Participating Artists and Designers from Austria (University of Applied Arts, Vienna), UK (London College of Fashion) and Poland (Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw):
Manora Auersperg lives and works in Vienna. Her artistic practice is closely entwined with her profession as Senior Lecturer at the University of Applied Arts, Institute of Art Sciences and Art Education. She studied Art Education and Textile (University of Applied Arts), Psychoanalytic Pedagogy (University of Vienna) and Stage Costume Design (HdK Berlin). She took her master degree with a thesis on the directed gaze – the relation between object, media and subject. In her work experiences as researcher, teacher, costume designer and artist she often works in an inter- and transdisciplinary way and in various collaborations. Her artistic research refers to the subject of the human body in relation to the spatial and social context and has been exhibited and performed in different places in Austria and Germany.
Anna-Sophie Berger (b.1989) studied fashion design and transmedia art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions and has presented her first solo shows, including JTT and Ludlow 38 in New York, the White Flag Projects Library in St. Louis, the 21er Haus and Mauve in Vienna, and KUB Billboards at Kunsthaus Bregenz. Since 2015 she has been teaching at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in the Department of Art and Knowledge Transfer. Anna-Sophie Berger lives and works in New York and Munich. annasophie-berger.com
MMag.art Christina Dörfler-Raab. Born 1984. Live and work in Vienna. Studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Art and Education). Since 2008 working in the field of fashion and performance in Portugal, Berlin and Vienna. 2011 master´s degree; Thesis: Transfer as a method of! artistic practice. 2012 presentation of the artistic dissertation: Wandering Tribe (Performance/Fashion Collection) at Natural History Museum Vienna. Since 2013 teaching fashion at Fashion College Herbststraße Vienna. Currently freelancer and PhD researcher at the Museum of applied Arts Vienna / Helmut Lang Archive.
Afra Kirchdorfer was born in Regensburg, Germany and lives and works in Vienna. Since 2009 she is a master tailor and devoted herself to her own fashion label from 2008 to 2011. In 2010 she started her studies in the Art Education program of the University of Applied Arts Vienna with the subjects Textiles - Free and Contextual Artistic Practice and Material Culture, Art and Communication Practices as well as Design, Architecture and Environment. Her artistic practice and research is mainly concerned with the processes of work and form finding as well as autonomous production structures.
Kate Langrish Smith’s practice embodies the act of looking and physical interaction, conceptually exploring elements that define an experience. She incorporates and questions the idea of placement, defined and reflected through varied studies in fine art, headwear design, fashion artefact and sculpture. She aims to condense interpretation of experience and tactile memory into an object, and to encourage a dialogue using tactility and suggestive form. The process of making and the presence of the body are important factors within construction. She believes it is important to capture and recount this corporeal presence in either an active or passive way. Her practice allows her a space to explore the notion of object, worth and desire, both emotionally and reflectively. It is for her an exercise in deconstructing the constructed – questioning the presence and influence of objects and affects through creative exploration.
Maximilian Mauracher
Maximilian Mauracher graduated at University of Applied Arts Vienna in June 2017 and is an art director with a strong focus on typography and simplicity. He is „part of a wave of remarkable European designers of late“ (It’s Nice That), but his creative range also spans to collaborative projects which involve art and fashion, related particularly to interest in our self-perception (or “self-construction”) through digital photography and social media. As visual artist he is developing a unique visual language detached from a specific medium by first experimenting with digital tools in order to create content and then translating it into objects, installations or printed matters. His monochromatic works explore the possibilities of a computer-generated creation of imagery, while featuring both highly organic elements as well as geometric shapes or text. He now lives and works in Berlin. maximilianmauracher.com
Ana Rajčević - Award-winning artist, based between London and Berlin, working at the intersections of fine arts,sculpture, and design, After receiving an international MA scholarship from University of Arts London in 2010, Ana won the University's Best Design Award 2012 (UK), and the Project of the Year Award at ITS (International Talent Support) 2012 (IT). Exhibited internationally in Institutions like Louvre (FR), Smithsonian Design Museum (NYC), Boijmans Museum (NL), Mint Museum (US) among others, her work has been featured in Major Print Publications, such as The Guardian, CNN, British Vogue, Vogue NL, Dazed and Confused, and many more.In 2012 The Independent (UK) listed her as one of 12 most promising artists from University of Arts, London. 2013 Ana got SEED Award (UK) and in 2014 she was nominated from British Global Awards for Artist of the Year followed by 2015 Outstanding Creation & Invention Prize at Biennale International de Design, Saint Etienne.
Anna Schwarz currently based in Vienna, is an Austrian artists working on different projects all around Europe and the United States. She graduated from the University of Applied Arts Fashion department in 2016, with a second master in the sculpture department of the academy of fine arts in progress, she has made it her mission to establish a new fashion approach as a political, institutional and structural social phenomenon. Her latest work focuses on procedurals development of production such as in proposition towards narration, past history, string attached stories which are being produced and executed.
Lisa Edi is born in Schärding (Austria) and is living and working as a photographer in Vienna. Edi’s work oscillates between fashion photography, editorial commissions and a personal artistic practice. Her practical working experiences in the fields of fashion and set design influences her work significantly. lisaedi.tumblr.com | lisaedi.com
Lara Torres is currently a PhD student at the University of the Arts London where her research project, entitled Towards a practice of unmaking: a strategy for critical fashion practices, is under the supervision of Prof. Sandy Black and Dr Thomas Makryniotis at the London College of Fashion. Her practice-based research debates the role of the fashion designer and questions fashion’s critical agency. She has presented her work globally and was awarded the Unique Design Award (2011) for the project An impossible wardrobe for the invisible at the Fashioning the Future Awards in London. Her work was shown at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen exhibition The future of fashion is now (2014), which then travelled to Shenzhen and Shanghai in China (2015-16). Lara is currently a teaching fellow for fashion at Portsmouth University.
The work is a part of research program „Could fashion designers be happy?” realized by Janusz Noniewicz and Dominika Wirkowska in Fashion Department of Fine Art Academy in Warsaw with cooperation of fashion design students: Maria Olszewska, Jan Kardas, Radosław Smędzik, Emil Litwiniec, Daria Wierzbicka, product designers Wojciech Małolepszy, Robert Pludra and Product Design Department students: Julia Sulikowska, Natalia Gil, Brunon Kowalski.
Original Sound Installation – Das Rezitativ: Margarita Slepakova (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis) / Clemens Fiechter (Elektronisches Studio Basel)
The Curator:
Dobrila Denegri is art historian and curator born in Belgrade and based in Rome. Since 2002 she is artistic director of nKA / ICA - Independent Cultural Association which organized “Real Presence” - an international platform for young artists which involved over 100 academies and universities worldwide. From 2002 till 2008 was curator at MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. From 2010 till 2015 was artistic director of Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun, Poland. From 2007 till 2009 she lectured at the Fashion department of “La Sapienza” University in Rome and since 2010 she is professor of contemporary art and fashion curating at Polimoda in Florence. Currently she is scientific advisor and art-program leader of new contemporary arts centre MUSIA in Rome. Her activity as curator and writer started in the ‘90s, since when she curated solo-shows of Marina Abramovic, Thomas Bayrle, Andreas Gursky & Michal Rovner, Alfredo Jaar, Gustav Metzger, Ernesto Neto, Thomas Saraceno, as well as numerous other personal and group exhibitions, workshops and lectures in public and private institutions internationally.