Literature
Aurélie Maurin (2022-2024)
Aurélie Maurin, born in Paris, has lived in Berlin since 2000 as a curator, literary translator, and editor. In 2001, she co-founded the VERSschmuggel poetry series at Wunderhorn Verlag and edited it until 2017. She currently heads the TOLEDO program of the German Translator Fund, for which she initiated the Journals and Cities of Translators series as well as the international poetry translators‘ meeting JUNIVERS. In 2021 she took over – together with Ulf Stolterfoht – the artistic direction of the poetry meeting in Münster. She was also a spokesperson for the Coalition of the Free Scene Berlin for Literature and a juror for the Berlin Senate’s working grants for literature and for the City Tax cultural funds. Most recently published: Junivers, vom Übersetzen eines Verses, Verlag Urs Engeler 2022 and Apollo 18, Expeditionen zu Apollinaire, Verlag Das Wunderhorn 2021. Aurélie Maurin is – together with Dominik Sell – also on the road as a musician and songwriter.
Stawrula Panagiotaki (2021-2023)
Stawrula Panagiotaki studied Modern German Literature, Neo-Greek Studies and German as a Foreign Language at the Free University of Berlin. During her studies she worked at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and lectures at the Stückemarkt at the Berlin Theatertreffen. From 2009 to 2013 she worked as a dramaturge assistant and dramaturge at the Schauspiel Köln. From 2013 to 2015 she was the dramaturge of the free group “costa compagnie” at the Heidelberg Theater and Orchestra, which is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. Further work was as a guest dramaturge at the Theater Bonn and as a permanent dramaturge at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. In 2016 and 2017 she worked as an editor and dramaturge for the Theatertreffen Berlin, as well as a freelance dramaturge for the feminist collective SWOOSH LIEU, which produces at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt. She works regularly as a freelance dramaturge for MOUVOIR / Stephanie Thierschs, as amongst others for the Ruhrtriennale 2020 production „Archipel“. Since the 2016/17 season, Stawrula Panagiotaki has been employed as a dramaturge at the Schauspiel Köln.
Christa Morgenrath (2021-2023)
Christa Morgenrath is the initiator and curator of the Cologne literary and educational series “Stimmen Aftikas”. As a dramaturge and speaker for Roberto Ciulli, she helped develop the foundations of international cultural exchange at the “Theater an der Ruhr” in the 1990s. She was able to expand this within the framework of EXPO 2000 and at the »international literature festival berlin« and add development policy aspects during her work in West Africa. She worked as an editor for the WDR radio play editorial team and is (co-) editor of the essay volumes Dekolonisierung des Denkens und Afrika sichtbar machen by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Unrast, 2018 and 2019) and the anthology IMAGINE AFRICA 2060 (Peter Hammer Verlag, 2019).
Michael Serrer (2021-2023)
Michael Serrer has been head of the NRW Literature Office since 1998. He studied German, political science and philosophy, has taught at several universities, published in „FAZ“ and „Zeit“ and has now published more than 50 books.
Visual Arts
Aneta Rostkowska (2021-2023)
Aneta Rostkowska is a curator, researcher and writer, a graduate of the de Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam. She is pursuing experimental curatorial practices in which politically relevant storytelling develops through carefully constructed sensual environments. Together with Jakub Woynarowski she created the concept of ‘gonzo curating’, a curatorial and artistic practice conceived as a process of appropriation of any phenomena by means of constructing a partly fictional narrative around it. An example of gonzo curating is a semi-fictitious institution they founded, the Wawel Castle Centre of Contemporary Art.
Rostkowska studied philosophy, economics and art history in Kraków, Poznań, Heidelberg and Frankfurt am Main. She worked as a curator at Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art in Kraków (2011-2016) and at the Academy of the Arts of the World in Cologne (2016-2018). Since January 2019 she is a director of Temporary Gallery, Centre for Contemporary Art in Cologne. Apart from curating, she has also been teaching art theory, art history and philosophy (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Art Academy of Szczecin, Dutch Art Institue in Arnhem, University of Cologne, Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf). In 2014 Aneta Rostkowska received a Young Poland scholarship of Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Felipe Castelblanco (2021-2023)
Felipe Castelblanco is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher, working at the intersection of participatory, film and Media Art. His work explores institutional forms, creates platforms for inter-epistemic dialogue, ventures out into new frontiers of publicness and engages remote and unlikely audiences. In 2011, he initiated The Para-Site School, a parasitic project that infiltrates the university in order to serve artists-migrants excluded from the higher education system in the U.S. and Europe. In 2015 he served as a Cultural Emissary for the U.S State Department to the Philippines, through which he developed an ambitious participatory around inter-cultural diplomacy. Felipe holds an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University (USA) and is currently completing a PhD with the Art Academy in basel and Kunstuniversität Linz, exploring avenues for biocultural peace-building, territorial and epistemic justice in the Colombian Pan-Amazon region. Felipe has been the recipient of several international awards, including the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (U.S, 2019) and the Starr Fellowship at the Royal Academy Schools in London (UK, 2015). Recent and upcoming shows include the 2019 Quebec Biennial, Seasons of Media at ZKM in Karlsruhe (2019) and the Helmhaus in Zürich (2021).
Rebekka Seubert (2022-2024)
Rebekka Seubert, born in 1985 in Frankfurt am Main, has been artistic director of the Dortmunder Kunstverein since 2020. After binational studies at the Universities of Regensburg and Clermont-Ferrand (German-French studies, focus on institutions and culture) and art studies at the École de Recherche Graphique, Brussels and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg, she worked as curatorial assistant at the exhibition hall Portikus, Frankfurt (2014) as well as at the Bonner Kunstverein (2017). In 2014-16 she held a teaching position at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg at the invitation of Prof. Silke Grossmann. In 2018, she co-founded the temporary project space Il Caminetto in Hamburg with artist Fion Pellacini and organized exhibitions with Lucy Raven (2018) and Georges Adéagbo (2019) as a freelance curator. As Artistic Director of Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof (2018-2020), she worked on exhibitions with Chris Reinecke, assume vivid astro focus, and Dara Friedman, among others. In Dortmund she showed first institutional solo exhibitions in Germany by Alison Yip, Theresa Weber, Iván Argote and James Gregory Atkinson and opens the Kunstverein for diverse local and international collaborations.
Prof. Johanna Schwarz (2021-2023)
Prof. Johanna Schwarz has been professor for cultural education and artistic strategies in public space in the field of art / art practice at the University of Siegen since October 2019. She previously taught at art colleges and universities in Switzerland and Germany.
The focus in the context of the university is: space, sculpture, performance, time-based work and participatory strategies. Her artistic work is characterized by the cross-media use of artistic means: sculptural works, videos, drawings and texts become site-specific installations. In terms of content, the work moves in the field of tension between melancholy and irony.
Composition
Farzia Fallah (2021-2023)
Farzia Fallah studied composition with Alireza Mashayekhi in Tehran, with Younghi Pagh-Paan and Jörg Birkenkötter in Bremen and with Johannes Schöllhorn in Cologne and Freiburg. She is based in Cologne as a freelancer, composes passionately and works internationally with various ensembles and musicians. In 2020 she received the Oldenburg Composition Prize for Contemporary Music. In 2021 she works with the residence grant from the German Study Center in Venice. Her portrait CD will be released in 2022 as part of Edition Contemporary Music.
Dr. Turgut Erçetin (2021-2023)
A native of Istanbul, Dr. Turgut Erçetin studied composition and received his doctorate from Stanford University. Following his doctorate, he worked as a researcher at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) with a focus on acoustics and psychoacoustics. His music has been premiered with notable performances given at festivals such as ECLAT, Ultraschall, MärzMusik, Manifeste and many others. Pioneering ensembles such as the SWR Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Musikfabrik, ELISION Ensemble, Arditti Quartet and Neue Vocalsolisten have been championing his works. Active also as a researcher, he has partaken in scientific research projects engaging with 3D auralization and acoustic mapping. As a lecturer, he has lectured at universities such as Karlsruhe HfM, Institut für Neue Musik HfMT Köln, Det Kongelige Danske Musikkonservatorium, Columbia University and many others. Ercetin resides in Berlin since he was awarded with the Berliner Künstlerprogramm of DAAD in 2016.