Sotirios Bahtsetzis

art theorist, curator, ArtBOX

Sotirios Bahtsetzis received his PhD (with highest honor) in Art History from the Berlin Technical University.
In 2009 he was a Fulbright Research Scholar at the Columbia University, New York. Between 2002 and 2004 he taught history of culture and visual culture in the Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design at the London Metropolitan University.
He has published on installation art and was research coordinator of the T&H volume Installation Art in the New Millennium (2003). His research interests include installation art; gender studies; visual studies and methodology of art history.
He also works as a freelance curator. He writes essays accompanying group and one-man exhibitions and contributes to art theory magazines (e-flux Journal, Afterimage).
​He is a member of the IKT (International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art) and AICA (International Art Critics Association).

Ira Bliatka

Independent researcher and instrumentalist

Ira Bliatka is interested in topics of public space, inclusion, and participation. She joined Freiraum on behalf of Prague-partner IFD21 and contributed to a project about gentrification and its effects on ethnic and social diversity in Prague and Marseille.
​She wrote a PhD thesis on the reanimation of border logics in the EU integration project, and taught international politics in Aberystwyth University. Her work focuses on new story-telling formats combining text, image, and sound, and on music as a means to more empathetic, creative societies.

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Signe Sophie Boggild

Copenhagen Architecture Festival

Signe Sophie Bøggild is a Program manager at Copenhagen Architecture Festival. Art and architecture historian, MA and Mphil, graduated from the University of Copenhagen and Goldsmiths, University of London with studies at the University of Roskilde and Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis. Signe has experience from various contexts in Denmark and abroad with research and teaching, as well as lecturing, publishing and curating on especially post-war welfare architecture and -urbanism vis-à-vis the welfare state in transition. She has among other things worked at Landscape Architecture and Planning, the University of Copenhagen and Crimson Architectural Historians, NL, where she has been involved in the research projects New Towns at the Cold War Frontier and The City of Comings and Goings. Research residences at the Danish academies in Rome and Athens. Part of the joint censor corps for the artistic education under the Ministry of Education and Research and receiver of a work grant from the Danish Arts Foundation.

Lydia Chatziiakovou

curator, ArtBOX Creative Arts Management

Lydia Chatziiakovou is a curator. Since 2004, she co-directs ArtBOX, a creative arts management office that conceives, designs and implements contemporary art projects revolving around the exploration of art as agent of social change, based on long-term strategic planning. In this context, she conceives, curates and coordinates projects that emphasise on art for social change and the relationship between art and technology, bringing together communities, artists and institutions from Greece and abroad. Recent examples include “The New New” - Art Science Technology Festival by TIF - Helexpo, which she artistically directed (2014-2018), and “Artecitya. Envisioning the City of Tomorrow” by Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki, which she curated and coordinated (2014-2018). Between 2017-2020, she was curator and project administrator of Project LABattoir, an initiative of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, based on a concept by ArtBOX, implemented through a founding grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). Currently, she directs and curates Common Lab, a programme implemented by Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and ArtBOX, in collaboration with Helexpo, in the context of Goethe-Institut’s Excellency Initiatives 2020.

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Jane Dudman

Arist, Curator

Jane Dudman is an artist, curator and researcher based in Cumbria. She has a research masters and a PhD in Digital Media and Fine Art from Newcastle University.  Her work is currently sound and performance based with a particular focus on collaborative processes, the spoken word and everyday life. Her artistic research explores the particularity of ordinary experience through sound manipulation and performance strategies, relating the private to the public. She is currently exploring translation, transcription and collective speaking as a form of sense making. ​  Jane has a background in participatory and socially engaged arts practice and has worked in the UK for the past 20 years creating and managing arts projects in health, education and community settings. She has directed many live art events, several international artists’ exchanges and has shown her work widely in Europe and beyond. 

Aloña Elizalde

Goethe-Institut Brussels

Aloña Elizalde is the Cultural Program Director for the Goethe-region Southwest Europe, based in Brussels. She holds a university degree in Cultural Studies and Cultural Management from the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder). In 2011, she joined Goethe-Institut, first at the headquarters in Munich, then in São Paulo, Brussels and Sarajevo. She worked at the headquarters of the Goethe-Institut in the literature department from 2014 until July 2019.

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Iskra Geshoska

Kontrapunkt, Skopje

Iskra Geshoska is founder and a president of Kontrapunkt – association for development of critical theory, socio-cultural activism and contemporary cultural practices. She contributes to the local, national and international affirmation of the independent cultural sector and its political relevance. Her key focus is the development of critical thinking and critical theories, as well as the relationship of cultural and artistic practices and the political. She was Director of the independent Cultural center “Tocka”(Skopje) since its founding until its closing (2002-2010). She is actively involved in the process of local and national advocacy level of political relevance of the independent cultural sector as well as in the process of enabling regional cooperation. In the period 1998 – 2008, she was an editor at the publishing house Templum and the magazine Margin. From 2003 to 2005 she was an adviser at the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Macedonia. In the period of 2012 to 2017 she was President of JADRO – an association of the independent cultural scene, a national platform 66 for advocacy in Macedonia. To date she has published over 100 essays and research papers in the field of critical theory, performing arts, visual arts and cultural policies. Established in 2001, Kontrapunkt is an organization whose main focus is socio-critical activism and the relationship between art, theoretical philosophy and politics. Kontrapunkt encourages artists and independent groups to organize themselves and generate projects, thus contributing to the development of an independent cultural scene in Skopje.

Edit Pula

Artist, Curator, Music Producer

Edit Pula is an artist, curator, music producer, artistic director and producer of the Cloud Festival and also cultural adviser of the Mayor of Tirana. Born in 1974 in Tirana, Albania, Edit Pula began her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana. In 1997 she continued her postgraduate studies at the Byam Shaw School – now Central Saint Martin’s College of Arts and Design – London, and lived and worked in London until 2009. Upon returning to Tirana, she started to rediscover Albanian traits and tradition and took that as a base for her artistic focus. While painting remains constant practice and a private passion, her latest projects have been site-specific installations and participatory art projects, aiming to bridge a dialog with the past, and sustain the collective memory. Apart of practicing her visual arts career, she also became the pioneer in promoting and recording traditional Albanian music. In 2016 she co-produced the music for the Albanian Pavilion “I left you the mountain” in Venice Architecture Biennale.

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Maud Qamar

Goethe-Institut Brussels

Maud Qamar is the coordinator of the project Freiraum. She studied translation French-German-English at the Ecole Supérieure d’Interprètes et de Traducteurs (ESIT), Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris and specialized in literature translation at the Institut Supérieur de Traducteurs et Interprètes (ISTI) in Brussels.
​She works as a project coordinator for film and music programmes at the cultural department of the Goethe-Institut in Brussels since 2009.

Christos Savvidis

founding director, ArtBOX

Christos Savvidis is the founding director of ArtBOX | Creative Arts Management.
Currently Artistic Director of Common Lab, a programme based on a concept by ArtBOX, realised in partnership with Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and in collaboration with Helexpo, in the context of Goethe-Institut’s Excellency Initiatives 2020. 
Christos Savvidis has artistically directed large-scale events such as: Action Field Kodra visual arts festival (Thessaloniki, 2004-2008); Art Athina - Athens international art fair (2006-2008). 
He was Artistic Director of ARTECITYA by Goethe-Institut Thessakoniki and Co-organizer of the  ARTECITYA by Helexpo (Thessaloniki, 2014 - 2019). He was responsible for the Concept and Artistic Director of the project LABattoir, funded by the SNF (Thessaloniki, 2015 - 2019).
He has organized and coordinated projects, such as: Forum European Cultural Exchanges (founding member and coordinator, 2000-2009); Greek Pavilion in the Venice Biennale (coordination, Venice, 2001 and 2006). He co-organized and coordinated the documenta 14  project Symphony of Resonances by O+A (Thessaloniki, 2017). He has also curated projects and exhibitions, such as: "Moscow Poetry Club / Making Words", within the framework of the international art exhibition of the 53rd Venice Biennale "Making Worlds" (co-curator and co-organizer, Venice, 2009); and "Europe Exists", curated by Harald Szeemann and Rosa Martinez (assistant curator, Thessaloniki, 2003).  Christos Savvidis is a member of IKT (International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art) and AICA (International Art Critics Association).

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Milan Zvada

Záhrada, Banska Bystrica

Milan Zvada was born in 1982. 2001-2006 he studied English and Philosophy at Matej Bel University in Slovakia. In 2010, he graduated from Erasmus Mundus MA in International Performance Research at the University of Tampere and University of Amsterdam. His interests and activities range from organizing human rights-related events to cultural policy, theory of theatre, translating and composing music. He publishes articles in theatre journals and online. He works as a teacher, theatre critic and cultural manager. In 2010, he co-founded Záhrada – cultural centre based in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, where he is in charge of community development program and international artistic projects. He has curated several arts exhibitions and events, and cooperated as a dramaturge on theatre performances and festivals (www.embargofestival.sk). Currently, he is a doctoral student at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica in the field of theatre research and dramaturgy.