DISCOVER THE SUMMIT SPEAKERS
Adrian Lahoud
2020 Summit—Architect
Adrian Lahoud is an internationally recognised architect, urban designer, and researcher. He has written and lectured extensively on urban spatial forms and large scale environmental change with a focus on the Arab world and Africa. Adrian is the Dean of the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art, and previously Studio Master in the Projective Cities Master of Philosophy in Architecture and Urban Design Program at the Architectural Association London. Prior to that he was Director of the MA program in Research Architecture and a Research Fellow in the Forensic Architecture ERC project at Goldsmiths, University of London. His key works include Climate Crimes at The Future Starts Here, V&A Museum, Floating Bodies at Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin and Fallen Cities: Architecture and Reconstruction in The Arab City: Architecture and Representation.
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Ailton Krenak
2022 Summit—Philosopher
Ailton Krenak is a writer, researcher, environmentalist and indigenous leader. Originating from the Krenak people, Ailton dedicated his studies and life to activism and the indigenous movement, articulating actions and organizations in favor of the rights of indigenous peoples such as their rights over their lands, languages, cultures and lives. Ailton founded the NGO Nucleus of Indigenous Culture, as well as the Union of Indigenous Nations (UNI) to unify indigenous claims. Ailton is also well-known as a writer, publishing books such as Ideias para adiar o fim do mundo (Ideas to postpone the end of the world, 2019), A vida não é útil (Life is not useful, 2020) and O Amanhã Não Está à Venda (Tomorrow is not for sale, 2020). In 2020, he won the Juca Pato Intellectual of the Year Award, given by the União Brasileira de Escritores.
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Allora & Calzadilla
2020 Summit—Artists
Jennifer Allora (born 1974, Philadelphia) and Guillermo Calzadilla (born 1971, Havana) live and work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Solo exhibitions have taken place at Serpentine Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Zürich, Zürich; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Haus der Kunst, Munich; MoMA – Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Castello de Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; MAXXI, Rome; Fundacio Antoni Tapies, Barcelona; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Renaissance Society, Chicago; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; and many others. Jennifer and Guillermo represented the United States at the 54th Venice Bienniale in 2011. In 2015, they made the site–specific installation Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos), a Dia Art Foundation commission on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. They are preparing a large solo show at the Menil Foundation in Houston which opens September 2020.
Andrea Bowers
2020 Summit—Artist
Andrea Bowers is a Los Angeles-based American artist working in a variety of media including video, drawing and installation. Andrea received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1992. Over the last twenty-three years, her work has explored social issues ranging from women’s or worker’s rights to climate change. Her work converges between art and activism and has been exhibited around the world, including museums and galleries in Germany, Greece and Tokyo.
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Anicka Yi
2018 Summit—Artist
Anicka Yi is an artist whose practice relates to synthetic biology, bio engineering, extinction, and bio fiction. Her work examines concepts of "the biopolitics of the senses" or how assumptions and anxieties related to gender, race, and class shape physical perception. Anicka lives and works in New York City. Institutional solo exhibitions of her work include the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Fridericianum, Kassel; Kunsthalle Basel; List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; The Kitchen, New York; and The Cleveland Museum of Art. In 2016, she was awarded the Hugo Boss Prize. Anicka has screened her film, The Flavor Genome, at the 2017 Whitney Biennial and the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, 2017.
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Barbara Hendricks
2019 Summit—Musician
Swedish / Swiss citizen Barbara Hendricks was born in Stephens, Arkansas and studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Jennie Tourel, after receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Chemistry at the age of 20 from the University of Nebraska. In 1974 she made her operatic and recital debuts and since that moment, Barbara’s career and artistry has never ceased to grow; she has become one of the world’s most loved and admired musicians. Barbara has sold more than 14 million records and recorded nearly 100 albums for Sony, Decca, DG and EMI / Warner. In 2006, she launched her own record label, Arte Verum, for which she is now recording exclusively. She has worked to promote and defend Human Rights and in 2007 after 20 years of untiring service to the cause of refugees as a UNHCR ambassador they appointed her their only Honorary Ambassador for Life. In 1998 she founded the Barbara Hendricks Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation coordinating her work for refugees and Human Rights Defenders.
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Beatrix Ruf
2017 Summit—Museum partner
Beatrix Ruf is a Curator based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and co-designed the format of the inaugural Verbier Art Summit in 2017. She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Hartwig Art Foundation in Amsterdam, and works on strategies and programs with the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia. Beatrix served as the Director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam from November 2014 to January 2018. From September 2001 to October 2014 Beatrix was Director and Chief Curator of Kunsthalle Zürich, overseeing a substantial expansion project launched in 2003 and concluded in 2012. Former occupations include: Curator at Kunstmuseum Thurgau, Warth from 1994-1998, Director of the Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus from 1998-2001. In 2006 she curated the third edition of the Tate Triennial in London, she was Co-Curator of the Yokohama Triennial in 2008. From 1995 to 2014 she has been the curator of the Ringier Collection and since 2010 she is a member of the think tank core group of the LUMA. In 2013 Beatrix co-founded POOL, a postgraduate curatorial program in Zürich.
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Benjamin Bratton
2017 Summit—Professor
Benjamin H. Bratton’s work spans Philosophy, Art, Design and Computer Science. He is Professor of Visual Arts and Director of the Center for Design and Geopolitics at the University of California, San Diego. He founded the school’s new Speculative Design undergraduate major. He is also a Professor of Digital Design at The European Graduate School; Visiting Faculty at SCI_Arc (The Southern California Institute of Architecture); and, from 2016-18, he was Program Director at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow.
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Boaventura de Sousa Santos
2019 Summit—Professor
Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology, University of Coimbra (Portugal), and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned an LL.M and J.S.D. from Yale University and holds the Degree of Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa, by McGill University. He is director of the Center for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra and has written and published widely on the issues of globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, social movements and the World Social Forum. He has been awarded several prizes, such as the Science and Technology Prize of Mexico, 2010, and the Kalven Jr. Prize of the Law and Society Association, 2011. His project ALICE: Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World Experiences was funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council, and was carried out from July 2011 until 2016. Boaventura’s most recent books in English include: Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide (2014), If God Were a Human Rights Activist (2015), Decolonising the University: The Challenge of Deep Cognitive Justice (2017) and The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South (2018).
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Christopher Kulendran Thomas
2017 Summit—Artist
Christopher Kulendran Thomas is an artist who works through the processes by which art produces reality. Christopher’s work has been included in the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016), Bread and Roses, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2016), Co-Workers: Network As Artist, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015) and Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making, Tate Liverpool (2013). His other exhibitions include shows at Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin and Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm.
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Cissie Fu
2017 Summit—Philosopher
Dr. Cissie Fu is Dean of the Faculty of Culture + Community at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and Co-Founder of the Political Arts Initiative, which invites 21st-century imag-e-nations of the political through digital technology and the creative and performing arts. After an AB in Government and Philosophy at Harvard University, Cissie explored public interest law in Washington DC before moving to the University of Oxford for an MSt in Women’s Studies, an MSc in Political Research and Methodology, and a DPhil in Politics and International Relations. She lectured at Oxford and University College London prior to serving as Senior Tutor and Director of Studies at Leiden University College in Leiden University’s Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs in The Hague. Having returned to Canada, she continues to be a regular guest curator and performer at art institutions in and out of Europe.
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Claudia Comte
2021 Summit—Artist
Claudia Comte is an artist based in Bennwil, Switzerland. Her work is defined by her interest in the memory of materials and by a careful observation of how the hand relates to different technologies. Claudia studied at the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL) in 2004-2007, followed by a Masters of Art in Science of Education at Haute Ecole Pédagogique, Visual Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland in 2008-2010. She has presented her work in solo and group exhibitions at Kunstraum, Dornbirn; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; König Galerie, Berlin; Copenhagen Contemporary; Gladstone Gallery, New York; MOCA, Cleveland; Contemporary Art Museum, St Louis; Kunsthalle Basel; Desert X, Palm Springs; Kunstmuseum Luzern; Public Art Fund, New York; Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich; and Elevation 1049, Gstaad. Her upcoming exhibitions include: the 58th October salon Belgrade Biennale (June 2021) and a solo presentation at The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (Spring 2021).
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Prince Constantijn of the NLs
2017 Summit—Innovator
HRH Prince Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau advises companies on their digital innovation strategies. Since 2017 the Dutch Government appointed him as Special Envoy of StartupDelta, with the ambition to make the Netherlands the best place to start, build, grow, and scale up innovative businesses. In 2019, TechLeap.NL was launched as the successor of StartupDelta, a major collective effort to bolster the growth and standing of Dutch scale-ups. Constantijn has a background in government, management consulting and policy research and advice, at the European Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Booz Allen & Hamilton and the RAND Corporation. He was employed as Chief of Staff of Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission in charge of the Digital Agenda for Europe. He went on to establish his own advisory business and initiated the country’s biggest ever startup event ‘StartupFest Europe’, reaching over 36.000 people at 30+ events in 16 locations. He holds board and advisory positions at many cultural organisations, including the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development.
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Dado Valentic
2018 Summit—Artist
Dado Valentic is a Chief Creative Technologist at Acute Art, world’s leading platform for Virtual Reality (VR) Art production and distribution. Faced with the task of overcoming the technical limitations of current VR, Dado has developed an entirely new approach to working in VR based on his experience as a researcher in the area of perception and optical illusion. He is working closely with some of the world’s leading contemporary artist and transforming their vision into interactive VR Artworks. Dado is an award-winning colourist and colour scientist with a long-standing contribution in the field of innovation of digital imaging. He has been working on some of the best-known Feature Film and TV productions including Sherlock Holmes, Exodus, Game of Thrones, Marco Polo, Total Recall and more. He was one of the inventors of Colour Managed Workflow that has today become a standard for the most high-end feature and episodic TV productions and continues to be one of the most innovative creative technologists.
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Daniel Birnbaum
2018 Summit—Museum partner
Daniel Birnbaum is the Director and Curator of Acute Art in London, UK. Daniel was previously the Director of Moderna Museet in Stockholm from 2010 to 2018. From 2000 to 2010 he was the Rector of Städelschule in Frankfurt and Director of its kunsthalle Portikus. He is contributing editor of Artforum in New York and has curated a number of large exhibitions, including Airs de Paris at Centre Pompidou in Paris (in co-operation with Christine Macel) in 2007. Daniel was the director of the 2009 Venice Biennale. He is the author of numerous books on art and philosophy and is the co-editor (with Isabelle Graw) of the Insitut für Kunstkritik series published by Sternberg Press. He is on the board of directors of Nobel Media, the organisation that manages all the events surrounding the Nobel prizes.
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Dave Beech
2017 Summit—Artist
Dave Beech is a member of the art collective Freee, writer and Professor of Art at Valand Academy, Gothenburg. His book Art and Value, published by Brill 2015, was shortlisted for the Deutscher Memorial Prize. His work has been exhibited at the Istanbul Biennial and the Liverpool Biennial. He is a regular contributor to Art Monthly, co-authored the book The Philistine Controversy, Verso (2002) with John Roberts, edited the MIT/Whitechapel book Beauty (2009), and is a founding co-editor of Art and the Public Sphere journal.
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Djamila Ribeiro
2020 Summit—Philosopher
Djamila Ribeiro is a public intellectual, writer and philosopher, a social justice activist, and one of the most influential leaders in the Afro-Brazilian women’s rights movement. Djamila holds a Master's Degree in Political Philosophy by the Federal University of São Paulo. She is a best-selling writer of the books Quem tem medo do Feminismo Negro? (‘Who is afraid of Black Feminism?’ 2018), Lugar de Fala (‘Place of Speech’) and Pequeno Manual Antirracista (‘Little Anti-racist Manual’). Djamila is the lead publisher of the Collection Feminismos Plurais (‘Plural Feminisms’), making afrodescendant writers' works available at affordable prices and with a didactical language approach. She is the founder and head of the "Sueli Carneiro Seal", which aims to publish black women from Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2019, she was awarded a Prince Claus Award for outstanding achievement in the field of culture and development.
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Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
2020 Summit—Artist
Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster is an experimental artist based in Paris. Since 1990, she has been exploring the different modalities of sensory and cognitive relationships between bodies and spaces, real or fictitious, up to the point of questioning the distance between organic life and work. Metabolizing literary and cinematographic, architectural and musical, scientific and pop references, Dominique creates “chambres” and “interiors”, “gardens”, “attractions” and “planets”, with respect to the multiple meanings that these terms take on in the works of Virginia Woolf or Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Brontë sisters or Thomas Pynchon, Joanna Russ or Philip K. Dick. Haunted by history and future, Dominique’s works become containers where the artist incubates a form of subjectivity that does not yet exist. Through multiple international exhibitions, short films, productions and concerts, Dominique's mutant work contributes to the invention of new technologies of consciousness.
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Dorothea von Hantelmann
2020 Summit—Professor
Dorothea von Hantelmann is Professor of Art and Society at Bard College Berlin. Before taking the position at Bard College Berlin, she was documenta Professor at the Art Academy/University of Kassel where she lectured on the history and meaning of documenta. Her main fields of research are contemporary art and theory as well as the history and theory of exhibitions. She is the author of How to Do Things with Art, one of the seminal works on performativity within contemporary art, co-editor of Die Ausstellung. Politik eines Rituals (‘The exhibition. Politics of a Ritual’) and has written extensively on contemporary art. Her current book project is entitled The exhibition: Transformations of a ritual, and it explores exhibitions as ritual spaces in which fundamental values and categories of modern, liberal and market-based societies historically have been, and continue to be, practised and reflected.
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Douglas Coupland
2018 Summit—Artist
Since 1991 Douglas Coupland has written thirteen novels published in most languages. He has written and performed for England’s Royal Shakespeare Company and is a columnist for The Financial Times of London. In 2000 Douglas amplified his visual art production and had two separate museum retrospectives, Everything is Anything is Anywhere is Everywhere at the Vancouver Art Gallery, The Royal Ontario Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, and Bit Rot at Kunstinstituut Melly, formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, and Villa Stücke in Munich in the fall of 2017. In 2015 and 2016 Douglas was artist in residence in the Paris Google Cultural Institute. He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy, an Officer of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Order of British Columbia, a Chevlier de l'Order des Arts et des Lettres and receiver of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.
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Ed Atkins
2018 Summit—Artist
Ed Atkins is an artist who makes videos, writes and draws, developing a complex and deeply figured discourse around definition, wherein the impossibilities for sufficient representations of the physical, specifically corporeal, world — from computer generated imagery to bathetic poetry — are hysterically rehearsed. Solo presentations include Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; MMK Frankfurt; DHC/ART, Montréal (all 2017); Castello di Rivoli, Turin; The Kitchen, New York (both 2016); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015) and The Serpentine Gallery, London (2014). An anthology of his texts, A Primer for Cadavers, was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2016, and an extensive artist’s monograph from Skira was published in 2017. Ed lives and works in Berlin.
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El Último Grito
2020 Summit—Professors
Rosario Hurtado & Roberto Feo define their practice as ‘the thing we do in order to understand the world’. El Último Grito produces work that responds to an on–going investigation into the nature and representation of systems, and how these construct our ideas of reality. El Último Grito sees their academic activity as an extension of their public work, bringing their experimental approach into the academic realm. Roberto Feo is Professor of Design Practice at Goldsmiths University, London and Rosario Hurtado co–directs the programme MA Space and Communications at HEAD–Genève. As part of their current academic activity they have created the research unit: Vehicles for Experimental Practice, based in Goldsmiths University London, of which the first outcome is the experimental practice journal Multiplexer.
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Elvira Dyangani Ose
2020 Summit—Museum director
Elvira Dyangani Ose is Director of The Showroom, London. She is affiliated to the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths and the Thought Council at the Fondazione Prada. Previously, she served as Creative Time Senior Curator, Curator of the eighth edition of the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary art, and Curator International Art at Tate Modern. She recently joined Tate Modern Advisory Council. Elvira has published and lectured on modern and contemporary African art and has contributed to art journals such as Nka and Atlántica. She studied a Doctoral Degree in History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University, New York; has a MAS in Theory and History of Architecture from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona; and a BA in Art History from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Ernesto Neto
2019 Summit—Artist
Since the mid-1990's, Ernesto Neto has produced an influential body of work that explores constructions of social space and the natural world by inviting physical interaction and sensory experience. Born in Rio de Janeiro, the artist continues to live and work in Brazil. He studied at the city’s Escola de artes visuais do Parque Lage in 1994 and in 1997, and also attended the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art from 1994 to 1996. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and biennials, such as a large scale installation that was on view at the Zurich train station, commissioned by the Beyeler Foundation (2018), the 14th Biennale de Lyon, curated by Emma Lavigne (2017), Manifesta 7 (2015), along with 2017 group shows at Guggenheim Bilbao, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Centre Pompidou-Metz, and a permanent installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
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Federico Campagna
2019 Summit—Philosopher
Federico Campagna is a philosopher and writer. His latest books are Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality (Bloomsbury, 2018), and The Last Night (Zero Books, 2013). He is the editor of Franco Berardi’s philosophical anthology, Quarant’anni Contro il Lavoro (Derive Approdi, 2017). He has presented his work in institutions including the 57th Venice Biennale, Venice; Documenta 13, Kassel; the Serpentine Gallery, London; Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow and MACBA, Barcelona. Federico received his PhD from the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art, London.
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Gabi Ngcobo
2019 Summit—Curator
Gabi Ngcobo is an artist, curator and educator living in Johannesburg, South Africa. Since the early 2000's Gabi has been engaged in collaborative artistic, curatorial, and educational projects in South Africa and on an international scope. She curated the 10th Berlin Biennale titled We don’t need another hero and was one of the co-curators of the 32nd Sao Paulo Bienal (2016). She is a founding member of the Johannesburg based collaborative platforms NGO – Nothing Gets Organised and Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR, 2010–14). NGO focusses on processes of self-organisation that take place outside of predetermined structures, definitions, contexts, or forms. CHR responded to the demands of the moment through an exploration of how historical legacies impact and resonate within contemporary art.
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Grada Kilomba
2019 Summit—Artist
Grada Kilomba is an interdisciplinary artist and writer born in Lisbon and living in Berlin. Her work draws on memory, trauma, race, gender, and the decolonisation of knowledge: ‘who can speak?’ ‘what can we speak about?’ and ‘what happens when we speak?’ are three constant questions in Grada’s body of work. She is best known for her subversive writing and her unconventional use of artistic practices, in which she gives body, voice and image to her own text, using a variety of formats such as staged reading, performance, installation, sound and video Installation - having storytelling as the central element. Her work has been presented at: 10. Berlin Biennale; Documenta 14; 32. Bienal de São Paulo; The Power Plant, Toronto; MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon; Pinacoteca de São Paulo, among others. She is the author of Plantation Memories (2008) a compilation of episodes of everyday racism written in the form of short psychoanalytical stories.
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Irma Boom
2017 Summit—Artist
Irma Boom is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer specialised in making books. For five years she worked (editing and concept/design) on the 2136-
page book SHV Think Book 1996 –1896 commissioned by SHV Holdings in Utrecht. The Think Book was published in English and Chinese.
Irma studied at the AKI Art Academy in Enschede. After graduation she worked for five years at the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office in The Hague. In 1991 she founded Irma Boom Office, which works nationally and internationally in both the cultural and commercial sectors. Since 1992 Irma has been a senior critic at Yale University in the U.S. and gives lectures and workshops worldwide. She has been the recipient of many awards for her book designs and was the youngest ever laureate to receive the prestigious Gutenberg Prize for her complete oeuvre. Irma received the 2014 Johannes Vermeer Prize– the Dutch state prize for the arts–for her unparallelled achievements in the field of graphic design from the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Jet Bussemaker.
Jessica Morgan
2020 Summit—Museum partner
Jessica Morgan joined Dia Art Foundation as Director in January 2015 and was named Nathalie de Gunzburg Director in October 2017. At Dia, Jessica is responsible for strengthening and activating all parts of Dia’s multivalent program, including its pioneering Land art projects, site-specific commissions, and collections and programming across its constellation of sites. Since her arrival at Dia, the foundation has grown and diversified its collection to include significant works by Mary Corse, Nancy Holt, Robert Morris, Dorothea Rockburne, Kishio Suga, Anne Truitt, and Lee Ufan among others. Alongside an expanded exhibition program, Jessica has continued Dia’s commitment to site-specific commissions, facilitating major new work by artists including Isabel Lewis, Rita McBride and Joëlle Tuerlinckx, and in 2015 realizing the first Dia commission outside the continental United States since 1982 with Allora & Calzadilla’s Puerto Rican Light (Cueva Vientos), situated in Puerto Rico. In 2018, Jessica announced a comprehensive, multi-year campaign, that includes the upgrade, revitalization, and ongoing stewardship of Dia’s key programmatic spaces and artist sites.
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Joan Jonas
2020 Summit—Artist
Joan Jonas is a world-renowned artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance, installation, sound, text, and sculpture. Joan’s experiments and productions in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theatre. Since 1968, her practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of rituals, and the authority of objects and gestures. Joan has exhibited, screened, and performed her work at museums, galleries, and in large scale group exhibitions throughout the world. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at Hangar Bicocca, Milan; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore; the United States Pavilion for the 56th edition of the Venice Biennial; Tate Modern, London; TBA21 Ocean Space at the San Lorenzo Church, Venice; and Serralves Museum, Porto. In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Kyoto Prize, presented to those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural, and spiritual betterment of mankind.
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Jochen Volz
2019 Summit—Museum partner
Jochen Volz is the General Director of the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. In 2017, he was the curator of the Brazilian Pavilion for the 53rd Biennale di Venezia. He was the curator of the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo in 2016. He served as Head of Programmes at the Serpentine Galleries in London (2012-2015); Artistic Director at Instituto Inhotim (2005-2012); and curator at Portikus in Frankfurt (2001-2004). Volz was co-curator of the international exhibition of the 53rd Bienal de Veneza (2009) and the 1st Aichi Triennial in Nagoya (2010) and guest curator of the 27th Bienal de São Paulo (2006), besides having contributed to other exhibitions throughout the world. He holds a masters in art history, communication and pedagogy by the Humboldt University in Berlin (1998). Lives in São Paulo.
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Karen Archey
2018 Summit—Curator
Karen Archey is Curator of Contemporary Art, Time-based Media at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. She was previously based in Berlin and New York, where she worked as an independent curator, art critic, and editor of e-flux. Karen was a 2015 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant recipient for short-form writing. With a focus on feminist practices, art and technology, her writing is regularly featured in magazines such as frieze and ArtReview, and anthologies published by institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, MIT Press and New Museum. Karen co-curated the survey exhibition Art Post-Internet at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (2014) and edited the publication Art Post-Internet: INFORMATION/DATA. As regular public speaker, Karen has spoken at Renaissance Society at University of Chicago, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Museum of Modern Art New York, MoMA PS1, and elsewhere.
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Lars Bang Larsen
2018 Summit—Curator
Lars Jakob Bang Larsen is adjunct curator of international art at Moderna Museet. He is a guest professor in art theory, at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, visiting lecturer at the program in art, culture and technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, and professeur invité and tutor at Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design, Geneva. Lars is a post doc fellow at the Institute of Art and Cultural History, University of Copenhagen, from where he also holds his PhD on psychedelic concepts in neo-avantgarde art. Lars organised several exhibitions, and was co-curator with Jochen Volz of the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo 2016: Incerteza Viva (Live Uncertainty). He wrote several publications and is a contributor to various art magazines (including Artforum).
Latifa Echakhch
2019 Summit—Artist
Born 1974 in El Khnansa, Morocco, Latifa Echakhch came to France at the age of 3 but has lived for most of her life in Switzerland. Hers is a multi-referential and multidirectional work, just like her personal background, her travels and her eclectic centres of interest. Latifa tends to produce installation pieces that are in direct connection with the space in which they are presented, thereby blending personal, multicultural, historical and sociological references. Winner of the Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2013 and the Zurich Art Prize in 2015, Latifa is a graduate of the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Cergy-Pontoise and the École nationale des beaux-arts de Lyon. Her work has been presented at the 15th Istanbul Biennial (2017), Power Plant Gallery, Toronto (2017), Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2016), Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz (2015), Swiss Institute, New York (2015), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014 – 2015), Palazzo Grassi, Venise (2014), Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon (2013) and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2013).
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Louise O. Fresco
2022 Summit—Professor
Louise O. Fresco is a Dutch Professor, author and expert in the field of food and sustainable agriculture, aiming to provide an answer to the question: “How can we provide food for 9 trillion people by 2030?” Since 2000, Louise has served as Assistant Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. Louise is also a professor at Wageningen University and was appointed President of the Executive Board at Wageningen University & Research since 2014. Louise is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, writing for a wide audience about food security and eating culture, including a fortnightly column for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad and the book Hamburgers in Paradise (2012), as well as an extensive collection of articles in both scientific journals and popular media. She has published twelve non-scientific books, including three novels, of which De Utopisten (The Utopians, 2008) was shortlisted for the Libris Literature Award.
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