ARTSLOTTERY

Artist Bios

Afrika (Sergei Bugaev) (b.1966, Novorossiysk, USSR) moved to Saint Petersburg in the early 80’s, where he met and made friends among the art scene. Shortly thereafter he adopted the name "Afrika" and began working as an artist himself. He has had solo shows at Forsblom Projects, Helsinki, Finland (2008), Museum Kuppersmuhle Für Moderne Kunst, Duisberg, Germany (2008), State Tratyakov Gallery, The National Russian Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia (2005). In 1999 Afrika represented Russia at the 48th Venice Biennale. His many group exhibitions include VIBE, RNA Foundation at the Louise Blouin Institute, London, England (2008), Naked Life, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan (2006), Russia!, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2005) which traveled to The Guggenheim Museum Bilboa, Spain, 2006, Berlin-Moscow/Moscow-Berlin 1950-2000, Martin Gropius Bau & State Tretyakov Gallery, The National Russian Museum of Fine Art, Moscow (2003 & 2004). He currently lives and works in Saint Petersburg.

Art Attack was founded as a multi-media collaborative group in 1979 in Los Angeles, CA, and subsequently moved to Washington, D.C. and finally to New York City. Art Attack maintains a formal group of associates who participate on a project-by-project basis. The group primarily constructs installations or creates events in public spaces including abandoned buildings at both authorized and unauthorized sites. Each installation is site specific and temporary; all that remains of their projects is extensive documentation and occasional fragments. Art Attack works internationally and has participated in exhibitions including: Tacheles, Berlin, Germany (1993); Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, Austria (1995); Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Poland (1999); and PS1, NY (1992). Their work has also been included in the International Survey of Group Art, Marseille, France (1991, 1989) and Kassel, Germany (1987). Art Attack received ArtsLink Collaborative Project Awards in 1993, 1995 and 1998.

Maja Bajević (b.1967, Bosnia and Herzegovina) currently lives Berlin. Bajevic had solo exhibitions at Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland in 2009, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY in 2004. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including, in 2007, Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany; in 2005 Sweet Taboos, Tirana Biennal, Tirana, In/Security, International Festival of The Government, Secession, Vienna, Austria, Be what you want but stay where you are, Witte De With, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 7th Sharjah Biennal, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Biennale of Urgency, Grozny, Tchethcenia, Venice Biennale (2003), Blut & Honig, Zukunft ist am Balkan, Sammlung Essl, Vienna (2003); Biennial de Valencia (2001); the Istanbul Biennial (2001) and Manifesta 3, Ljubljana (2000). Her work is in many private and public collections including: Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Paris, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain, France, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Stockholm, Suedden, Essl collection for contemporary art, Vienna, Austria, Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Japan. She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1999.

Petr Belyi (b.1971, Leningrad USSR) studied ceramics at Mukhin Academy of Applied Art and graduated from Camberwell College in 2000. He lives and works in St Petersburg and teaches at the Smolnyi Institute in St Petersburg. Among his solo projects and exhibitions are Bad News, Guelman Gallery, Moscow (2008); La Biblioteca di Pinocchio, Galleria Pack, Milan and Daneyal Mahmood Gallery, NY (2008); Lenproject, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (2007); Privatisatioon of the Chimneystack, New Realms Gallery, London (2005); 1st Moscow Biennale (2005); and Metaphorical Slide Tower, Pinacoteca Udine City Museum, Udine, Italy (2004). His works has been part of group exhibitions such as Russia 21, Viktor Pinchuk Art Centre, Kyiv, Ukraine (2009); Something About Power and Border Territory, 2nd Moscow Biennale, L Gallery, Moscow (2007); Architecture ad Marginum, State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russia (2007). His work is in the collections of The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL; the Russian State Museum, St Petersburg, Russia; the Murmansk Art Museum, Murmansk, Russia; Ashmolean Museum, Cambridge, UK; and the Victoria & Albert Museum,London, UK.

Emese Benczur (b.1969, Budapest, Hungary). Benczur has had solo exhibitions at the Museum het Domein, Sittard, Holland (2004), the Ludwig Museum, Budapest (1999) and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1998). Her work has been part of group exhibitions including 2009 KAAP Biennale, Utrecht, Holland (2009), eccentric paths, Museo Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal (2007), Haunted by Detail, De Appel Centre for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam (2002); Out of Time, Mucsarnok, Budapest (2001); Venice Biennale (1999); Aspects/Positions, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (1999); After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999) and Manifesta 2, Luxembourg (1998). She lives and works in Budapest. She received an ArtsLink Independent Projects award in 1999.

Alexei Biryukoff (b. 1976, USSR) is a painter, sound artist, performer currently living and working in Barnaul, Russia. His work has been seen in Fresh Wind at the Barnaul Contemporary Art Competition where it won the viewers’ choice award. It is also found in the MAN Museum in Liverpool, UK, and in private collections in many cities of Russia, several states of the USA including Hawaii, Caribbean, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Finland, Switzerland, and Australia. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 2008.

Luchezar Boyadjiev (b.1957) is an artist living and working in Sofia, Bulgaria. Recent exhibitions are: Wealth of Nations, part of Cinema City Film & Media Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia; Liquid Frontiers, Europe XXL / Lille 3000, Tri Postal, Lille, France; Bad Times / Good Times, Futura – Center for Contemporary Art, Prague in 2009. Some exhibitions in 2008 were: Art, Price and Value in Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy; Wonder, the 2nd Biennial in Singapore; The Jerusalem Show with Al-Ma’mal Foundation, the Old City of Jerusalem; Eurasia in MART, Rovereto, Italy; Lucky Number Seven, the 7th SITE Biennial, in Santa Fe, New Mexico,. His 2007 exhibitions were: the 3rd Prague Biennial, Prague, the Czech Republic; Attitude 2007, in CAMK, Kumamoto, Japan; Footnotes: On Geopolitics, Markets and Amnesia, the 2nd Biennial, Moscow, Russia; and 5 Views to Mecca (and other scapes), Feinkost Gallery, Berlin. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1997.

Luisa Caldwell lives and works in Brooklyn. She is a project for the MTA’s Arts for Transit 180th Street subway station. Her solo exhibitions and Projects include Jetfire, Heckscher Park Sculpture Show, Huntington, NY (2009); Luisa Caldwell, Swarovski- Parcours St. Germain de Pres, Paris, France (2007), and several shows with Florence Lynch Gallery in New York. Her many group exhibitions include Back To The Garden Deutsche Bank Galleries, NY (2009) ; You Are What You Eat, MASSMoCA,Kidspace North Adams, MA (2009); London Confidential, Mews 42, London (2008); Rendez-vous, La Nouvelle Athene, Paris, France (2007); The Eclectic Eye, Contemporary Art Center New Orleans, New Orleans, LA (2007); Sugar Buzz, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York (2007); Site92, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY (2006); West Harlem Art Project, Jackie Robinson Park, Harlem, NY; Brooklyn Gravity Racers, Pierogi, Brooklyn, NY (2004); and Convergence, CCNOA, Brussels, Belgium (2004). She participated in a CEC ArtsLink VisArt Project in Krasnoyarsk, Russia in 2009.

Mel Chin was born in Houston to Chinese parents in 1951, the first of his family born in the United States, and was reared in a predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhood. He worked in his family’s grocery store, and began making art at an early age. Though he is classically trained, Chin’s art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades easy classification. Alchemy, botany, and ecology are but a few of the disciplines that intersect in his work. He insinuates art into unlikely places, including destroyed homes, toxic landfills, and even popular television, investigating how art can provoke greater social awareness and responsibility. Unconventional and politically engaged, his projects also challenge the idea of the artist as the exclusive creative force behind an artwork. “The survival of my own ideas may not be as important as a condition I might create for others’ ideas to be realized,” says Chin, who often enlists entire neighborhoods or groups of students in creative partnerships. Chin also promotes “works of art” that have the ultimate effect of benefiting science or rejuvenating the economies of inner-city neighborhoods. Chin’s current Fundred Dollar Bill Project and its sister initiative Operation Paydirt seek to engage students and others from around the US in a participatory art-making project that will culminate in creative solutions to New Orleans’s lead-contaminated soil problems. Chin received a BA from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1975, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988 and 1990.

Gia Chkhatarashvili

Danica Dakić (b.1962, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Dakic’s work has been part of group exhibitions including Passage d’Europe, Musée d’Art Moderne, Saint-Etienne (2004); Istanbul Biennial (2009 & 2003); Valencia Biennial (2003); In the Gorges of the Balkans, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2003); Ich ist etwas Anderes, Kunstsammlung NRW, Dusseldorf (2000); La casa, il corpo, il cuore, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien (1999) and After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999). Dakić studied at the Academy of Art in Sarajevo, the Academy of Art in Belgrade and the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. She currently divides her time between Sarajevo and Dusseldorf. She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1999.

Eric del Castillo (b.1962, Mexico City) began a career as an art director in film and television in 1986. Since 1987, he has had, as an independent artist, 12 solo shows and been included in more than 50 group exhibitions. These shows include Anthologie der Kunst, Bonn, Germany (2005), Akademie der Kunste, Berlin (2004); Zentrum fur Medienkunst, Karlsruhe, Germany (2004); Abductions, Instituto Cultural Mexicano, San Antonio, TX (1998); Telling Stories/Telling Tales, The Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada (1996), and Small Worlds, Galería del Progreso, Madrid, Spain (1993). Lives and works in Mexico City.

Vlasta Delimar, performance artist, has held over 30 performances around the world: in Glasgow, Pittsburgh, Klagenfurt, London, Sarajevo, Beograd, Zagreb, Graz, Trst, Celje, Lyon, Quebec, Kyoto, Buffalo, Ljubljana etc. She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1997.

David Diao (b. 1943, Chengdu, Sichuan, China), he left with his grandparents for Hong Kong in October 1949. At age 12 he joined his father in New York where he has lived and worked ever since. Establishing his studio in 1964, he began his career with almost simultaneous shows at Paula Cooper and Leo Castelli in 1969. He participated in several Whitney biennials in the 70s. He joined Postmasters Gallery upon its inception in 1985 and has had solo shows there every few years. The most recent, I lived there until I was 6... was this past January. A survey show was mounted by the Museum of Modern Art, Saint-Etienne, France, 1990. November 2007 he showed his Barnett Newman Series at Le Quartier, Quimper, France. Various major shows have been mounted in Paris, Dijon, Rennes, Zurich, Toronto, Vancouver, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Berlin, Taipei, Hong Kong and Beijing. He participated in the 2nd Guangdong Triennial, Guangzhou 2005.

Chris Doyle is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to recent solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and at The Taubman Museum of Art, his work has been shown at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, MassMoCA, P.S.1 Museum of Contemporary Art, The Tang Museum, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Sculpture Center, and as part of the New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center. 50,000 Beds, a large-scale, collaborative video installation involving 45 artists was presented simultaneously by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, ArtSpace, New Haven, and Real Art Ways, Hartford. His work has been supported by grants from New York Foundation for the Arts, NYSCA, and the Creative Capital Foundation. His temporary and permanent urban projects include LEAP, presented by Creative Time, Commutable, commissioned by The Public Art Fund, as well as recent commissions for Melbourne, Australia, Tampa, Florida, and Kansas City, Missouri, and Austin Texas.

Agnes Eperjesi (b. 1964, Budapest, Hungary) has had solo exhibitions in Hungary, Austria Poland, Germany, and the US. Her work has also been shown in group shows such as Paraíso Imaginário – Encontro Internacional de Fotografia, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (2007); Fotogramme – Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria (2006); Gravitation – Moszkva square, Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2003). Her work is found in many public collections including Goethe Institute, Budapest; Obala Center of Art, Sarajevo, Bosnia; Austrian Cultural Institute, Budapest; Staadtliche Galerie, Moritzburg, Halle, Germany; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan; Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary.

Vadim Fishkin (b.1965, Penza, Russia) Fishkin’s installations, sculptures, photographs, and drawings – dealing with such topics as geography, time, light, aeronautics, and meteorology – are informed by his distinctive sense of humor. His work has been presented in numerous group and solo exhibitions, including at three Venice Biennials (in 1995, 2003, and 2005); the 1st Valencia Biennial; Manifesta 1, Rotterdam; the 3rd Istanbul Biennial; the 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius, Lithuania; as well as group shows at Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg; the Secession, Vienna; Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris; FRAC Lorraine, Metz; Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, Galerija Gregor Podnar, Ljubljana; Galerija Škuc, Ljubljana; Contemporary Art Center, Moscow; XL Gallery, Moscow; Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Palazzo dell Ragione, Milano; BAWAG Foundation, Vienna; ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; MACRO Museum for Contemporary Art, Rome; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; and the Drawing Center, New York. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1997.

Harrell Fletcher (b.1967, Santa Maria, CA). Fletcher has created exhibitions at Gallery HERE in Oakland, New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, The McBean Project Space, Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, and The de Young Museum in San Francisco, Alleged Gallery in NYC, COCA in Seattle, WA., and PICA, in Portland Oregon. He has been commissioned to produce public art projects for the San Francisco Art Commission, The Washington State Art Commission, The University of Minnesota, the City of Fairfield, CA, and Portland, Oregon’s Regional Art and Culture Council. Fletcher has work in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the De Young Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the New Museum in NYC. He has received grants and residencies from The Creative Work Fund, Gunk, Creative Capital, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the California Arts Council. Alpert Award for visual artist, California Institute of the Arts and Herb Alpert Foundation, 2005. He received an ArtsLink Project Award in 2003. www.harrellfletcher.com; www.somepeople.com

Jaroslaw Fliciński (b.1963, Gdansk, Poland) shows widely. His solo shows include Close Enough Gallery LeGuern, Warsaw (2009); No Matter Where It Happens, Galerie Zak-Branicka, Berlin (2008); Doppio Anelito, PIAC galleria, Ragusa (2007); Playground, CCNOA, Brussels (2007); Paintings, Galerie de Expeditie, Amsterdam (2006); The Rest Is Up To You, Villa Arson, Nice (2004); The End of Summer, Gallery LeGuern, Warsaw (2004); Everything Is All Right, CCA, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2003); Place Your Bets, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (2002); Far Away, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2000). Selected group exhibitions include Lost in Colour-dialog 1, Gdanska Galeria Miejska, Gdansk (2009); Manipulations, CCA, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2009); My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble, Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem (2009); Drei Farben- Weiss- Rohkunstbau 14, Schloss Sacrow, Sacrow-Potsdam (2009); Polish Paintings of The XXI Century, Zacheta National Gallery, Warsaw (2006); Avant-gardes polonaises, dialogues depuis Malevitch, Musée Matisse, Le Cateau, France(2006); The Title As A Curator’s Art Piece, Blow de la Barra, London (2006); The Ideal City – Invisible Cities, Zamosc (PL), Potsdam (2006); A Guest + A Host = A Ghost, Hedge House, Wijlre (2005); Avant-gardes polonaises hier et aujourd’hui, Espace de l’Art Concret, Mouans-Sartoux, France(2005); Hoehere wesen Befahlen: Anders Malen! Smart Project Space, Amsterdam (2001). He received an ArtsLink Independent Projects award in 2002.

Olga Florenskaya (b.1960) & Alexander Florensky (b.1960, St.Petersburg, formerly Leningrad). The artists graduated from the Leningrad Mukhina College of Applied and Industrial Design (formerly, the Baron Stieglitz Art School) in 1982. They were among the organizers of the MITKI group of artists (1985). Their many works included animated films: Mitkimayer (A. Florensky, 1992), Miracles of Miracles (O. Florenskaya, 1994), and Trophy Films (O&A Florensky, 2003) which have been seen in numerous Russian and international film festivals). Their graphic and sculptural work have been exhibited in solo shows throughout the world and Their works are to be found in the collections of the State Russian Museum and the State Hermitage in St Petersburg; the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow); many other museums in Russia; at KIASMA and the City Art Museum in Helsinki and at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Olga and Alexander Florensky live and work in St Petersburg. In 2004 Olga Florenskaya was the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Foundation Fellow at the American Academy in Rome and in 2006 she was an ArtsLink Fellow.

Nancy Friese is a painter and educator whose paintings and prints have been exhibited in over 20 one-person shows and in 100 group shows nationally and internationally. Her works have been included in shows at the Barbican Center in London, Brandts Klaedefabrik in Odense, Denmark, Chrysler Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Herbert Johnson Museum of Art, North Dakota Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, and Tokyo's Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Giverny Grant, and a Blanche E. Colman Award for painting. Friese has an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art and studied art at the University of California, Berkeley and the Art Academy of Cincinnati. She resides in Rhode Island, and teaches at Rhode Island School of Design.

Tina Gverović (b. Zagreb, Croatia) Exhibitions of her investigations of light include a solo show in 2009 at MUU Gallery and FAFA Galleries, Helsinki, Finland and in 2005 at Lenbachhaus-Kubus, (curated by WHW curatorial group) in Munich, Germany. She lives and works in London. She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 2005. http://tinagverovic.blogspot.com/

Ellen Harvey was born in the United Kingdom and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited extensively in the U.S. and internationally and was most recently included in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Recent solo exhibitions include Private Collections at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, The Museum of Failure at Luxe Gallery, New York, Beautiful/Ugly at Magnus Müller in Berlin and Bad Mirror at Galerie Gebruder Lehmann in Dresden, Mirror at the Pennsylvania Academy and A Whitney for the Whitney at Philip Morris at the Whitney Museum at Altria. She took part in the Whitney Independent Study Program and the PS1 Studio Program. Recent awards include a Pennies from Heaven Grant, a Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Grant, a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant and a Palm Beach County Cultural Council Grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. She has completed projects for both the New York and Chicago Transit Authorities, most recently including a mosaic for the new Metro-North Yankee Stadium Station. The New York Beautification Project was published by Gregory Miller & Co. in 2005 and Ellen Harvey: Mirror was published by the Pennsylvania Academy in 2006.

Robert Hickman (b. Cincinnati, OH) is a contemporary artist who works in sculptural objects, installations, and public sculpture. His work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally in venues that include PS1, Long Island City, New York; Sculpture Center, Long Island City, New York; Exit Art, New York; White Columns, New York; Center for Architecture, New York; Pierogi, Brooklyn, New York; Robert Lehman Gallery, Brooklyn, New York; and Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, New York. He has Permanent Public Commissions at Verdi Square, 72nd Street Station, New York; Capital Community College, Hartford, CT; and at Roosevelt Island Station, New York. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He participated in CEC ArtsLink’s VisArt program in 2006 and 2007.

Pravdoliub Ivanov (b.1964, Plovdiv, Bulgaria). Ivanov has had solo exhibitions at ATA Center/ Institute for Contemporary Art-Sofia (2003) and Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland (2002). His installations have been part of group exhibitions including the Sydney Biennial (2004); In the Gorges of the Balkans, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2003); Blut & Honig, Zukunft ist am Balkan, Sammlung Essl, Vienna (2003); Bound/less Borders, Belgrade (2002); Tirana Biennial (2001) and Manifesta 3, Ljubljana (2000). Ivanov studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia and currently lives and works in Sofia. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1998. www.pravdo.com

Przemyslaw Jasielski (b.1970, Poznan, Poland) makes sculptures, installations, objects and drawings – most of them on the theme of sound and rhythm with a particular interest in blending science with art. He has been working with the series of works titled To Hear The Sound Of An Angels Wings, the Hi-Fi project was started in 2000 and Control Units was show in 2003 at OPTICA Gallery in Montreal, his White Noise series from 2006 was shown at Lucas Artists Residency in California. His Drawings Of Something Completely Else series exhibited in Le Guern Gallery in Warsaw, are three dimensional paper objects exploring architectural and technological possibilities of bending a sheet of paper. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 2006. www.jasielski.art.pl

Emilia and Ilya Kabakov are a widely exhibited team of installation and graphic artists. Ilya was born in1933, in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Ilya Kabakov relocated to the West in 1987 from the Soviet Union. He was named by Art News as one of the "ten greatest living artists" in 2000. Throughout his forty-year plus career, Kabakov has produced a wide range of paintings, drawings, installations, and texts. Aside from innumerable exhibitions, his work is part of private and public collections that include Tate Britain, London; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Nina Katchadourian was born in Stanford, California and grew up spending every summer on a small island in the Finnish archipelago, where she still spends part of each year. Her work exists in a wide variety of media including photography, sculpture, video and sound. Her work has been exhibited domestically and internationally at places such as PS1/MoMA, the Serpentine Gallery, New Langton Arts, Artists Space, SculptureCenter, and the Palais de Tokyo. In January 2006 the Turku Art Museum in Turku, Finland featured a solo show of works made in Finland, and in June 2006 the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs exhibited a 10-year survey of her work and published an accompanying monograph entitled All Forms of Attraction. The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego presented a solo show of recent video installation works in July 2008. Katchadourian is represented by Sara Meltzer gallery in New York and Catharine Clark gallery in San Francisco. www.ninakatchadourian.com

Gulnara Kasmalieva (b. 1960, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) and Muratbek Djumaliev (b. 1965, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) usually work as a team. They are represented by Winkleman Gallery in New York, Their shows include: Asia Europe Mediations, National Gallery of Poznan, Poland (2007); The New Silk Road: An Algorithm of Survival and Hope, Focus: Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Djumaliev,The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2007); the Sharjah Biennial 8, Still Life: Art Ecology and the Politics of Change, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2007); Naked Life, Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, Taiwan (2007); 51st Venice Biennial, Central Asia Pavilion, Venice, Italy (2006); Pueblos I Sombras, CANAJA, Mexico City, Mexico (2004).

Arnold J. Kemp is a visual artist and writer. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and JP Morgan Chase Art Collection, among others. His solo shows include the Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, Debs & Co., New York, and Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco. In 2000, he exhibited work in the Studio Museum in Harlem’s groundbreaking exhibition Freestyle. In 2007, The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art commissioned a major installation of paintings and sculpture by Kemp. His work has been seen recently in Portland, OR at 1430 Contemporary, in Los Angeles, at Sister Gallery and in New York at Postmasters Gallery and at envoy contemporary art space. His work has been exhibited internationally including exhibitions at Chisenhale Gallery, London, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, Hyére Festival, Hyére, France, and at Art Caucasus National Gallery, Tbilsisi, Georgia.

Lisa Kereszi

Kimsooja (b.1957, Taegu, Korea) Kimsooja is a internationally acclaimed multi -media artist who lives and works in New York. Kimsooja’s work has been exhibited internationally and featured in numerous solo and group shows, such as Artempo (2007) and In-Finitum (2009) in Venice, Cities on the Move (1997-2000), Traditions/Tensions (1996-1998), and Biennales in Kwangju (1995), Sao Paolo (1998), the Whitney Biennial (2002), Busan (2002), Sydney (1998), Istanbul (1997), Lyon (2000), Valencia (2003), Venice (1999, 2005), and most recently Thessaloniki(2009) and Moscow (2009). Her solo exhibitions include Lotus: Zone of Zero, BOZAR, Brussels, 2008; To Breathe: A Mirror Woman, Crystal Palace, Reina Sophia, Madrid, 2006; To Breathe / Respirare at La Fenice, Venice, 2006; Traveling solo show Conditions of Humanity, Contemporary Art Museum of Lyon, Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf, PAC Milan, 2003-2004; A Laundry Woman, Kunsthalle Wien, 2002; A Needle Woman, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center/ MOMA, 2001, A Needle Woman in Kunsthalle Bern, 2001; Rodin Gallery, Seoul, 2000; and ICC, Tokyo, 2000; CCA Kitakyushu, 1999; etc. She participated in CEC ArtsLink VisArt Program in Ekaterinburg, Russia in 2004. More information, projects, works, and texts can be found at www.kimsooja.com

Grzegorz Klaman, (b. 1959, Nowy Targ, Poland) now lives and works in Gdansk. Between 1984 and 1986 he worked with Kazimierz Kowalczyk in creating colossal works at various sites in the city of Gdansk. His monumental work is experienced upon arrival at the Gdansk shipyards as one approaches the Solidarity Museum. His solo shows and monumental work have been seen in Fear and Trembling, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa (2009), and Flag for the III Republic of Poland, Galeria AT, Poznan (2001). His extensive involvement in group shows includes On The Tectonics of History, ISCP, New York (2007); History of Violence, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa; (2007); Reversed Art and Engineering, Skulpturens Hus, Stockholm (2003); In Between: Art from Poland 1945 – 2000, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago (2001); Utopia and Vision, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2000); and Beckett Implantate, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (1990). His work is found in public collections including Arsenal Gallery, Bialystok; National Museum in Cracow; Krakow; Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw ;The National Museum in Warsaw; The Gallery of 20th Century Polish Art, Warsaw, and Zacheta, National Gallery of Art, Warsaw.

Vitaly Komar (b. 1943, Moscow, Russia) has had work exhibited in thousands of shows throughout the world since 1974 when his work was bulldozed by Soviet authorities. His oeuvre includes public art work such as Monument to Peter the Great, in Amsterdam (in progress); Liberty as Justice, Bronx Housing Court, NY (1992-98); and the Den Haag Municipal Museum Red Light District, the Netherlands (1986). As well as being respresented in private collections worldwide, his work is in the public collections of the Albertina, Vienna; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; the Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Stedellijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, and Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Zlatko Kopljar Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia. He has exhibited in solo shows at Sao Paulo Biennale in 2008; Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka (2004), The Kitchen, NY (2002); and in group shows such as A Pair of Left Shoes, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany (2009); and Here Tomorrow, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2002). His work is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka, Museum of Modern Art Zagreb, Filip Trade Collection, Zagreb.

Thomas Kotik (b. Prague, Czech Republic) lives and works in Brooklyn. His work has been seen in solo shows at Black and White Gallery, NYC (2005), and Hofstra University’s Rosenberg Gallery, Hempstead, NY (2005), and in group shows such as Only Connect, Art In General at Bloomberg LLP, NYC (2008); Enchanted, Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota (2007); I Can’t Quite Place it, Smack Mellon Studios, NYC (2006); Sound, Art, Light, Science, Miami Museum of Science, Miami FL (2004).

Damijan Kracina (b.1970, Slovenia) works in sculpture and media art. He was the founding member of the Provokart art group, which performed public art events. He was founder and art director of ARTileria Kluže (1997-2000) and the founder and an active member of Domestic Research Society. Solo exhibitions include: Galapagos, Centre Euralille Lille, France (2009); White as Dirty Snow, Galerija Škuc, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2008); AnimalTour, Gallery PM, Zagreb (2006); Quarantine, Werkstadt Graz, Austria (1998). His work has also been seen in dozens of group shows including: Crazycurators Biennale, DDR project, Bratislava, Slovakia (2008); The VS_Bergen Foundation, & Gallery, Bergen, Norway, (2007); Land(e)scape, Kűnstlerhaus Graz, Graz, Austria (2006); Move Moment, Embassy of Slovenia, Washington, DC (2006); Festival visages francophones - Visages de la Slevenie, Cahors, France (2005); 22nd Kassel Documentary Film Festival, Kassel, Germany (2005) and RE-CONNECTIONS, Santa Fe Art Institute, New Mexico, (2004); Art from a Rucksack 1997-1999, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Limerick, Ireland (1999); 4th Interernational Festival of Computer Arts, Rotovž Gallery, Maribor (1998); For Your Eyes Only, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (1996). In 2003 he received a CEC ArtsLink Independent Project award.

Naomie Kremer was born in Tel Aviv and divides her time between Paris and the San Francisco Bay Area. Her pioneering work which bridges traditional and new-media was the subject of an extensive retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005. She is represented by Modernism Gallery, S.F., David Floria Gallery, Aspen, and Hosfelt Gallery in NYC.

Pawel Kruk (b.1976 in Koszalin, Poland). Kruk has had solo exhibitions at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2004) and Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw (2001). His work has been part of group exhibitions including Art, Sport, Video, Musée Géo-Charles d’Echirolles, France (2004); The American Effect, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2003); The Young Are Realists, Really, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2002) and Model to Assemble, The Center of Polish Sculpture, Oronsko (2000). Kruk studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan and currently lives and works in San Francisco, CA. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 2002.

Julia Kunin (b.1961, Burlington, VT) lives in Brooklyn, New York. She works in sculpture and drawing. Her recent ceramic sculptures are miniature otherworldly landscapes inspired by scholar’s rocks and the garden grotto. Ms. Kunin received her BA in 1984 from Wellesley College, and her MFA in 1993 from Rutgers University. She is represented by Greenberg Van Doren Gallery in New York. She had a two person exhibition at Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, NY in 2007 Selected one person exhibitions include The Bellevue Saal, Wiesbaden, Germany. 2000; Stux Gallery, NY, 1999. Selected Group exhibitions include: Inman Gallery, Houston, TX, 2009. Black and White Gallery, NY, NY 2009. Moti Hasson Gallery, NY, NY, 2008, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI, 2008, Karyn Lovegrove Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2006, Sandra Gering Gallery, NY 2006, Artists Space, NY, 2004, Schroeder-Romero Gallery, NY 2003, The Museum of Art and Design, NY, and the Museum of Applied Art and Design, Frankfurt, Germany. 2002-2003. She received an ArtsLink Projects Award in 1999.

Piotr Kurka (b.1958, Poznan, Poland) Lives and works in Poznan. Kurka has had solo exhibtions since the late 80’s at museums and galleries throughout Poland and in 1991 at Caspar Bingemer Gallery in Hamburg, Germany. The many group shows his work has been included in include, in 2008, Art Forum, Berlin; in 2004 Reversed Art and Engineering at Skulpturen Hus, Stockholm, Sweden; in 2003, Return to Nature Pastoral, Nanjing Shengua Arts Center, China; as well as the Dog in Polish Art at Arsenal gallery in Bialystok, Poland. In 1991 his work was included in the 20th Century Art Collections of the Museum of Modern Art in Lodz and the Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw. He was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant in 1992, and a residency at Bellagio by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1999. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1995, and received and ArtsLink Independent Project Award in 2008.

Ji Lee (b. Seoul, Korea, and raised in São Paulo, Brazil) He currently works as the creative director at Google Creative Lab in New York and teaches design at School of Visual Arts. Ji Lee is the founder of the widely publicized Bubble Project (thebubbleproject.com) and the author of two books: Talk Back: The Bubble Project and Univers Revolved: a 3-Dimensional Alphabet (universrevolved.com). Lee has given numerous lectures including Harvard University, MIT and MoMA. Lee’s work has appeared in ABC World News, The New York Times, Newsweek, The Guardian among others. pleaseenjoy.com

Yuri Leiderman (b.1963, Odessa, Ukraine, living in Berlin and Moscow) Leiderman’s recent solo exhibitions include Le Quartier, Centre d’ art contemporain de Quimper (2004), the National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2003), and Herzliya Museum of Art (2002). He has participated in two editions of the Venice Biennial (2003, 1993) and other group exhibitions including Berlin/Moskau, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2003); After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999); Sydney Biennial (1998); Manifesta, Rotterdam (1996) and the Istanbul Biennial (1992). His work is in the collections of the Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg; the Ludwig Museum, Budapest and the National Gallery Victoria, Melbourne. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1996.

Pavel Makov (b.1958, St. Peterburg, Russia) lives and works in Kharkov, Ukraine. Among his many exhibitions are shows at the Czech Museum of Fine Arts, (Prague), the State Museum of Russian Art (Kiev), and the City Art Museum (Kaliningrad, Russia). His work is in the the public collections of the State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum (Moscow), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Corcoran Museum (Washington DC) as well as other public and private collections. He is represented by Guelman Gallery in Moscow. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1999.

Antoni Maznevski (b.1963, Skopje, Macedonia). Maznevski has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of the City of Skopje (2002) and the Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art (1996). His work has been part of group exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (2003); Blut & Honig, Zukunft ist am Balkan, Sammlung Essl, Vienna (2003); In the Gorges of the Balkans, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2003); 40 Jahre: Fluxus und die Folgen, Kunstsommer Wiesbaden (2002) and Construction in Process VII: This Earth is a Flower, International Artists’ Museum, Lodz (2000). Maznevksi studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje and currently lives and works in Skopje. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1997.

Jonas Mekas is a pioneering filmmaker, founder of Anthology Film Archives, and author of over thirty books of prose and poetry. Solo exhibitions of his work have been shown at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Moderna Museet (Stockholm), PS1 Contemporary Art Center MoMA (New York) Documenta in Kassel, and the Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2005. In 2007 the Jonas Mekas Center for the Visual Arts opened in Vilnius, Lithuania. Mekas has received numerous international awards including the Lithuanian National Award in 1995, The Pier Paolo Pasolini Award in 1997, and induction into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, as Chevalier in 1992, Officer in 2000.

Yerbossyn (Erbol) Meldibekov (b. 1964, Kazakhstan) is a sculptor, video and photo artist. Has been had solo exhibitions in Central Asia and Euorpe and been part of group exhibitions such as Venice Biennial (2005); Tamerlan Syndrome, Orvieto, Italy (2005); Pueblos y Sombras, Canaia Galerie, Mexico City (2004); Trans Forma, Center for Modern Art, Geneva, Switzerland (2002); Le tribu dell' Arte, City Gallery of Modern Art, Rome, Italy (2001); Asia yesterday-today-tomorrow, Benteng Vredeburg museum, Jogjakarta, Indonesia (1998). He participated in a CEC ArtsLink Vis Art Residency in 2005.

Tamalyn Miller is a poet and artist whose work combines text with sculptural and performative elements. She has a MFA from Mills College and an MA in Russian Literature from Columbia University. She is an internationally published author of five collections of poetry, which have also been fabricated as handcrafted bookworks. Her work has been shown at numerous venues including Wave Hill, Storefront for Art and Architecture and Deitch Projects. She was a contributing member of the GALA Committee that produced conceptual artworks inserted into the sets of the prime-time television show Melrose Place and later exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Kwangju Biennale. She is currently a member of the experimental folk band Goddess, which has performed at SculptureCenter, Wave Hill, Tonic and other New York-area venues. She lives and works in New York City.

Shirin Neshat (b. 1957, Iran) is a contemporary Iranian visual artist who moved to New York after attending graduate school in Iran. She is known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. In 1990, she returned to Iran where she began her first mature body of work, the Women of Allah series. As a photographer and video-artist, Shirin Neshat is immediately recognized for her brilliant portraits of women entirely overlaid by Persian calligraphy (notably through the Women of Allah series). She has also directed several videos, among them Anchorage (1996) and, projected on two opposing walls: Shadow under the Web (1997), Turbulent (1998), Rapture (1999) and Soliloquy (1999). In 2009 Neshat won the Silver Lion for best director at the 66th Venice Film Festival for her directional debut "Women without Men".

Xenia Nikolskaya (b.1973 in Russia, lives and works in Stockholm and St. Petersburg) has had her work included in many international exhibitions and her photos are in the collection of Sveriges Allmänna Konstförening, UBS bank, Bibliotheca Alexandria Arts Centre, Alexandria, Egypt and many private collections. In 2009 she also served as guest curator at Fargfabriken – Centre for Contemporary Art and Architecture, Stockholm. http://nikolskaya.wordpress.com/

Audrius Novickas (b.1968, Vilnius, Lithuania). Novickas has had solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius 1994 and 2005, and in Pori, Finland in 1997. His work has been part of group exhibitions including Est ist Schwers, Kunstverein München (2004); 10th Biennial of Moving Images, Geneva (2003); Art Moscow (2002); 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art, Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius (2002) and After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999). Novickas studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. He currently lives and works in Vilnius. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1999 .

Odili Donald Odita (b.1966, Enugu, Nigeria) is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, New York and Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa. His work is found in the collections of The Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama The Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.The Miami Art Museum, FloridaThe Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York. He has had many one person exhibitions and has been part of group shows including Contemporary Art of Africa and the African Diaspora, High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2009); 52nd Venice Biennale, International Art Exhibition, Think With The Senses, Feel With the Mind (2007); Holy Land : Diaspora and the Desert, Heard Museum, Phoenix (2006); Round Leather Worlds, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany (2005); DAK’ART 2004 – Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African Art; North American representative in Diaspora (2004); and Here and Now, Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw (2001). He received an ArtsLink Award in 2000.

Kambui Olujimi was born and raised in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn. His work has been featured in museum exhibitions on a national and international level at institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Finish National Gallery/Kiasma Museum in Helsinki, the Polish National Gallery /Zacheta Museum, and The National Museum of Spain/ Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Olujimi has been awarded a fellowship from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Apex Art Outbound Fellowship to Kellerberin, Australia, and was a two year fellow at the Fine Art Work Center in Provincetown. Last autumn presented The Clouds Are After Me, a conceptual work comprised of 350 wanted posters depicting clouds as perpetrators. The Clouds Are After Me was featured in three concurrent solo exhibition across the country at Main Gallery in Las Vegas, Branch Gallery in Durham, and The DAAP Gallery at the University Cincinnati. Kambui is currently working on a multimedia installation project as part of Art in General's, New Works Commissions for 2010.

Alen Ožbolt (b.1966 in Ptuj, Slovenia [former Yugoslavia]) In 2002 he was awarded the “Recognition for Artistic Achievements”, the highest acknowledgement of art works granted by the University of Ljubljana as well as a Preseren Fund Award, Ozbolt was a Fulbright scholar and visiting artist at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000. His work has been presented at numerous one-man and group exhibitions, including:Aperto ‘93, Stayerische Herbst ‘93, Europa ‘94, Venice Biennial ‘95 (Slovenian pavillion),6th Triennale Kleinplastik ‘95, U3 – Triennial of Slovenian Art ‘93 and‘96; Snug Harbor Cultural Center, New York, 1997; Walter McBean Galleries, San Francisco, 2000; Ljubezenje bojno polje (Love is a Battlefield) together with Ziga Kariz, Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, 2006. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1997.

Martin Papcun (b.1979, Slovak Republic) is a metalsmith and sculptor who lives and works in Prague. He has had solo exhibitions in the Czech Republic and his work has been in dozens of group shows including Hyper-Natural, Spaces Gallery, Cleveland (2008); Structures, Galeria Reverso, Lisbon, Portugal (2008); GlassWear, Museum of Art and Design,New York, NY (2008); Schmuck ’08, City University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK; GlassWear, Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (2007); Structures–Czech Jewelry, Prague House, Brussels, Belgium (2007-08); Biennale of Textile‘s Miniatures, World Crafts Council, Mons, Belgium (2007).His meticulous metal constructions are found in the collections of the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, and the North Bohemian Museum in Liberec, Czech Republic. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 2008, and a 2009 Independent Projects Award recipient. www.papcun.net

Vesna Pavlovic is a Serbian-born artist based in the United States. Her work has been exhibited widely, including solo shows in 2005 at Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, the Museum of History, Belgrade (2002) and is included in many public collections including the Hirshorn Museum and the Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, and is also in many private collections. She is the Assistant Professor of Art at Vanderbilt University, and represented by G Fine Art gallery in Washington DC. http://vesnapavlovic.com

Dan Perjovschi (b.1961, Sibiu, Romania). Perjovschi‘s wildly popular work has been seen in venues such as the Sydney Bienniel in 2008, in 2007 in Project 85, at Museum of Modern Art, NYC and at Nasher Museum, Duke University, Durham. In 2006 at Culturfest, Porto, Portugal, and May First, Moderna Museet Stockholm; Institut d’Art Contemporain Villeurbanne n 2004 and the Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania (2003). His work has been part of group exhibitions including Passage d’Europe, Musee d’Art Moderne, St.Etienne (2004); Undesire, Apex Art, New York (2003); Unstable Narratives, Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmund (2002); Voila! Le monde dans la tête, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2000); After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1999) and Body and the East, Moderna Galerija Ljubljana (1998). Perjovschi studied at the Art Academy of Iasi. He currently lives and works in Bucharest. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1995.

Lia Perjovschi (b.1961, Romania) lives and works, often with with her husband Dan, in Bucharest. She is the founder and director of CAA (Contemporary Art Archive), Bucharest. Her solo exhibitions including States of Mind, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC (2007); Vid /Defragmentare, Atelier 35 Gallery, Bucharest (2000); Hidden drawings and objects, Duke Institute for the Arts (1997) Like everything else, is more complex than first meets the eyes; Dieu Donné Gallery New York (1994). Additionally her work has been seen within group shows such as the Biennale of Sydney (2008); Cetinje Biennial, Cetinje, Montenegro (2002); Double Life, Generali Foundation, Vienna (2001); Small Talk, Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje, Macedonia (2001);Arteast Collection 2000, Moderna Galerija ,Ljubljana (2000); Transitionland, National Museum of Art, Bucharest (2002); Money Nations, Shedhalle, Zürich (1998); Body and the East, Moderna Galerija Ljubjana (1998); Ad Hoc, Ludwig Museum, Budapest (1997); Balt Orient Express, IFA Gallery, Berlin (1995); The National Museum of Art, Bucharest (1995); Europe Rediscovered, Turbinenhall, Copenhagen (1994). She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1994.

Jody Pinto (b.1942) is internationally renowned for her creative integration of art into architecture and landscape architecture, Jody Pinto has completed close to forty public art projects in the United States and Japan since 1975. Her projects have received Design for Transportation Award from the National Endowment for the Arts (1996), Federal Design Achievement Award (1995), two National Honor Awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA; 2002 and 1992); two awards from ASLA local chapters; two awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA); and two Environmental Excellence Awards. Her work has been discussed in more than eighty catalogues and books and over one hundred magazine and newspaper articles. Her drawings are in the permanent collections of several major art museums, including the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.; Des Moines Art Center in Iowa; the Denver Art Museum; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She was an ArtsLink Projects Award recipient in 2003.

Marjetica Potrč

Vitaly Pushnitsky (b.1967, Leningrad) graduated from The Academy of Fine Arts in St.-Petersburg in 1994. Has been a member of the Union of Artists of St. Petersburg since 1994. Has worked at the State Russian Museum in the Contemporary Art Department since 1996. Lives and works in St-Petersburg, Russia, creates works of paintings, graphics, video art and installations. His works are represented in state and private collections.such as Russian Museum,. St.-Petersburg, RussiaThe National Contemporary Art Center. Moscow, Russ, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung art collection. Frankfurt, Germany; Kolding Art Institute. Kolding, Denmark; The Kaliningrad State Art Gallery. Kaliningrad, Russia; The Novosibirsk State Art Gallery. Novosibirsk, Russia, and in private collections like Carsten Groneman. Ribe, Denmark; Steffan Hallskou collection. Kolding, DenmarkUmar Jabrailov collection. Moscow, Russia; Alexey Alexandrov collection. Moscow, Russia; Viktor and Sergey Popov collection. Moscow, Russia ; Anton Skliarov collection. St.-Petersburg, Russia; Valeriy Beliy collection. St. Petersburg, Russia, аnd other private collections in Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden, Netherlands, USA, Russia.

Tobias Putrih

Joanna Rajkowska (b.1968, Bydgoszcz, Poland) is an artist interested, most often, in public projects including her upcoming projects Minaret, Poznań, Poland (2009-2010); Rotor, Vistula River in Warsaw (as part of the project Vanish at Vistula River (2009); Jenin, West Bank, Palestinian Territories (2008); Gold and silver, Zachęta National gallery, Constitution Square, Warsaw, Poland (2008); Oxygenator, Grzybowski Square, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland (2007); Artist for Rent, [Twenty-Two Tasks], Berlin, Łódź, Sheffield 2003-2005; Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue, Warsaw, Poland 2002). Her work has been included in solo and group shows throughout the world including Continental Breakfast, 45th October Salon, Belgrade (2004); the Lodz Biennale, Lodz, Poland (2004); Busan Biennale, Busan, Korea (2004). She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1996. www.rajkowska.com

Michael Rakowitz is a Chicago-based installation and public artist. His work has appeared in venues worldwide including P.S.1, MoMA, MassMOCA, Castello di Rivoli, Sharjah Biennial 8, Tirana Biennale, National Design Triennial at the Cooper-Hewitt, and Transmediale 05 in Berlin. He has had solo exhibitions at Lombard-Freid Projects in New York, Alberto Peola Arte Contemporanea in Torino, and Stadtturmgalerie/Kunstraum Innsbruck. He is the recipient of a Sharjah Biennial Jury’s Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, the Dena Foundation Award, and the Design 21 Grand Prix from UNESCO. Rakowitz is an Associate Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.

Steven Rand

Ken Rinaldo (b. 1958) is an American artist and educator. He creates interactive art installations that explore the intersection between nature and technology. His robotic and bio-art installations seek to merge the organic and electromechanical seamlessly, expressing a gentle symbiosis. His works are influenced by living systems theories, interspecies communication, artificial life research, and the idea of emergent properties. His work also deals with ecological issues often overlooked in favor of technological progress.Ken Rinaldo's best known works are Autopoiesis (2000), an a-life robotic installation exploring the idea of group consciousness Augmented Fish Reality (2004), a fish-driven robot. In 2000 he received the first prize at the VIDA 3.0 International Artificial Life Competition for Autopoiesis, in 2001 the same piece received an honorable mention at the Ars Electronica Festival. In 2004 his Augmented Fish Reality was awarded with an award of distinction at the same festival He directs the Art & Technology program in the Department of Art at Ohio State University. He teaches interactive robotic sculpture, 3D modeling, rapid prototyping, motion graphics and animation.

Anila Rubiku (b. 1970, Durres, Albania) lives and works in Milan. Rubiku has had solo shows including One Night Only, Taliesin West, in collaboration with ASU Art Museum, Arizona (2008); Panoramic Landscapes, Herzliya Museum Israel (2008), The 16 ways, Braverman Art Tel Aviv, Israel (2008). Her participation in group shows includes The Symbolic Efficiency of the Frame, 4th Tirana International Contemporary Art Biennial, Tirana, Albania (2009); Marvellous Reality, Lalit Kala Galleries, New Delhi, India (2009); 11th International Architecture Biennale Venice, Italy (2008); 48th October Art Salon Belgrade, Serbia. Yugoslavia (2007); Something in Common, Gallery Anita Beckers, Frankfurt, Germany (2006). Her work is in the collection of Deutsche Bank in London, UK, Targetti Art Light, Florence, Italy, the Galleria Comunale dell'Arte Contemporanea di Monfalcone, Monfalcone, Italy and many private collections. http://anilarubiku.com

Andrei Rudjev (b.1966, Krasnodar, USSR) lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has had one-person shows in Russia and Europe, most notably in 2007 at Entrance-Exit Gallery in Vienna, and in the Flight to Heaven exhibition in 2003 at the Berlin Planetarium. His work has also been many group exhibitions including, in 2009’s Recycling at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and 2007’s Present Continuous at at the Nord Art Festival in Budelsdorf, Germany. He received a Pollock-Krasner Award in 2005, and has participated in a workshops/residency in Pakistan.

Neli Ružić (b.1966, Split, Croatia) lives and works in Mexico City. Her recent projects, Oblivion Strategies (Gallery La Esmeralda, Mexico and Moving Gallery, Omaha, Nebraska, 2006) and Cartographies of time and necessary utopias (Ex Teresa, Mexico, 2007) explore concepts of memory, migration and identity. She’s had many solo shows and her work has been shown at more then 30 group exhibitions internationally: These include WUK-Projektraum, Vienna, Austria (1992); CHECKPOINT, The 1st International Festival of New Film and Video, 1996, Split, Croatia; the Mediterranean Festival of Radio, Media and the Internet, Rimini,1998 Italy; Progetto ORESTE, 48 Venice Biennale, Italian Pavilion, 1999; ENPEG Gallery, 2003, Mexico City; and Anthologie der Kunst http://www.anthology-of-art.net /2005 ZKM, Zentrum fur Medienkunst, Karlsruhe, Berlin, Germany. 15th International Electronic Festival - Videobrasil, Sao Paolo, Brasil 2005; Woman at the crossroads of ideologies, Split, Croatia, 2007; Transitio_MX02, International Festival of Electronic Arts, Mexico City 2007; Cultural Center Station Indianilla, México City, 2008, Caixa Forum, Canal Mediateca, Barcelona, April, 9, 2008; XIII International Festival of Performance, Accidentes Controlados, Ex Teresa, México D.F. 2008; Migrations, Radio Canada International, 2008. Her work is found in many private collections and in at in Caixa Forum, Madrid, Spain. She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1993 www.arteven.org/profile/NeliRuzic

Silvo Sarić (b. 1965, Pula, Croatia) took a degree in visual culture from the sculpture department of the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Rijeka in 1990. He has exhibited at over thirty solo sh, and won a number of prizes for his work: European Mediterranean Youth Biennale, Special prize, Rijeka, 1995; 6th Triennial of Croatian Sculpture, one of three equal first prizes, Zagreb, 1997; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York 2000; Rovinj Art Colony, 1st Prize, Rovinj, 2001; Multimeridijan, 1st Prize, Pula, 2004; 42th Zagreb Salon, one of three equal first prizes, Zagreb, 2007. He lives and works in Vodnjan in the Istria. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1998.

Igor Savchenko (b.1962, Minsk, Belarus Soviet Union). Studied cibernetics and automatic control systems at the Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics from 1980. In 1985 he graduated with the University Degree of an Electrical Engineer. Since 1985 he worked as an engineer in 1991. In 1980 he had his first practice of scuba diving at Minsk School of Voluntary Society to Support Army, Air Forces and Navy. He started working with photography in 1989. In 1990 Savchenko received a Prize from Kodak-Pathe Foundation at Salon International de la Recherche Photographique, Royan, France, 1990. His first solo exhibition: Galleri Index/ Fotograficentrum, Stockholm. In 1997 he abandoned the creation of new photographic work and started various textual and mixed media projects including scuba diving to the depth of 192 meters, The Blue Hole, Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt, 2005. He resumed taking pictures in autumn of 2006. His work is found in the collections of the Belarussian State Museum of History of the Great Patriotic War, Minsk; Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen; Moderna Museet, Stockholm,The Hasselblad Collection, Gothenburg, Sweden; KIASMA - Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; Museum of Contemporary Art, Minsk; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, The State Russian Museum, St.Petersburg, Russia and many other public and private collections. He currently lives and works in Minsk. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1997.

Stephen J. Shanabrook (b.1965, Cleveland, OH) has shown in solo shows at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery, New York, at Musee d'art et d'histoire, Neuchatel, Switzerland and in autopsy of the moment and other flat jestures, at Charlotte Moser Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland. His group exhibitions include the upcoming 3rd Moscow Biennale, Moscow (2009); Aesthetics of Terror, Embedded Art, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin (2009); The Aesthetics of Terror, Chelsea Art Museum, New York (2008); Artists and Arms , LAZNIA Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdansk Poland (2006); Accomplices, The State Tretyakov Gallery, 1st Moscow Biennale (2003) and many more.

Nebojša Šerić Shoba (b.1968, Sarajevo) His work bitingly utilizes media of many varieties and has been exhibited since the late 80’s in hundreds of exhibitions. It was seen most recently in 10 Years of “Rotor”, Rotor, Graz, Austria (2009); Le revolver à cheveux blancs, Le Musée de l’Objet, Blois, France (2008); Central Europe Revisited II, Schloss Esterházy, Eisenstadt, Hungary (2008); Legal Aliens, Smack Mellon, New York, (2007); Now is The Winter, Proekt_Fabrika, Moscow, Russia (2007); A Historic Occasion: Artists Making History, MASS MoCA, (2006); Greater New York, P.S 1/MoMA, New York, (2006); 50th Bienalle Di Venezia, Italia (2003), and many more.

Pyotr Shvetsov (b.1970, Leningrad) lives and works in St. Petersburg. He graduated from the Leningrad Academy Art School and studied in Europe. He has had exhibitions in the US, Europe and in Russia including Apologia of Narcissism, Gallery Lyuda, St. Petersburg and Swamps, Gallery Anna Nova, St. Petersburg in 2009; The Poles of Sex, Main Street Museum, White River Junction, Vermont in 2008; Tsusima, State History Museum, Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg (in collaboration with the National Center of Contemporary Art and Navicula Artis) in 2006; Shadow Spaces, State Hermitage Museum (in conjunction with the program Contemporary art in Petrograd, Leningrad, Petersburg in the 20th Century) in 2004; and Avions, Le Garage, Lourges, France (2002). He has participated in numerous group exhibitions among them Art Moscow, Moscow, Russia and 200 Years of Lithography, Russian State Museum, St. Petersburg (2006); New Prints 2006/Spring, International Print Center New York, NY (2006); Improvisation, The international exhibition of drawings, Tallinn Art Hall, Estonia (2006); Collage in Russia, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg (2005); and Forward/Backwards, Sevastopol State Art Museum, Ukraine (2005). His work can be found in the Russian State Museum, the Russian National Library, the British Library in London, the State Library in Berlin, the Public Library of New York, the Institute for Russian Culture in Los Angeles and in other public and private collections.

Steven Siegel has been creating sculptures that explore cycles of construction and decomposition in the landscape for the past twenty years. He holds a BA from Hampshire College and an MFA from Pratt Institute. He has recent installations in Korea, Germany, Italy, and Canada, as well as throughout the United States. In addition, an extensive studio practice since 1978 has led to numerous exhibitions, including the current traveling exhibition, Wonderful Life. A recipient of numerous awards, including National Endowment for the Arts and New York Foundation on the Arts grants, Siegel lectures and teaches worldwide. He received an ArtsLink Projects award in 1999.

Liina Siib was born in Tallinn, Estonia where she currently lives and works. She has had over twenty solo exhibitions in Estonia, Germany, Belgium, Latvia, Finland and France and has participated in manyf group shows in Estonia as well as at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Szczecin, Poland; Winzavod in Moscow; Villa Manin in Italy; Finnish Photography Museum in Helsinki; Moderna Museet in Stockholm; Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC among others. Her works are in the collections at Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum of Estonian Art, Tallinn; Neues Museum für Kunst und Design, Nürnberg, Germany. Since 2003 she has served as a visiting lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts; she’s represented by Giedre Bartelt Gallery in Berlin. She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1998.

František Skála(b. 1956, Prague) is a Czech sculptor, painter, children's book illustrator, musician, and dancer. He has had solo exhibitions at the Rudolfinium, Prague (2005) and in 1993 he was chosen to represent the Czech Republic at the 45th Venice Biennale and made the journey to Italy on foot and then displayed the drawings from his 400 miles pilgrimage and fragile objects made on the way. He has been a guest artist at art universities in Australia and the US. He is a founding member of the music group Malý taneční orchestr Universal (the Small Dance Band) which performs tongue in check renditions of popular music from the communist era of Czechoslovakia. He is also a founding member of the music trio, Tros Sketos.

škart is an artist collective founded by Dragan Protic and Djordje Balmazovic in 1990 in Belgrade, Serbia. skart’s work has been part of numerous exhibitions including Exciting Europe, Galerie fur Zeitgenossische Kunst, Leipzig (2004); Graphic Triennial, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana (2003); Biennial of Contemporary Art, Tirana (2003); Evolutionare Zellen, Neue Gesellschaft fur bildene Kunst, Berlin (2002) and Manifesta 3, Ljubljana (2000). Their work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the New York Public Library. They currently live and work in Belgrade. They were ArtsLink Fellows in 1998.

Dario Šolman (b. in 1973, Split, Croatia) He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and received his MFA degree from the Ohio State University. His work was recently seen in the Queen’s International Exhibition in 2008. He has taken part in shows in Alexandria, Egypt; Riga, Latvia; Melbourne, Australia; Kyoto, Japan, Murano, Italy; Zagreb, Split and Rijeka in Croatia ; as well as at various venues in New York and elsewhere in the U.S. Solman has also participated in the P.S. 1 International Studio Program and the Woolworth Building Studio Program in New York. He currently lives and works in New York. He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1998.

Yuri Solomko (b.1962, Ukraine) is part of many public collections such as the National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kiev; the Russian Museum, St.Petersburg, Russia; Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter, Hovikodden, Oslo, Norway; and the Museum of Art at Duke University. Raleigh, NC. He is represented by Marat Guelman in Moscow, and he has had many one man shows at Guelman Gallery in Moscow and Kiev as well as at the Yalta 2000 Conference, Livadia Palace, Crimea, Ukraine (2000); Borders, Space LAB, Cleveland (1996); Hot Cool Orientation, Szuper Gallery, Munich, Germany (1994). Among his many group show are Ukranian Painting, White Box, NY (2008); Poetry of the Winds, Flag Art Festival, Seoul, Korea (2002); The First Ukrainian Project, 49th Venice Biennial(2001); Resultate 2000, Palais Wittgenstein, Gallery KulturAXE and Popmuseum, Vienna, Austria (2000). He was an ArtsLink Fellow in 1996.

Buzz Spector's art has been the focus of exhibitions in such museums and galleries as the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA. His work makes frequent use of the book, both as subject and object, and is concerned with relationships between public history, individual memory, and perception. Spector has published a number of artists' books and editions since the mid-1970s, including, most recently, Time Square, a limited edition book whose text is taken from a sequence of Google searches on the nature of time, published in 2007 by the artist and Pyracantha Press. Spector was a co-founder of WhiteWalls, a magazine of writings by artists, in Chicago in 1978, and served as the publication's editor until 1987. Since then he has written extensively on topics in contemporary art and culture, and has contributed reviews and essays to a number of publications, including American Craft, Artforum, Art Issues, Dialogue, Exposure, New Art Examiner, and Visions. He is the author of The Book Maker's Desire, critical essays on topics in contemporary art and artists' books (Umbrella Editions, 1995), and numerous exhibition catalogue essays, including Ann Hamilton: Sao Paulo – Seattle (University of Washington Press, 1992), and Dieter Roth (University of Iowa Museum of Art, 1999). Spector earned his B.A. in Art from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1972, and his M.F.A. with the Committee on Art and Design at the University of Chicago in 1978. In 2005 he was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists’ Books. Among his other awards are a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Fellowship in 1991, and National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships in 1982, 1985, and 1991. Spector is Dean of the College and Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Svajone and Paulius Stanikas (S&P Stanikas) reside and work in Paris and Vilnius (S. Stanikienė b. 1961; P. Stanikas b. 1962) were the representative of Lithuania at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Additional exhibitions include Beijing 798 Biennale, Beijing, China (2009); Traces du sacre, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2008); Articulation OK, Center for Contemporary Art, Linz, Austria (2005); EU Positive, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, Germany (2004). They received an ArtsLink Independent Project Award in 2005.

Harvey Stein’s new book, Movimento: Glimpses of Italian Street Life, was published in December of 2006 by Gangemi Editore (Rome). In addition to his many books of photography, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Time, Life, Esquire, Playboy, Harpers, and many more. Stein’s photographs have been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe—71 one-person and 135 group shows. His photographs are in more than 50 permanent collections, including the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the International Center of Photography. His work is represented by the Bruce Silverstein Gallery, Throckmorton Fine Art and June Bateman Fine Art, New York City; and by the Photo Researchers Agency, NYC. www.harveysteinphoto.com and at www.junebateman.com, www.brucesilverstein.com, www.maryannfahey.com, www.forrestscottgallery.com

Miha Štrukelj (b. 1973, Ljubljana, Slovenia) is a visual artist working primarily in painting but also focusing on drawing and site-specific work. He represented Slovenia at the 53rd Venice Biennial this year. Selected solo exhibitions Likovni Salon Celje, Celje, Slovenia (2004); Go East!, Gas Art Gallery, Turin, Italy (2004); Die Neue Aktionsgalerie, Berlin, Germany (2004); Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2002); Video Games, Arteconteporanea Gallery, Rassegna d’arte Catania, Catania, Italy (2000). Selected Group Exhibitions include VOLTA 4, Basel, Switzerland (2008); Triplejump, Kunstlerforum, Bonn, Germany (2008); Check In – Europe; Reflecting Indentities in Contemporary Art, European Patent Office, Munich, Germany (2007); A Moment in Time, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2005); The Seven Sins; Ljubljana-Moscow, Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2004); The Balkans, a Crossroad to the Future, Artefiera Bologna, Bologna, Italy (2004); Blood &Honey, Future is in the Balkans, Sammlung Essl, Vienna, Austria (2003), Far Away, Eskilstuna Konstmuseum, Eskilstuna, Sweden (2003). His work has been presented in Vitamin P; New Perspectives in Painting (Phaidon). He lives and works in Ljubljana.

Čestmír Suška (b.1952, Prague) has had one person exhibitions in Johnson, Vermont (2009), OK Harris Gallery, NY (2008), at the Birmingham, Alabama Museum of Art (2007), and at many prestigious venues in Czech Republic. Additionally, his graphic and three dimensional works have been seen in group shows including, in 2008 at Griffiss Sculpture Park in Rome, NY, and, in 2007, at the Museum of Art in Prague in the exhibition Vestiges of Industry. His permanent, large-scale public art can be seen in Rome, NY, Ostrava, Czech Republic, the Wade Sculpture Park, Birmingham, AL, and on the grounds of Johnson State College, VT. He was the recipient, in 1995 and 1996, of a Pollock­Krasner grant, and of an ArtsLink Independent Project award. www.suska.cz

Eve Sussman and Rufus Corporation (New York, NY)
Eve Sussman’s work incorporates film, video, installation, sculpture and photography. She is the founder of Rufus Corporation, an ad hoc ensemble of performers, artists and musicians. Under the direction of Sussman, Rufus Corporation has conceived and produced “89 seconds at Alcázar” (2004) and “The Rape of the Sabine Women” (2006) as well as numerous photographs and flat screen video works. The company is currently in production of "White on White" an experimental film noir. Sussman has received grants from Haupstadtkulturfonds, Berlin; Creative Capital; New York State Council on the Arts; the Guggenheim Foundation and the JF Costopoulos Foundation.  Her work has shown at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the National Gallery in London. 

Ágnes Szépfalvi (b.1965, Budapest) Among her many exhibitions are solo shows Resolution, at the Moore Space in Miami (2006); Agnes Szepfalvi, at Ludwig Museum, Budapest (2003). Her participation in group shows include Micro-Narratives, Musee d’Art Moderne de Saint- Etienne Metropole (2008); 48th October Salon, Belgrade, (2007); Positioning, The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2005); Hiroshima City, Museum for Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2005); Expanded Paintings, Prague Biennial, Prague, Czech Republic (2005); After the Wall, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2000). She was an ArtsLink Fellow in 2007.

Dragoljub (Raša) Todosijević (b. 1945, Belgrade, Serbia) Lives and works in Serbia. Since his first one-man show in 1967, Todosijevic’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the world, including 2008’s Tranzit, at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany, and As soon as I opens my eyes I see a film: The experiments in Yugoslav Art in the 60's and 70's, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. In 2005, at Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery in Essence of Life- Essence of Art - Paper works, in Love it or leave it, at Goethe Institute, Istanbul, in Gott liebt die Serben, Bienal Internacional de Arte Contenporaneo de Sevilla, Spain, and at Kassel, Germany’s , Kunsthalle Fridericianum: In den Schluchten des Balkan (In the Gorges of the Balkans). His work was part of the seminal exhibitions in 2001: New York, Exit Art, Body and the East, as well as 1999’s After the Wall, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, as well as in exhibitions at Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst (MAC) , Austria, Barcelona’s Museu d’ Arte Contemporani, and the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan. His work is in many public and private collections. He received an ArtsLink Independent Award in 2004.

Urtica (Eduard Balaž, Violeta Vojvodić, Daniel Stevanović) is an art and media research group co founded by Eduard Balaz and Violeta Vojvodic in 1999. Their work ranges from internet based work to media actions to education projects. They won the UNESCO Digital Arts Award in 2003, and have participated in international festivals and exhibitions throughout the world. Their major projects include the online artistic device Social Engine (through the present); the phonetic database Dictionary of Primal Behavior-mouse says click! and human says: eek! (2003-2004); and the online memory game Lapsus Memoriae (2002). Balaz and Vojvodic were ArtsLink Fellows in 2004. http://utica.org

Sislej Xhafa (b. 1970, Peja, Kosova) is based in New York, and is known for his artistic investigation into the social, economical and political realities associated with the various complexities of modern society, such as tourism and forced illegality. Xhafa’s works are minimal, as well as ironic and subversive. He operates in various media, from sculpture and drawing to performance and photography. His works aim to challenge viewers to recognize the symptoms and cracks of contemporary global society. Xhafa has exhibited widely including at the Modern Art Oxford Transmission Interrupted curated by Suzanne Cotter and Gilane Tawadros; Havana Biennial, Havana, Cuba; NEONS in collaboration with Contemporary Art Fund of the City and Canton of Geneva (Fmac and FCAC) Plaine de Plainpalais (project of public art), Geneva; GAMeC Esposizione Universale – L’arte alla prova del tempo, Bergamo, Italy (2009); Biennale of Gwangju, Gwangju, Corea ; MOCAD Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit Business As Usual; Schirn Kunsthalle All-Inclusive. A Tourist World Frankfurt (2008); Istanbul Museum Of Modern Art Time Present, Time Past, Istanbul; Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art Rethinking Dissent, Göteborg, Sweden; Mori Art Museum All About Laughter Humor in Contemporary art Tokyo (2007); I Bienal de Arte Contemporáneo de Sevilla, Fundación BIACS, La alegria de mis sueños, Monasterio la Cartuja de Santa María de las Cuervas, Sevilla; The Renaissance Society, New Video, New Europe, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, St.Louis; Tate Modern, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks; Fundació ‘la Caixa’ la Sala Montcada, Barcelona; Haifa Museum of Art, Israel (2004), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2003), Gwangju Biennial, Pause, Gwangju (2002); Istanbul Biennial, Egofugal, Istanbul; S.M.A.K., Casino, Gent; PS1, Uniform, New York (2001); Manifesta III, Ljubljana, Slovenia, S.M.A.K., Over the Edges, Gent (2000); and the Venice Biennale (1997,1999 & 2005).

Danijel Zezelj is a graphic artist and illustrator, author of more than twenty graphic novels. His comics and illustrations have appeared in magazines and anthologies in Croatia, Slovenia, England, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, South Africa and the USA. Danijel's work has been published by DC Comics/Vertigo, Marvel Comics, The New York Times Book Review, Harper’s Magazine, San Francisco Guardian, Washington Chronicle, etc. Since 1997 he has created a series of multimedia performances in collaboration with musician/composer Jessica Lurie. They were premiered in Italy, USA and Croatia. In 2001 in Zagreb, Croatia he has founded a publishing house and graphic workshop Petikat. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He received an ArtsLink Projects Award in 2005. www.dzezelj.com

Marina Zurkow is an animation and media based artist focused on the relationships between people, animals, plants & the weather. Zurkow is represented by Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York; since 2000, she has exhibited at The Sundance Film Festival, The Rotterdam Film Festival, Res Fest, Ars Electronica, Creative Time, The Kitchen, The Walker Art Center, the Brooklyn Museum, The National Museum for Women in the Arts, and Eyebeam, among other venues. Her videos have been broadcast on MTV, FujiTV and PBS. She is a 2005 NYFA Fellow, a 2003 Rockefeller New Media Fellow, and a 2001 Creative Capital grantee. She is currently an Eyebeam resident, and teaches at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). She participated in a VisArt project in Nizhniy Novgorod in 2005.