Manuela Viezzer (b. 1969, Italy) is an artist and researcher with a background in philosophy and science. She is interested in the significant otherness of non-human living organisms and often works through the ethical implications of believing that humans and non-humans share equal moral status. She is currently exploring how the combination of art and gaming techniques can encourage `making kin’ and create ground for the emergence of inclusive and sustainable multispecies societies, in which values such as openness, tolerance and empathy are enhanced. Her art-game Promise Me has been played during Alienated, 38CC, Delft, NL (2021) and at the Technische Universiteit Delft as a test case to investigate how to increase players’ responsibility towards a game topic (in collaboration with game researcher Annebeth Erdbrink).

www.manuelaviezzer.com

Ganesh Nepal (b. 1985, Nepal) lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He holds a MA in Fine Arts (2019) from HKU, Utrecht and BA in Visual Arts (2014) from Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Nepal’s body of work includes video, installations, (lecture) performances, and writings. The artist examines interconnections and influences between individuals and environments: he especially addresses the question of construction and transformation of identity as a consequence of forced or voluntary displacement. His works provoke the line “Game becomes fair when talents meet opportunity.” His performance is highly filled with his own native language, Nepali. The artist’s research-based work explores how meanings, expectations and conflicts are associated with different localities and shows the reality of how vulnerable we are, particularly when we find ourselves seemingly without history, without a sense of self and without reference points. Nepal’s work has been exhibited both in and outside of the Netherlands including at Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn (2021), Basis voor Actuele Kunst, Utrecht (2019), Siddhartha Art Gallery, Kathmandu (2015) and in Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2014).

के तिमीलाई मात्र बाँच्नु छ ?
मेरो अस्तित्वलाई किन स्वीकार दैनौं ?
दास होइन म,
तिमी जस्तै सपना देख्ने मनुष्य हुँ !!!

Zhou Jinxiao (b. 1990, Sichuan, China) studied painting at the Fine Arts middle school affiliated with the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing, China (2007—2010) and obtained a BA in Movie and Animation from the same university (2010—2014). In 2014—2018, he worked in the field of children’s art education in China, obtained An MFA in the HKU University of the Arts. Utrecht, The Netherlands（2018-2020. Since 2018, Zhou’s art practice focuses on lecture-performance, which he sees as a continuation of his Constructivist pedagogical practice.
Zhou has participated in numerous exhibitions/Festival, art education conferences and art programs, most recently in the Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival, -What is Identity? Greece(2021) ; The 1st Queer & Feminist Poetry Awards by Unwanted Words, Rotterdam.NL (2020); HKU MA Fine Art Graduation Show: If Not Now, BAK, basis for contemporary art. Utrecht, NL (2020 ); the National Art Education Convention (NAEA), Boston, USA (2019); NAEA-Seattle, USA (2018) and NAEA-New York, USA (2017); 35th World Congress of the International Society for Education through Art, Daegu, South Korea (2017).

Kaylie Kist lives and works in The Netherlands. She holds a BA in Fine Arts (1994) from Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, and has a master’s in fine arts, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (HKU), Utrecht, NL. Kist has spent much of her life physically engaging with invisible and reproductive and/or productive labour, whilst living in the midst of financial and emotional precarity. These issues remain embedded at the core of her practice. She uses walking as a methodology and writing as a foundation for her research, often taking us on journeys that are both uniquely personal and yet universal in their resonance. Concerned with rhythm and the repetitive patterns of oppression, she investigates the myriad of social, economic, gendered, and political forces that not only inhabit us but also exist as spaces in which we move. Her hybrid compositions act as what she calls “counter-sonics”, which explore both interior and exterior geographies, material, and emotional states, as well as the porousness between the body and our environment, what is (in)visible in terms of present time, hidden histories and speculative potentials and what remains out of sight?

www.kayliekist.com

Manju Sharma (b. 1972 India) is a visual artist and writer. She was brought up in the UK, and now lives and works in Zeist, The Netherlands. In her art-practice, Sharma is developing the concept of ‘never leaving never arriving’ through the examination of colonial heritage, mental-health and partition and by practicing modes of care and speculative healing. Through the personal, and the everyday, she unfolds narratives embedded in social and geopolitical landscapes. She uses autobiography as a methodology for story-telling in the visual arts to focus and explore the self and its relatedness to the world that she wishes to grasp and care for. Her work touches upon the use of reading atmospheres to unfold everyday sensitive issues that can allow people to find their voice. The aim of her work is to find hidden narratives in story-telling practices, to develop one’s own being and identity, to demonstrate fluidity of our borders both external and internal, and providing care at thresholds of metamorphosis. Her art practice offers mental escape routes, where the spiritual and speculative healing, through the performance of care, brings courage and hopefulness when ‘never leaving never arriving’.

www.manjusharma.nl

In collaboration with Marc Hanna and Sarah Prins, students from Utrecht University Law Faculty, as conversational partners, giving support and insight into the Dutch Constitution.