Bettina Ammann
Cairo, Egypt
Ceramic artist, born in 1975 in Switzerland. After education as an art and craft teacher, Bettina studied ceramic design at the Schule für Gestaltung in Bern in Switzerland (2005-2009) and at the Danmarks Designskole in Copenhagen, Denmark (2007-2008). In 2009 she opened a studio at the arts and crafts collective Gleis 70 in Zürich. After graduating with the prize of honour from the Swiss ceramics association she took part in different group exhibitions in Switzerland, France and Belgium. Since 2012 she has been living in Cairo, where she was invited in spring 2014 to participate in the Egyptian ceramic symposium. Producing mostly sculpture, Bettina focuses on the interaction between art and craft. Her interest is the thin line between craft and art, the significance of the material in the object, what value craft has nowadays, and how this value is perceived in different cultures.
‘Amr ‘Amer
Cairo, Egypt
Artist and curator born in Egypt in 1984, ‘Amr currently lives and works in Cairo. After receiving a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts from Cairo University in 2008, Amer worked as a designer at al-Mahrusa Publishing Center, as an art director at al-Alamiya Publishing House, and as a freelance designer in Sharqiat Publishing House. He was also a curator at el-Balad gallery for contemporary and visual arts. He has been a practicing visual artist since 2003. His work mainly addresses the difficulties that Egyptian ideologies face, doing so by exploring the folkloric roots of history and contemporary Egyptian life. Tackling issues that drive religion and gender ideologies, ‘Amr superimposes elements of Arabic script over the nude female body, creating a clash between the prescribed and the inadmissible. ‘Amr participated in and curated numerous group and solo exhibitions in Egypt.
Salma Badawy
Alexandria, Egypt
Born in 1989 in Egypt, Salma lives and works in Alexandria. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Alexandria in 2011. Her works document her cognitive readings and studies of people and cities, informed by her exploration of the workings of the human mind and the realm of colour. She participated in numerous exhibitions in Egypt and internationally, among others as artist’s assistant in the Documenta (13), Kassel, Germany in 2012 and Cairo Seminar, Alexandria, in 2012, and as full participant in Ask the Flask, Athens, Greece, 2014; Youth Salon, Cairo, 2010 and 2013, 5th Cairo Video Festival in the Medrar gallery, Cairo, 2013, Video Summer Camp Labofiction, Marseille-Aix-en-Provence, France, 2013, MASS-Alexandria, Alexandria, 2010 to 2012, XV Biennale de la Méditerranée, Thessaloniki, Greece, 2011, and The Liquid Continent, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, 2011.
‘Amr Fekry
Cairo, Egypt
Born in 1978 in Egypt, ‘Amr studied fine arts, oil painting and filmmaking, and graduated from the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University in 2001. He works in a vast range of media: photography, short films, video installations, music, and theatre. Sufism, which he discovered after graduating from university, has become an essential part of his identity and a major factor in his work. He now leads workshops on Sufism and on ancient Egyptian mysticism. He practices what he preaches, which is the connection between the ancient world's mysticism and the present-day life. He describes himself as both a traditional and non-traditional artist who strives to connect with the beauties of the ancient world and revive its forgotten secrets, and to share these experiences with the public. He participated in numerous exhibitions in Egypt, Switzerland, France and other countries. He lives on a rooftop in downtown Cairo.
https://www.facebook.com/amr.fekry.78
David Murphy
London, England
Born in 1983 in the United Kingdom, lives and works in London. Graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland in 2006. From architecture to anthropology, tool-making to textiles, David Murphy’s practice takes up aspects of inherently human activity that begin with the hand. Articulated through sculpture and drawings his works utilise a wide variety of materials including wood, metal, glass and ceramics. He subjects each of these to a transformative process of hand-working and mark making which result in ambiguous yet evocative forms. The most recent work continues his interest in the history of textile production. Informed by research into plant and fibre microscopy, these works sit somewhere between two- and three-dimensions, suggesting varying levels of zoom and shifting scale. Recent solo shows include Certain Impacts at PEER in London. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland.
Michał Puszczyński
Wrocław, Poland
Born in 1976 in Poland. He graduated in 1996 from the High School of Fine Arts in Czestochowa, Poland and in 2001 from the Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, from which he holds a Ph.D. in Fine Arts (2012) and where he is associate professor in the Department of Ceramic and Glass. Since 1999 he has been working with wood-fired ceramic in Poland. In 2006 he founded the Center for Ceramic Arts in Luboradów www.ceramic-center.eu/. His work focuses on ceramic, sculpture, and video, often in site-specific installations. He believes that achieving simplicity of form requires a deep understanding of the nature of ceramic to grasp fully the various qualities of the complex medium that appear very simple of the surface, and to bring them out.
He participated in a number of solo and group shows in Poland and other countries, including Germany, Lithuania, Italy, Korea, China, USA, Holland, Denmark, and France. He received numerous scholarships, among them from the Ministry of Culture in Poland.
Dani Ploeger
London, England
Dani Ploeger is an artist and theorist born in 1973 in the Netherlands, who is living and working in London. He graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague, music, 2002, and the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, music, 2005. Dani holds a Ph.D. from the University of Sussex, UK, and is currently Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Performance Arts at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London. He is also Principal Investigator of an AHRC-funded project on digital performance and the politics of electronic waste that combines art with science. Dani Ploeger's performances and installations utilise consumer technologies and pieces of medical equipment. He explores themes relating to ecology, human vanity, sexuality and what he calls the technologized body. His work has been presented at Transmediale (Berlin), CYNETART (Dresden), and Arse Elektronika (San Francisco) exhibitions and festivals, and in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Museum of Contemporary Art, Basel; Mobius Artists Group, Boston; and Künstlerverein Bonn, Germany, among others.
Vincent Voillat
Paris, France
Born in France in 1977, Vincent Voillat graduated in 2001 from the Ecole Supérieure d’Art de Grenoble, France and from Le Fresnoy-Studio national des arts contemporains in Tourcoing, also in France, in 2003. He lives in Paris. His work explores how physical objects, actual people and intangible entities such as information, ideas, or human memories move within and relate to both actual urban and natural territories, and virtually created ones like personal mental maps, or cyberspace. He is particularly interested in the relationship between the physical landscape and its human perception. His creative work is grounded in the study of the natural world: collecting rock samples from quarries, examination of archaeological strata and observations of plant behaviour. Since 2005 he has collaborated with the Collectif Mu (http://www.mu.asso.fr/) as a designer and art director. He has exhibited in Le Magasin, National Centre of Contemporary Art in Grenoble, the Städtische Galerie in Erlangen, Germany, at the Embassy of France in Moscow, and in many digital arts festivals including Scopitone and Ososphère
Bassem Yousri
Cairo, Egypt
Bassem Yousri is an Egyptian visual artist and independent filmmaker. He was born in Algeria in 1980 and raised in Cairo where he currently lives and works. Yousri received his BFA in painting from the School of Fine Arts, Helwan University in Cairo in 2003, and his MFA in painting, drawing and sculpture from Tyler School of Art - Temple University in Philadelphia in 2009. Since 2000, Yousri has been showing his work in several collective shows across Egypt, the Arab world, USA, and Europe. Additionally he had six solo shows between Egypt and USA so far. While his work is often a commentary on the contemporary Egyptian social and political situation, he is also concerned with the larger frame of the human condition. His work often investigates such issues as cross-cultural dialogue, stereotypes and taboos, mass culture, and the relationship between art and audience.
