Aishat Ashueva (b. 1978, Grozny), founder and director of Grozny Center for Contemporary Art. She graduated from St. Petersburg State University of Technology and Design in 2005 and opened Grozny Center for Contemporary Art in 2011 (re-named Svobodnoe Prostranstvo—Open Space—in 2015). The Center currently operates in an irregular way.
Katya Bochavar (Moscow), artist, curator, expositionist and exhibition architect, stage designer. Director of Solyanka State Gallery (Moscow). Katya has worked as an architect for the Baibakov Art Projects exhibition space (Moscow, 2008–2010) and the Russian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). She curated contemporary art program at the Gogolfest International Interdisciplinary Festival, Kiev (2010); Archstoyanie Land Art Festival, Nikola-Lenivets, Kaluga Region (2013); the exhibitions Lexus Hybrid Art, ARTPLAY Center of Design, Moscow (2012); Vladey Kavkazom! “Own the Caucasus!”, Alanika Symposium, Vladikavkaz (2017); and Here and Now, Central Exhibition Hall Manege, Moscow (2018). Bochavar is curator of the GROUND project (Moscow) which she founded in 2014. Creator of the project Co-author. Coloring Book Exhibition,Gogol House, Moscow (2015), Center of Urban Culture, Perm(2016), Northern Caucasus Branch of NCCA affiliated with ROSIZO, Vladikavkaz (2018), Oktava Creative Industrial Cluster, Tula (2019). She lives and works in Moscow.
Patimat Gamzatova (b. 1959, Makhachkala), PhD in Art History, senior research fellow at the State Institute of Art History (Moscow). Member-correspondent of Russian Academy of Sciences. Chairwoman of the Commission on Culture of the Public Council at the Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Dagestan attached to the President of Russian Federation. Member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia. Gamzatova is participant and organizer of multiple academic conferences and round tables. She is the scientific editor, composer, and initiator of many art historical compilations, curator and author of over a hundred articles and other research texts, including three monographs, one of them dedicated to the contemporary art of Dagestan. Her academic interests include: folk and contemporary art of Dagestan; ethnic, Islamic and contemporary jewelry; embroidery; and Soviet and Russian amateur decorative and applied arts.
Igor Kulakov (b. 1983, Khabarovsk), Orientalist, expert in contemporary art of the Northern Caucasus and the Near East. He received a bachelor's degree in Islamic Studies from Bard College (New York) in 2015, and a master’s degree in Practices of Contemporary Art in the Northern Caucasus from Higher School of Economics (Moscow) in 2017. Kulakov is currently studying for another master's at the University of Manchester, and is preparing a dissertation at the Department of Western European Art History at the History Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. At different times, he has collaborated with the State Hermitage, the Near and Middle East Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg), the European Biennial Manifesta 10 (St. Petersburg), and National Research Center – Higher School of Economics (Moscow). He completed an internship at the Cairo University (2011) and Bard College (2013). He lives and works in Moscow.
Sona Stepanyan (b. 1987, Kapan), independent curator. Graduate of State Moscow Pedagogical University, Critics and Curatorship program of UNIC Institute (Moscow) and Svobodnie Masterskie Curatorial School (Moscow). From 2014 to 2016 Stepanyan worked at Education Department of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, and from 2016 to 2018 she held the position of Curator at the Armenia Art Foundation. Among her independent exhibitions are Ward Number Laughter, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2013); Project with an Accent, Random Gallery, Moscow (2014); Power Nap,Yerevan Museum of Modern Art (2018); The Sun of the Sleepless, Armenian center for Experimental Contemporary Art (2018). She lives and works between Moscow and Yerevan.
Albert Togoev (b. 1991, Vladikavkaz), founder of the Portal art space (Vladikavkaz). He lives and works in Vladikavkaz.
Sabina Shikhlinskaya (b. 1962, Baku) is a painter, installation and video artist, photographer, and curator. She studied at the Mukhina Higher Art and Industrial School in Leningrad in 1981–1983 and completed her professional education at the University of Arts and Culture in Baku in 1988. Contributor to multiple exhibitions, including the 52nd Venice Biennale, Azerbaijan Pavilion (2007) and dOCUMENTA (13), Pavilion of Critical Art Ensemble, Kassel (2012). Curator of over seventy contemporary art exhibitions, including the Azerbaijan Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). Shikhlinskaya holds a title of Honored Artist of Azerbaijan Republic. She lives and works in Baku.
