEN, WENN ES REGNET? was published by Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, Weitra. 2005 Hansel Mieth Prize. From 2008–2013 steady freelance photographer for Der Spiegel, concentrating on politics. He has done commissioned work for German and international publications, including Le Monde on political and social topics, mostly in the Mediterranean region about the political upheavals there. Since 2011 he is a guest professor at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in Lebanon on the importance of photography as a mechanism of memory and on the responsibility of photographers for their pictures. His series SI JAMAIS ILS REVIENNENT on the legacies of the Second World War in Europe was shown in 2020 at the Akademie der Künste Berlin.

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CHILDREN

Steffi Frech and Laura Daede, together the musicians, make up the band CHILDREN, which produces German-language pop music with the help of shimmering retro-synthesizers, melodic bass lines and catchy hooks. They have known each other since their childhood in a town in Mecklenburg and have been producing their Future Retro Pop in Berlin for the last ten years. After releasing their album HYPE in 2020 via Herbert Grönemeyer’s label GRÖNLAND RECORDS, the ladies are currently working on their third album.

The two post-reunification kids know what change feels like: “We learned from our socialization in rural former East Germany that freedom isn’t to be taken for granted; improvisation is part of it, and all the rest remains. This mindset also helps us in the current crisis” (Kurier 14.2.2020).

www.wearechildren.de

JÖRG BRÜGGEMANN

(*1979, Herne) 2001–2008 studied integrated design at the Bremen Academy of Arts. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2009 and its co-managing director since 2019. For his photos he has received numerous awards and scholarships, including the BFF-Förderpreis (2009), the PDN Photo Annual Award (2013) and the VG Photo Art Scholarship 2010 and 2014. His photography has been shown in various exhibitions, accompanied by publications. Published in 2020 were FREUNDSCHAFT (Friendship), together with Tobias Kruse, Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld, and AUTOBAHN by Hartmann Books, Stuttgart; his solo exhibition WIE LANGE NOCH (How long still), to be seen at ZEPHYR in Mannheim, will be extended until 24.5.21.

CRISTINA GÓMEZ GODOY

(*1990, Linares/Spain) studied at the Academia de Estudios Orquestales of the Barenboim-Said Foundation in Sevilla and at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Rostock. In 2012, at the age of 21, she became solo English hornist at the Staatskapelle Berlin. Since 2013 she is the orchestra’s solo oboist. She has won numerous international competitions, such as the ARD Music Competition and the BR Classical Music Prize. She also performs as a solo artist in the major music halls of the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, and with orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic, or in chamber music groups.

She premiered on 22.1.2021 in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, one of six young talents selected from 22 major concert houses in Europe. Due to the pandemic, the concert was streamed live, without an audience. In the train from Hamburg to Berlin she wrote: “It is a very strange feeling, especially when one plays a recital and there are only two or three people on stage and otherwise only cameras. Digital is certainly a possibility, but live is simply live. It is a dialogue and an exchange of energies between musicians and spectators; that’s what I like so much and what many people miss so much.”

www.cristinagomezgodoy.com

THOMAS MEYER

(*1967, Delmenhorst) studied from 1990–1996 at the Academy of Arts in Bremen. 1996 BFF Advancement Award. 1999 solo exhibition KAUFLAND – RETAIL SPACES IN EASTERN GERMANY, Gallery of the School of Art, Yale University, USA. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2000. 2004–2006 photographer for the FAZ ad campaign “Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf”. Since 2008 he has taught at the Ostkreuz School of Photography. Solo exhibitions: INSIDE STASI (2009), Gallery Focale, Nyon, Switzerland; EXILE IN CALCUTTA (2014), Drik Gallery, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and in the Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Kolkata, India. Since 2019 he is the in-house photographer of the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau. His book BAUHAUS DESSAU ARCHITEKTUR was published in 2019 by Hirmer Verlag, Munich.

ELENA RAQUET

is a puppeteer, actress and theatre pedagogue. She studied at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, but had previously gathered experience on the stage of Velvets Theater in Wiesbaden. Since then she has performed at different puppet and youth theatres, and as part of the Berlin independent theatre scene, she is co-founder of the transit-theater-berlin and founder of the theatre flausen bühne. Alongside acting and directing she works as a theatre pedagogue in schools and independent youth centres.

www.kaspertheater-wunderhorn.de

STEPHANIE STEINKOPF

EMANUELE CROTTI

is a visual artist, actor, set designer and director. He studied theatre direction at the Scuola Civica P. Grassi in Milan and has been on or behind the stage of many companies for more than a decade. “Big theatres … taught me to dream big. Small theatres taught me that, whatever happens, the show must go on.”

In 2008 he moved to Berlin and began working as a visual artist. His metamorphic works are inspired by Greek mythology and far-eastern philosophy and are shown in Berlin galleries, but also in institutions like Columbia University in New York. “Of the many lessons I received in my travels and artistic career, one never abandoned me: ‘Remember – he whispered – whatever form it takes, Art is all about enchanting Time.’”

www.behance.net/emanuelecrotti/projects

SEBASTIAN WELLS

(*1996, Königs Wusterhausen) studied photography from 2015–2018 at the Ostkreuz School of Photography, Berlin, with Werner Mahler, Ute Mahler and others. He has received numerous awards for his work: VDS Sport Photo of the Year (2016), the DuMont Journalist Prize in the category Young Talent (2017), first prize at the FOLA Photobook Award in Buenos Aires (2018), and was the prize-winner of the art competition of the Willi Münzenberg Forum, Berlin (2018) and finalist for the Leica Oscar Barnack Award (2019). He has been a member of OSTKREUZ since 2019. He has been represented in many group and solo exhibitions including the solo show ANHÄNGER in 2016 in the Galerie Fenster in Eberswalde and the group exhibition FRAMING IDENTITY in 2020 in the Museum for Photography in Braunschweig.

ERIKA RATCLIFFE

(*1993, Vienna/Austria) is a comedian with roots in Austria and Japan. In 2017 she won the “Bird”, the E-Kleinkunstvogel, at the Grazer Kleinkunstwettbewerb, a cabaret competition in Graz. The jury was persuaded by her wittiness, her self-irony, her courage and her linguistic awareness. Her first solo programme, GEIL (2019), has captivated the Austrian, and soon the German, audience. Inspired by American stand-up comedy, she goes “there where it hurts: racism, hardcore feminism and vaginal mycocis. Radcliffe knows no taboo and finds her very own voice precisely in this lack of restraint.”¹

www.erikaratcliffe.com

SEBASTIAN WELLS

FENSTER ZUR STADT

The theatre Fenster zur Stadt (Window to the city), founded in Hannover in 2000, is a theatre collective. The person behind the monkey mask in Frank Schinski's photo is a secret. It is not a secret that the off-theatre was founded by Ruth Rutkowski and Carsten Hentrich as a cooperative of professional theatre people. Today its members include Alexandra Faruga, Melanie Huke and Heino Sellhorn. Fenster zur Stadt has received numerous awards for their plays, including the PRIZE OF FREE THEATRES 2005, the PRIZE OF FREE CHILDREN's AND YOUTH THEATRE 2008, and has been invited to BEST OFF, the theatre festival of the Stiftung Niedersachsen in 2011, 2016 and 2018.

The projects planned for 2020, KAFKA : OFFBEAT and the staging of the youth book WIR BEIDE WUSSTEN ES WAR WAS PASSIERT, focus on “the increasing fragmentation of our society into individual interests, the adversities of progressive isolation and the chances of rediscovering friendship, public spirit and solidarity. Themes to which theatre in particular, as a genuinely social form of art, can contribute experiences and perspectives”(quoted from Hannovermagazin). In times of the pandemic and lockdown, the theatre company has produced the Internet version of MINISTERIUM FÜR EINSAMKEIT (Ministry of Loneliness). Spectators encounter there the world-famous officer of the Prague Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute: KAFKA. OFF. BUREAU.

www.fensterzurstadt.de

FRANK SCHINSKI

(*1975, Prenzlau) trained as a mason and worked at construction sites for several years. 1998–1999 he completed high school with a second-chance programme. 1999–2006 he studied photography at the Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts with Rolf Nobel. 2002 KODAK YOUNG TALENT PRIZE, 2007 First Prize in the vfa and FOCUS magazine competition on research photography. 2008 and 2018 VG Photo Art Scholarship. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2009. His photo series have been shown in many exhibitions, including ÜBER GRENZEN (Across borders) in the Hygiene Museum Dresden, ORT/ZEIT/LOS in the Kunstverein Tiergarten Berlin, and IST DOCH SO in the Gallery of the Poll Art Foundation, Berlin, and the Gallery for Photography, Hannover.

FLAKE

(*1966, East Berlin) is a musician and author. He wanted to become a physician but was not allowed to study. He was to become a toolmaker but preferred to make music. First with Feeling B, then, after reunification, with Rammstein. He wrote the autobiographical book TASTENFICKER and HEUTE HAT DIE WELT GEBURTSTAG about his life in a band. Last year Rammstein wanted to tour in Europe, which unfortunately had to be postponed. So they made music in the studio. After all, creativity takes place in the mind. It could be that good songs come about due to these restrictions.

MISS YOU is the “ME TOO” of the artists in lockdown. They sense that they are not alone.

www.rammstein.de

HARALD HAUSWALD

(*1954, Radebeul) 1970–1972 trained as a photographer. 1987 publication of OST-BERLIN, Piper Verlag, Munich. 1989 member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR (VBK). 1990 founding member of OSTKREUZ. In 1997 he was awarded the German Federal Order of Merit, followed by a number of solo exhibitions, such as HARALD HAUSWALD. ERINNERUNG AUSGEGRABEN (Memory dug up) in Leonardi Museum Dresden in 2013, or HARALD IM AUSLAND 1979–2019, in the Friedrichshain Photo Gallery, Berlin, in 2019. Parallel to the exhibitions, he published several books, e.g., 1993 DIE DRITTE HALBZEIT. FUSSBALLFANS AND HOOLIGANS, Basis Druck, Berlin; VOR ZEITEN. ALLTAG IM OSTEN. FOTOGRAFIEN 1976–1990, Lehmstedt, Leipzig; and 2020 the retrospective HARALD HAUSWALD. VOLL DAS LEBEN!, Steidl, Göttingen. The eponymous exhibition, supposed to run from 12.9.2020 to 14.3.21, is unfortunately no longer available in C/O Berlin. BUT it is planned that the exhibition will be again on show December 2021.

FRANCISCO & JAVIER SANCHEZ MARTINEZ

are Spanish dancers and choreographers. They studied dance together at the Ballet Academy in Zurich and at the Munich Academy of Music, as well as choreography at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Stations in their careers include the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, the state theatres in Karlsruhe and Nuremberg, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Cape Town Ballet. They have worked with such choreographers as Uwe Scholz, Hans van Manen and Heinz Spörli. Francisco is increasingly turning to choreography and dance communication. He was choreographic assistant for the three-part TV series “Krupp – Eine deutsche Familie” (2009) and was the principal ballet director and head choreographer at the Lüneburg Theatre (2011–2015), then freelance choreographer. In cooperation with TanzHausBerlinMitte, he founded IN TIME!, a dance group for amateur dancers aged 45 and over, and teaches children and young people at various institutions. For and with them he creates multi-faceted productions. Dance opens windows.

www.francisco-sanchez.de

STEPHANIE STEINKOPF

FREITAGSKÜCHE

Freitagsküche (Friday Kitchen) was founded in Frankfurt am Main in 2004 by the artists Thomas Friemel and Michael Riedel, based on the desire to create a place of exchange for and about art, not unlike the idea of the salon of former days. At the beginning, different artists stepped up to the kitchen stove every Friday evening to cook for their friends. Meanwhile, the Friday kitchen has become an institution. On the Friday session that Heinrich Völkel photographed, the artist and former Städel student Andreas Diefenbach did the cooking. Freitagsküche is an insider tip, favourite spot, and legendary. In November 2020 during lockdown, the Freitagsküche makers formed a new cooperation. Together with the Lichter Filmfest, they founded the cinema format TO GO: a duet of soul food and finest short films.

www.freitagskueche.de

HEINRICH VÖLKEL

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HAJO SCHÜLER & MICHAEL VOGEL

HAJO SCHÜLER (*1971, Hammelburg) is an actor and mask-maker. He studied pantomime and acting at Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen and is a lecturer for movement and mask design at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

MICHAEL VOGEL (*1962, Naila) is a director and actor as well as a set designer and mask-maker. He also studied at Folkwang-Hochschule. As a director he has worked, for example, with the Bremer Shakespeare Company and the Schauspielhaus Bochum. He teaches at the University of the Arts and the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin.

Together they are the founders and artistic directors of the international theatre group FAMILIE FLÖZ, which has received numerous awards and is internationally known for its comedic, poetic, and almost always non-verbal theatre plays with masks. “The Familie Flöz always plays all evening under masks. As if they had foreseen how we now live” (quoted from DIE ZEIT, 8.7.2020). From 20 April on, we hope, they will perform their new production FESTE in the Komödie am Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. FESTE is a fairy tale for adults without words. A tragicomic story about the search for individual happiness …

www.floez.net

MILA TESHAIEVA

(*1974, Kiev/Ucraine) 2010–2012 Master of Arts in Photography at the Burg Giebichenstein Academy of Art in Halle. 2013 Kehrer Verlag published her book PROMISING WATERS, followed in 2014-2015 by the eponymous solo exhibition in the Blue Sky Gallery, Portland, USA, in the Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwaukee/USA, and in the museum Kunst der Westküste, Föhr. In 2015 and 2016, the catalogues of the exhibitions FACES AND STORIES OF ENTREPRENEURS and INSELWESEN were published. She has been a member of OSTKREUZ since 2016. In 2017 INSELWESEN was shown in the museum Kunst der Westküste, Föhr, and INSELALLTAG in the Museum of European Cultures, Berlin. For the series INSELWESEN she used the old technique of light painting, where her only source of light was a flashlight. In this way she has created Baroque-like, mystical portraits. In 2018/2019 the MIT Museum in Boston, USA, devoted a major show to her work under the title IMAGINED COMMUNITIES.

www.milateshaieva

JOHANNA LEMKE

(*1982, Berlin) is a dancer and choreographer. She stands up for better working conditions for (freelance) dancers with children, and not only since Corona-related home schooling has brought a further challenge for mothers and fathers.

She trained in Berlin and Amsterdam and has worked, e.g., with Falk Richter, Martin Stiefermann, Boris Charmatz, and since 2008 above all with Constanza Macras at the Schaubühne. She creates her own works, such as FAINT (2008), UNTERSTROM (2010) and KAISER WILHELM IM EXIL (2012), BERT DEIN SCHUH IST AUF UND WIE TANZT JETZT EIGENTLICH EIN KAMEL (2017), GÖTTLICHKEIT TRIFFT PUNK, a dance lecture on the topic of mothers in art (2019), HELLO KEVIN (2020), LABOR MFL (2020). In 2019 she founded the artists’ collective TeamVolume, which has been supported since 2020 by the Fond Darstellender Künste and DokArt. Confronted with the deficiency of children-friendly structures at the theatres, she explores in her works the seemingly secondary and yet charged topic of motherhood. Since 2020 she has received support in the form of a residence at the ada-Studio in Berlin-Lichtenberg, which is offered specifically to female artists with children.

www.tanzschreiber.de/tag/johanna-lemke

ANNE SCHÖNHARTING

(*1973, Meißen) studied photo design from 1995–1998 at the Lette Verein Berlin. 1997 Kodak Young Talent Prize. Member of OSTKREUZ since 1999 and in its management since 2019. Awarded in 2005/2007 with the media prize of the Kindernothilfe Foundation, 2006/2007 the Hansel Mieth Prize, and 2006 and 2016 the VG Photo Art Scholarship. 2007 lectureship in photography at the Art Academy in Berlin-Weissensee. She has exhibited in group exhibitions, including MUSLIMISCHE FRAUEN IN DEUTSCHLAND, Goethe Institute Washington D.C., and 2011 WO WIRTSCHAFT SPIELT, Stilwerk, Hamburg. She is a member of the ART DIRECTORS CLUB FÜR DEUTSCHLAND and teaches, since 2020, as guest professor at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. On 1 October 2020 her book DAS ERBE was published by Hartmann Books, which deals with the reappraisal and examination of the family inheritance from the colonial past of her great-grandfather.

JOHANNES KERSTHOLD

(*1965, Trier) is a pianist, composer and producer. He studied piano at the University of the Arts, Berlin, and has performed in Germany and abroad in various formations. He won the contest MUSICA VITALE (1996) with the German-Chinese group OMEN, and the JAZZ AWARD Berlin in 2004 with the Hattie St. John Quartet, and again in 2005 with the Griese/Kappe Quartet. He has participated in productions with the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin and the RIAS Big Band, as well as for the public broadcasters ZDF, SWR and WDR. He was the keyboarder in the Konstantin Wecker musical SCHWEIJK, musical director of FALCO MEETS AMADEUS, and first keyboarder for CATS. In 2003 he founded his own label ANJOKE.

www.kersthold.de

TOBIAS KRUSE

(*1979, Waren an der Müritz)studied graphic design from 1996–2000, worked as graphic artist from 2000–2004. 2005–2009 further studies at the Ostkreuz School of Photography with Ute Mahler, masterclass with Arno Fischer, Berlin. In 2008 he won the NEW YORK PHOTO AWARD in the category Student Editorial Series; 2010 the main prize at F/STOP, the International Photography Festival in Leipzig. From 2009 to 2011 he was head of photography at the Dummy magazine. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2011. 2019 exhibition and publication of MATERIAL in the Robert Morat Gallery, Berlin, published by Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld; 2019/2020 recommended scholarship candidate; exhibition of DEPONIE in the Deichtorhallen Hamburg and in the Photography Forum Frankfurt; 2020 publication of FREUNDSCHAFT (Friendship), together with Jörg Brüggemann, also published in Kerber Verlag.

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KATHARINA THALBACH

KATHARINA THALBACH

(*1954, Berlin) is an actress and theatre director and an icon of German theatre. For her the world is a stage. Her father is the director Benno Besson, her mother the actress Sabine Thalbach. At the age of 13 she became a master student of Helene Weigel. She has played primarily in the Berliner Ensemble and the Volksbühne, often working with Matthias Langhoff, and has appeared in films, with star status. In 1976, the year the GDR authorities withdrew songwriter Wolf Biermann’s citizenship, the cultural sector in East Germany became highly politicised. That year Katharina Thalbach left the GDR. It did not hurt her career. She played at the Berlin Schiller Theatre and in Hamburg, Cologne and Zurich, and appeared in cinema and television films. At the end of the 1980s she began directing theatre. She performed and directed.

In 2020 the brakes were pulled on her for the first time in her long career. Waiting for the theatres to open again, she read for the podcast of OLLARICKCHEN – DIE WILDE VON DER WEINREIHE, short episodes about the clever, freedom-loving little scamp Ulrike, written by Sarah McGrane. But this was certainly no replacement for the stage. For a year she has been waiting – and her audience as well – for the premiere of MORD IM ORIENTEXPRESS, the German version of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express”, in the Berlin Schiller Theater. Katharina Thalbach directs and plays the main part of Detective Hercule Poirot. It is also a tribute to the most successful whodunit novelist of all time, for Agatha Christie wrote her first detective novel a hundred years ago, in 1920.

In his photo for MISS YOU, Maurice Weiss shows Katharina Thalbach on the high seas, as it were. It is symbolic for the entire cultural sector.

www.ollarikchen.de

www.komoedie-berlin.de

MAURICE WEISS

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KHAN OF FINLAND

(*1965, Frankfurt am Main) Can “Khan” Oral is a musician, DJ, producer, performance artist and label operator of Turkish-Finnish descent. In 1982 he founded the punk band MUT ZUM SCHLAG. At the end of the 1980s, Khan began producing electronic music, followed by Acid Hip-Hop and House, the latter with his brother Cem. 1992–2002 he lived in New York City, organized downtown art events and the notorious Queer Party KILLER in the legendary club SAVE THE ROBOTS. He operates three record labels and the record shop TEMPLE RECORDS and produces and performs with a great many artists.

In Berlin he puts on monthly parties in the trendy techno-club BERGHAIN. In 2009 he founded the project KHAN OF FINLAND with Mark Boombastik and Boris Bergmann. He received the QUARTZ Award for electronic music (Paris) in the category Best Song. In January 2021 he performed at the digital opening of the exhibition TIEFSCHWARZ (Deep Black) in the StadtPalais – Museum für Stuttgart.

www.khanoffinland.com

ANNETTE HAUSCHILD

(*1969, Gießen) she studied from 1991–1993 at Lette Verein, Berlin, in the field of photo design. Member of OSTKREUZ since 1996. 2003–2004 masterclass with Arno Fischer, at the Photo School of Photography on Schiffbauerdamm, Berlin. 2011 VG Photo Art Scholarship. 2012 Grenzgänger Scholarship of the Robert Bosch Foundation. 2014 group exhibition HOMELAND? EASTERN EUROPE IN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY, Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg. 2015 solo exhibition HIT THE ROAD JACK, Hellerau – European Centre of the Arts, Dresden. 2018 publication of LAST DAYS OF DISCO by Hatje Cantz, Berlin.

KLAUS KILLISCH

(*1959, Leipzig) is a visual artist and passionate musician. He studied painting at the Weissensee Art Academy Berlin. His pictures are expressive; they originated in the subculture of the 1980s and its zeitgeist. Scholarships and trips abroad brought him to France, Italy, Ireland, USA and Japan. His works have been shown at the Biennale di Venezia (1990), in the Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo (1991), the New National Gallery, Berlin (2003), the Museum of the Fine Arts Leipzig (2019), and elsewhere.

“On the always emotional, but also heretical and social-critical screens, it rocks and grooves; figures seem to have come from science fiction films. In this way Klaus Killisch develops his unique rhythmical, emotional, but also differentiated style. He translates image into musicality and vice versa”(Berliner Zeitung, 25.2.20). There with him at the photo shooting by Sibylle Fendt is the protagonist of many of his works: the blue guitar – inspired by a photograph of a Fender Telecaster, which he had build as a youth.

www.klaus-killisch.de

SIBYLLE FENDT

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LANDERER & COMPANY

In 2010 the dancer and choreographer Felix Landerer founded LANDERER & COMPANY aka OF CURIOUS NATURE. Since 2011 he has worked as the in-house choreographer of the Scapino Ballet Rotterdam and as a guest choreographer for Nederlands Dans Theater II. He has received many awards, including First Prize at the International Competition for Choreographers in Hannover, the Production Prize of Ed Wubbe (both in 2010), and the Pro Visio Prize for outstanding artistic achievement (2013). He shares his passion for movement and non-verbal communication with all layers of society in inclusion programmes and workshops.

The props in Frank Schinski’s photograph are from the dance piece THE RETURN, which is still waiting for its premiere due to Corona. The piece has to do with the construction of family.

www.felixlanderer.de

FRANK SCHINSKI

LARS EIDINGER

(*1976, Berlin) is one of the most prolific theatre, film and television actors in Germany. He studied at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. Since 1999 he has been a member of the ensemble of the Berlin Schaubühne and is currently in such productions as HAMLET, RICHARD III und PEER GYNT. He has received many awards for his work in films, including the GRIMME PRIZE, and the Bavarian and the Austrian FILM PRIZE. In 2021 he will play the title role ‘Everyman’ in Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s THE PLAY OF THE RICH MAN'S DEATH at the Salzburg Festival. Alongside acting, he is also increasingly active as a DJ, musician, and photo and video artist. In 1999 he held his first solo exhibition in the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein and in the following year he showed his work together with the artist Erwin Wurm in the gallery RUTTKOWSKI 68 in Cologne. His photo book AUSTISTIC DISCO was published by Hatje Cantz in 2001.

INA SCHOENENBURG

(*1979 Berlin) studied architecture from 2005–2008 at the Technische Fachhochschule Berlin. 2009–2012 photography studies at the Ostkreuz School of Photography, Berlin. Member of OSTKREUZ since 2016. She has received awards for her work: 2016 the Prix Échange Boutographies/FotoLeggendo, 2017 the Otto Steinert Prize of the DGPh and the Vonovia Award for Photography. Her photos were shown in solo and group exhibitions: 2018 solo exhibition SCHMALE PFADE/BLICKWECHSEL, Freelens Galerie, Hamburg, and in the group exhibitions HINTERLAND (2019), Schloss Wiligrad, Lübstorf, und at the RAW Phototriennale in Worpswede (2020).

LEXIA HACHTMANN

(*1993, Berlin) is a painter. In 2013 she began studying fine arts at the University of the Arts in Berlin. She likes towers, playing fields, door frames, Jenga games, little figures on tables, plastic chairs, duvet covers, backstroke swimmers, potted plants, barriers, sheep, hands that do things, cards, figures, shoes on carpets, and curtains. In her work she occupies herself with painting at the interface between theatre, film and installation. Achim Freyer says that theatre and painting represent their content through space. For Lexia Hachtmann, too, painting is inseparable from space. The canvas is a place of assertion and narrative, it is space and stage at the same time. The playful process remains formally visible in painting and also in installing the works in the space. On the painterly level, she therefore consciously works with recurring colours, figures, motifs and objects that show up in other ways in the different settings, and cite, question and reinterpret each other.

www.lexia-hachtmann.com

JOHANNA-MARIA FRITZ

MAX RAABE

(*1962, Lünen) is a singer and co-founder of the Palast Orchester (1986), but actually always sang – in the youth choir, the church choir, on his bicycle. He studied opera singing in Berlin and has received many awards, above all for his commitment to the music world of the 1920s and 1930s: in 2002, for example, the ECHO KLASSIK award for the CD CHARMING WEILL (together with the Palast Orchester), 2005 the PAUL-LINKE-RING of the city of Goslar, and 2012 the Order of Merit of the Land Berlin. Since 2007 he has been the presenter of the opera gala of the German Aids Foundation, as the successor to Loriot, and has engaged in projects like SCHULE OHNE RASSISMUS (School without racism). During the lockdown in April 2020, he published the MTV Unplugged Version of the title ICH BLEIB ZU HAUS from 2017 with Samy Deluxe in a Keno Hybro remix and enchanted many of us who had to remain at home, a smile on our lips.

www.palast-orchester.de

MAURICE WEISS

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MILA TESHAIEVA

www.milateshaieva

TOBIAS KRUSE

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MUCKEMACHER

is a band founded in Berlin in 2012 by the musicians, composers and DJs Verena Roth and Florian Erlbeck. As MUCKEMACHER they are turning children’s listening habits upside down. Now the kids groove to the sounds of Cumbia, Ska, Rocksteady, HipHop, Mambo and Dub, songs far outside of the mainstream that flow into the dancing legs, and videos that recall the Dadaist collages of Hannah Höch or the Bauhaus artist László Moholy Nagy. Their albums are about everything that moves kids and their parents – about joy and fun, but also about topics like exclusion and our current throwaway society. They sweeten up the current quarantine with living-room concerts and the grandiose song CHASE CORONA OUT OF TOWN¹ and at the same time draw attention to the precarious situation of artists in lockdown.

www.muckemacher.de

SIBYLLE FENDT

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NATALIE MUKHERJEE

(*1985, Wiesbaden) is an actress. She studied at the Westphalian Acting School in Bochum. After guest appearances at Schauspielhaus Bochum, she was taken into the ensemble of the Heidelberg Theatre, where she worked with several different directors. Then as an independent actress she had appearances again at the Heidelberg Theatre, the Sophiensaele Berlin and the Bremen Theatre. In the VAGANTEN BÜHNE, Berlin’s oldest private theatre, she has played the role of MICHAEL KOHLHAAS. In 2018 the friends’ association of the Vaganten Bühne awarded her their first ever advancement award. Natalie Mukherjee is also active as a singer and narrator.

www.vaganten.de/ensemble/natalie-mukherjee

INA SCHOENENBURG

NICHTSEATTLE

is a Berlin band. Katharina Kollmann (*1985, Berlin) is the singer and guitarist of the trio. WENDEKID, the band’s first album, appeared in 2019. It searches for traces, “describes the world of adults from a child’s perspective and thus creates on the one hand a very intimate narrative […] and in the face of the political caesura a political story as well”(quoted from the newspaper TAZ). With associative ideas and daydreams it spans the period from the reunification to the present. Music to come to terms with history.

NICHTSEATTLE has been a guest at numerous clubs and festivals, including the Reclaim, the music festival at Werbellinsee, and the alínæ lumr Festival in Storkow. In 2020, due to the lockdown, they brought their sound to the Parkclub stage online as stream, under

www.nichtseattle.bandcamp.com

JORDIS ANTONIA SCHLÖSSER

OXANA CHI

is a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and trendsetter of German-Nigerian background who lives in New York and Berlin. She studied, among other things, contemporary dance, classical ballet and Tai Chi in the USA, Indonesia, Taiwan and France. In pieces like NEFERET ITI, I STEP ON AIR, or KILLJOY, she takes a stand against racism, exclusion and human rights violations. She is co-curator for dance at the International Human Rights Festival and was awarded in 2018 by the online dance magazine THE DANCE ENTHUSIAST’S A-Z OF PEOPLE WHO POWER THE DANCE WORLD, in New York.

Oxana Chi’s dance piece THROUGH GARDENS is dedicated to the dancer Tatjana Barbakoff (1899–1944), who was murdered in Auschwitz. It served her and her personal and professional partner Layla Zami as the basis for their documentary-fiction film DANCING THROUGH GARDENS, 2014. The work has inspired many biopics and films, which are based partly on reality and partly on fiction. In 2016 Oxana Chi was honoured for her many-layered and social-critical cinematic work as AMBASSADOR OF PEACE & FILMMAKER OF INSPIRATION by the International Documentary and Short Film Festival (DOSHIMA), Jakarta, in 2016. The film also tells the history of encounter and solidarity among artists from the 1920s to the present.

www.oxanachi.de

ANNETTE HAUSCHILD

PAULA KOBER

(*1994, Lübeck) studied acting at the University of the Arts Berlin. Guest appearances at Schauspielhaus Bochum, Deutsches Theater Berlin, Hans-Otto-Theater Potsdam and Volksbühne Berlin, where she has been a member of the ensemble since 2019. There she has worked with such directors as Pınar Karabulut, Marius Schötz, Claudia Bauer, Schorsch Kamerun and Kay Voges.

www.volksbuehne.berlin

ESPEN EICHHÖFER

(*1966, Nesbyer/Norway) studied 1992–2000 communication design, focusing on photography, at Duisburg-Essen University. 2001/2002 awarded the documentary photography advancement award of the Wüstenrot Foundation, and 2005 the Körber Photo Award. A member of OSTKREUZ since 2006. 2008 Artist in Residence at the Goethe Institute Manila. 2011 and 2017 awarded the VG Photo Art Scholarship and in 2017 the scholarship of the Fritt Ord Foundation, Norway. Participated in the 2014 group exhibitions WHAT WAS AND WHAT IS in Museum Folkwang, Essen, and THE ILLEGAL IMAGE – PHOTOGRAPHY BETWEEN SELF-CENSORSHIP AND PHOTO BAN in F 3 – freiraum für fotografie, Berlin, which he co-curated.

PHILIP KOJO METZ

(*1981, Heidelberg) is a concept artist with roots in Ghana. He studied photography and visual art and was a master student of Olaf Metzel at the Academy of the Fine Arts in Munich. He has been awarded scholarships and artist’s residencies, on which he draws for his current international exhibition activities. Since 2010 he has devoted himself in his installations, photo and video works above all to the (post-)colonial culture of remembrance. The sleep mask, printed with the words SORRYFORNOTHING, which he is wearing in the photograph by Espen Eichhöfer, refers to a sculpture he made for the Berlin City Museum in the Humboldt Forum. It is a foil for the demand for critical dealing with the German colonial past and the official culture of remembrance. With SORRYFORNOTHING he focuses on this vacuum in the public consciousness. A saying that artists might surely think of in these Corona times.

www.philipkojometz.de

ESPEN EICHHÖFER

STEFANIE REINSPERGER

(*1988, Vienna/Austria) is an actress. She studied at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. She has performed on stage at Schauspielhaus in Düsseldorf, Burgtheater Vienna (2014/15) and as a member of the Vienna Volkstheater ensemble (2015/16). In 2015 she was invited twice to the Berlin Theatertreffen – with DIE UNVERHEIRATETE, directed by Robert Borgmann and DIE LÄCHERLICHE FINSTERNIS under Dušan David Pařízek’s direction. In that year she was awarded Young Actress of the Year and Actress of the Year. Since the 2017/18 season, she has been a member of the Berliner Ensemble and since July 2020 has been reinforcing the Faber and Bönisch investigation team as Chief Inspector Rosa Herzog in the Dortmund TV series TATORT. Regarding the cultural lockdown, she said in the radio programme RBB Kultur on 31.1.2021: “We have to feel art live […], we starve when the intercommunication is missing.”

www.berliner-ensemble.de

JÖRG BRÜGGEMANN

SUSE WÄCHTER

(*1969, Sangerhausen) is a puppeteer and director. Since studying at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, she has worked towards the renewal of puppet animation in theatre. She brings her self-made figures to life on major theatre stages, including Thalia Theater Hamburg, the Schaubühne and the Volksbühne in Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera and the Residenztheater in Munich, Schauspiel Köln, Schauspielhaus Zürich, and the Salzburg Festival.

She began making puppets as a child, meanwhile having created more than 100 of them. Some are life-sized, and Suse Wächter needs her entire strength to manipulate them, sometimes assisted by actors, musicians or dancers. The figures range from Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Bertolt Brecht to Cate Blanchett. What fascinates her about puppetry? “[…] the magic, […] the chance to fill people with wonder” (quotes from Prenzlauerberg Nachrichten).”

TOBIAS KRUSE

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THOMAS STRUTH

(*1954, Geldern) studied at the art academy in Düsseldorf and was one of the students in Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photography class. Extensive solo exhibitions of his work have been shown, e.g., in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo del Prado Madrid, the Museum Folkwang in Essen und the Haus der Kunst in Munich. From 1993–1996 Thomas Struth was the first professor for photography at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. He was awarded the Spectrum International Prize for Photography of the Kulturstiftung Niedersachsen and is an Honorary Fellow of the British Royal Photographic Society as well as Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts. Many of Struth's works are represented in public collections, including the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Galleria d’Accademia, Florence, the Tate Gallery, London, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, und the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

www.thomasstruth32.com

THOMAS MEYER

TILMAN STRAUSS

(*1982, Ulm) is an actor. He studied acting at the Ulm Academy for the Performing Arts (AdK) as well as at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin. From 2009 to 2016 he was a member of the ensemble of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz and worked there with Thomas Ostermeier, Michael Thalheimer, Katie Mitchell and others. Guest engagements at bat-Studiotheater and Maxim Gorki Theater, and elsewhere. Freelance since 2017/18, guest appearances at the Deutsches SchauSpielHaus in Hamburg, working, e.g., with Katrin Henkel and Karin Beier. He has also played in various TV and film productions, including WIR WAREN KÖNIGE (2012) and LUX - KRIEGER DES LICHTS as well as in several TV crime thrillers, including TATORT (2015/2020), DER ALTE (2019), and POLIZEIRUF (2020). In 2009 he received the Ensemble Prize at the Acting School Meeting in Zurich and was nominated for the German Cinema Advancement Prize in the category Best Actor for his role in WIR WAREN KÖNIGE (2014).

www.agentur-schneider-berlin.de/tilman-strauss

ANNE SCHÖNHARTING

TONI KRAHL

(*1949, Berlin) is a musician. “Love me do”, the Beatles’ first single, inspired Toni Krahl to his music career. “It touched my heart and soul and still has an influence on me,” he said in an interview in 2019. Since 1975 he has been singer, guitarist and songwriter for the band City. With the song AM FENSTER, which appeared in 1977 on the band’s eponymous LP, City produced one of the greatest hits of GDR rock music. Although it is actually a love song – poetry by the lyricist Hildegard Maria Rauchfuss set to music – the song has a political dimension as well. It carries the idea of longing for freedom when Krahl sings at the end: “I fly through the world”.

www.city-internet.de

TOBIAS KRUSE

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TORA AGHABAYOVA

(*1979, Baku/Azerbaijan) is an artist. She was formally trained as a painter with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Azerbaijani State Art Academy. At the onset of her career she experimented with performance and video art. Her video installation MOOD was on display at the first Azerbaijani pavilion exhibition at the 52^nd Venice Art Biennale in 2007. In her art she deals, among other things, with the history of formal painting as a propaganda instrument, as history painting, and as a new version of traditional gender roles. Her works have been displayed in many group exhibitions, including the Cyprus Museum of Modern Arts, Lefkosha/Cyprus, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Perm/Russia (both 2019), and in 2018 in the exhibition CONTEMPORARY ART FROM AZERBAIJAN, Phillips de Pury & Company, London. She lives in Berlin.

MILA TESHAIEVA

www.milateshaieva

VOLKER MÄRZ

(*1957, Mannheim) is an artist, sculptor, painter, filmmaker, author and performer. Studied at the Academy of Arts, Berlin. In his interdisciplinary works he combines all art forms. He builds whole room installations as a synthesis of the arts with a far-flung family of painted clay figures, with quotations, drawings and paintings, and with pop songs for which he writes the lyrics, accompanied by the music of Bernadette La Hengst. This conglomeration gives rise to a complex, multi-layered, humorous narrative with surprising lightness, but with a political aspect at the same time. Here he deals with questions about our history and our present. In museums and galleries he uses the devices of the visual arts in live stage acts with the dance and performance group UNOS UNITED, which he founded. His work is shown in Germany and abroad, e.g., in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin (2005), the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel, the Biennale in Poznań/Poland (2009/2010), the Wits Arts Museum, Johannesburg (2016), as well as the Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin, und the Gerhard Marcks Museum, Bremen (both in 2018).

www.volkermaerz.de

ESPEN EICHHÖFER

ZACHI, MIELE UND CHRISCHI

ZACHI, MIELE UND CHRISCHI, SOUND & PRODUCTION

are responsibable in concerts for sound and production. These are their nicknames in the scene. The three of them stand for all the people who make concerts, theatre evenings, films or exhibitions possible. They stand behind the scenery; their contributions are not visible. But they are just as important as the artists in the limelight. Cultural events cannot be realized without their help in setting them up. A concert without sound technicians cannot be heard, the actors on the stage cannot be seen without the lighting technician, nor can the artworks in an exhibition. Not to forget the teams in the ticket office, the cloakroom or the cleaning service. They are all a valuable part of art and culture.

MAURICE WEISS

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ZACKI, MIELE, GRISCHI