Nastya Dmitrievskaya is an artist, manager and independent researcher; she studies the organization and policies of labor in contemporary art, their connection to the building of infrastructures and gender theory. As an artist and manager, she organizes conferences and other discursive events. Her works have been published by Syg.ma, Aroundart, Intermodal Terminal, Colta, Teatr, and other resources. Co-founder of the media activist association Ice Cream Shop, curator of the section "Labor" at Syg.ma. She lives and works in Moscow.
Dasha Iuriichuk is an artist and researcher of visual culture and the politics of the body. Co-author of the performances A Landscape for a Dead Dog and The Garden by the group zh-v-yu (in collaboration with Katya Volkova and Natasha Zhukova). She ran education courses at the National Research Center – Higher School of Economics, Na Solyanke Gallery, Laboratory of Journalism at Winzavod Center, and other venues. Winner of the BlackBox Residency (2018), she is the choreographer of the feminist performance-conference Locker Room Talk and co-author of the anti-capitalist performance-platform Caries of Capitalism at the Meyerhold Center (Moscow). Author of publications on dance, the politics of the body, and contemporary art in Khudozhestvenny zhurnal (Moscow Art Magazine), roomfor, and Nozh (Knife) magazine. She lives and works in Moscow.
Eleonora Castagna obtained her bachelor's degree in Modern Italian Art, Humanities, and Literature from Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna. She received an MFA in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies from NABA in Milan, spending six months at ITU in Istanbul as an exchange student. Her field of research includes public art and the politics of commons. Her MFA thesis focused on the role of social virtual platforms for the revolutionary movements in Turkey. She is an independent curator (for La Medusa cultural center, galleries Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Bugada & Cargnel, and Bassano del Grappa Museums), freelance journalist covering contemporary art (for Toylet Mag, Diorama, Droste Effect, and Alfabeta2), critic and cultural communication consultant. She took part in Documenta 13 as a Student Artist Assistant for the project AND…AND…AND with Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri. At RU (Court Street 360, Brooklyn), and worked with the Special Projects curator Ayelet Danielle Aldouby. She also worked at The Still House Group (in Red Hook, Brooklyn) as an Administrative Assistant. She attended the 25th session of the curatorial training program at the École du Magasin in Grenoble. She took part in the Q-Rated workshop "Sensitive Research," organized by La Quadriennale di Roma in Lecce. She worked at ChertLüdde gallery in Berlin as a gallery manager and is currently working with Ramdom Association following Emilio Vavarella's projects, financed by the Italian Council and SIAE.
Simona Barbera is an artist based in Italy and Norway. Through the use of sound installations, sculptural works, and digital archives, her practice focuses on the physical and spatial aspects of urban spaces, amidst activities of sub-cultural contexts. She has a background in sonic studies and holds a Master in Fine Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Norway. Since 2019 she has been co-running the online digital format called ISG and the artist-run Space 4235. Her artistic work has been shown in numerous artist-run spaces, galleries, and institutions in Italy and abroad.
Justin Randolph Thompson is a new media artist, cultural facilitator, and educator born in Peekskill, NY. Living between Italy and the US since 1999, Thompson is Co-Founder and Director of Black History Month Florence, a multi-faceted exploration of African and African Diasporic cultures in the context of Italy founded in 2016. Thompson is a recipient of a Louise Comfort Tiffany Award, a Franklin Furnace Fund Award, a Visual Artist Grant from the Fundacion Marcelino Botin, two Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants, a Jerome Fellowship from Franconia Sculpture Park, and an Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates Sculpture Park. His life and work seek to deepen the discussions around socio-cultural stratification and hierarchical organization by employing fleeting, temporary communities as monuments and fostering projects that connect academic discourse, social activism, and DIY networking strategies in annual and biennial gatherings, sharing, and gestures of collectivity.
Alessandra Franetovich is an art historian, critic, and independent curator based between Germany and Italy. Specializing in Russian contemporary art, she is a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Florence, with research that addresses the concept of the archive as a device for artistic self-institutionalization, and investigates the role of archival practices in the construction of Russian contemporary art through the case study of the Archive of Moscow Conceptualism owned by the artist Vadim Zakharov. For this research, she was a recipient of the research grant program Archive Summer at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and conducted research in Berlin and Bremen. She has led lectures, seminars, and conferences in several European institutions. She is a teaching assistant in Contemporary Art History at the University of Pisa. Since 2017, she has been a researcher for Italian private collections of Russian avant-garde artworks. As a curatorial assistant, she collaborated with museums, art institutions, and galleries in Italy. As an independent curator, she has curated exhibitions and collaborated with art galleries, non-profit spaces, and festivals. Her essays and texts have been published in exhibition catalogues, magazines, and books. Her latest writings appeared in e-flux and Middle Plane (London). She is coediting a volume about interactivity and performativity in art through the centuries, which will be published in fall 2020. She is currently a visiting curator at V-A-C Foundation in Moscow.
