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088 Issue # 11/11 : PublIc Issues
biograPhies
Minerva Cuevas is an artist whose work is characterised
by socially engaged and site-specific actions that take place
in a range of settings, from public space through museums to
the Internet. Her works are always based on in-depth critical
research, in her endeavour to examine the potential of in-
formal and alternative economies. Her works provide viewers
with an insight into the complexities of the economic and
political organisation of the social sphere and its structures.
She lives and works in Mexico City.
www.minervacuevas.org
Selma Dubach studied art history, media studies, and
business administration in Bern. Since 2010, she has worked
as a research assistant at IFCAR Institute for Contemporary
Art Re-search at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), before
which she held a position at the Institute for Art History at
Bern University. In addition to curating and co-curating
various projects, she has written numerous articles and texts
for catalogues.
Rupali Gupte is an architect and urbanist practicing and
teaching in Mumbai. She is a founding member of the Collective
Research Initiatives Trust, which is committed to urbanism
research and practice. She is also a partner with RRarchitecture101,
a design practice. She is interested in tactical
urban conditions and design interventions. Her works include,
among others, studies of post-industrial landscapes
and housing types in Mumbai, a multimedia novel on a semifictional
history of Mumbai's urbanism, a story-map installation
about Mumbai's mill lands, and other urban design
projects.
Jeanne van Heeswijk is a visual artist who creates contexts
for interaction in public spheres. Her projects distinguish
themselves through a strong social involvement. With her
work, Van Heeswijk stimulates and develops cultural production,
and creates new public (meeting-)spaces or remodels
existing ones. To achieve this, she often works closely with
artists, designers, architects, software developers,
governments, and citizens. She regularly lectures on topics
such as urban renewal, civic participation, and cultural
production. www.jeanneworks.net
Jürgen Krusche is a researcher and publicist who focuses
on urbanism and public space in the intercultural exchange
between Europe, China, and Japan. He has worked at Zurich
University of the Arts (ZHdK) since 2001, and from 2007
to 2011 headed the research project "Taking to the Streets:
The Street as Public Space Exemplified by Berlin, Shanghai,
Tokyo and Zurich" at the Faculty of Architecture of the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. He also
works as a freelance photographer.
Li Zhenhua is a writer, curator, producer, and artist living
in Beijing/Shanghai and Zurich. He is the founder of Laboratory
Art Beijing (www.bjartlab.com) and the Mustard Seed
garden (www.msgproduction.com). In 2010, he served as chief
planner of the Shanghai eART Festival. He has delivered
numerous talks and presentations at new media art symposia,
as well as at leading galleries and museum spaces around the
world.
Derya Özkan studied architecture and sociology before earning
a Ph.D. degree in Visual and Cultural Studies. She currently
works at the Institute of European Ethnology at the University
of Munich. Her research focuses on the politics of space, popular
culture, consumption, contemporary art, informal urbanism,
migration, and the postcolonial city. In the fall of 2011,
she will start working on a research project entitled "From
Oriental to the 'cool' City. Changing Imaginations of Istanbul,
Cultural Production and the Production of Urban Space" as
an Emmy Noether Fellow of the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemein-
schaft).
Siri Peyer is a Zurich-based curator. She was recently appointed
research assistant at at Kunstmuseum Thun. From 2008
to 2011, she served as an assistant on the Postgraduate Pro-
gramme in Curating at the Institute for Cultural Studies in the
Arts (ICS), where she co-organised the non-profit White Space
(www.whitespace.ch). Previously, she was curatorial assistant
at the Shedhalle Zurich from 2008 to 2009. She has curated
or co-curated several exhibitions and projects.
Oda Projesi is an artist collective based in Istanbul; its
members are Özge Açıkkol, Güne Savas¸, and Seçil Yersel, who
turned their collaboration into an art project in 2000. From
2000, their Galata-based studio functioned as a non-profit
independent space, hosting nearly 30 collaborative projects
and actions up until 2005, when Oda Projesi was evicted from
the apartment following the area's ongoing gentrification. Oda
Projesi has since been a mobile operation, one committed to
to raising questions on the production of space and place, and
creating social relationship models by using different media
like radio stations, books, postcards, newspapers and by
depending on the creativity of the inhabitants of the city of
Istanbul.
Christoph Schenker is Professor ZFH of Philosophy of Art and
Contemporary Art at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).
Since 2005, he has been head of the newly founded Institute for
Contemporary Art Research (IFCAR), part of the ZHdK Department
of Art and Media. His main research fields are artistic re-
search as well as art and the public sphere. www.ifcar.ch
Prasad Shetty is an urbanist based in Mumbai. He studied archi-
tecture and urban management. His work involves research on
issues related to contemporary Indian urbanism, including ar-
chitectural practices, post-liberalization developments,
entrepreneurial practices, cultural dimensions of property,
and investigations into mapping processes. He is a founding
member of the Collective Research Initiatives Trust, a re-
search-based urban practice, and he also teaches at the Academy
of Architecture in Mumbai.
Richard Wolff Dr. sc. nat. ETH, is an urbanist, researcher,
campaign leader, organizer, moderator, and activist. He grew
up in Switzerland and Venezuela, studied in Zurich and London,
and has been a visiting lecturer in the USA. He is a partner
of INURA Zürich Institute for Urban Development Issues, a lecturer
at the Center for Urban Landscape of the School of Architecture
at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and
co-head of the International Network for Urban Research and
Action INURA. He specializes in urban development, living,
traffic, planning, and the environment. He has been a member of
Zurich municipal council since 2010.