Idea, Concept: Marissa Lôbo, Catrin Seefranz
School Directors: Neda Hosseinyar, Marissa Lôbo, Stephanie Misa, Catrin Seefranz
Graphic Design: Neda Hosseinyar und Stephanie Misa
Illustration: Amoako Boafo
Website: YOKKELE
Logo: Lym Moreno
Translations: Sophie Hammer
Financial Coordination: Tchoubrinka Jekova
Amoako Boafo was born 1984 in Accra, Ghana. Since 2013 he is based in Austria where he currently studies under professor Hans Scheirl at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Since his graduation at the Ghanatta College of Art and Design in 2008, Boafo took part in group and solo exhibitions in various venues among others at the Dubois Center, the British Council, the Novotel, the National Museum in Accra, the Fortuna Galerie and “das Moped” in Vienna, Austria. Working in both paint and collage, Boafo incorporates elements from his daily life into his canvases that are inspired by the interlocked, social and political elements of his hometown Accra and his new home Vienna.
Sophie Hammer is studying Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Comparative Literature at the University of Vienna, as well as being a freelance web desiner and translator for English / German in the field of arts and culture and a writer for artists and projects. Aside from her own artistic practice, she works on collaborative exhibition projects. The most recent took place in 2016 at Museumsquartier Vienna under the name Mes Meufs and will be published in an upcoming release (mesmeufs.biz). Currently she is working on a project for the analysis of texts about art at the Academy of Sciences Vienna. The next exhibition will be about the permanent present and will be on view at Galerie 5020 in Salzburg from October 2017.
Neda Hosseinyar is an Iranian artist living and working in Vienna, Austria. BA graduated in Painting from University of Fine Arts Yazd, Iran and currently in the final phase of her Diploma Studies at the Academy of fine Arts Vienna (Post Conceptual Art Practices). In her artistic practice including installation, painting, print, video and intervention, she intends to give a critical reflection of social and political discriminatory structures. Her current artistic project and research Politics of Fear deals with the topic cultural racism with the main focus on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism along with interaction of elements such as culture, religion, ethnicity, gender and identity in this discourse. The Project has been presented through diverse platforms such as LaPublika international Radio Symposium, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain (2016).
Tchoubrinka Jekova, born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1975, living and working in Vienna. She studied business administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Since then she is working in the field of finance, accountancy and auditing. She was assistant auditor at Examina Revisions-,Treuhand- und Beratungsges.m.b.H. and from 2007 until 2009 project assistant at the Institut of Austrian und International Tax Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Since 2013 she is working independently as a chief accountant.
Marissa Lôbo is an activist and artist born in Bahia, Brazil, living and working in Vienna after some years in Italy and Portugal. She studied post-conceptual art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and is a PhD candidate in Philosophy there. In her artistic work, often performative, she addresses hegemonic sexualised and racialized body regimes from a queer of color perspective. She aims to de-colonize queer theory and to intervene in white supremacist narratives. For many years she was the head of the cultural department of the association maiz, a self-organization of migrants, where she created projects between cultural and political education, trying to programmatically connect politics, education and the arts from a migrant perspective. She founded oca:, together with Galia Baeva and Catrin Seefranz, an initiative , linking arts, mediation, activism and research with the perspective of political education. In 2016 she curated the project Bodies of Knowledge, together with with Njideka Stephanie Iroh, connecting narratives of resistance and utopia in art and activism.
Born in Cebu City, Philippines, Stephanie Misa graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2012 (Performative Arts and Sculpture, Monica Bonvicini) and currently lives and works in Vienna, Austria. She consistently displays an interest in complex and diverse histories and how this is represented and expressed within culture, relating to these topics through her video work, installations, sculptures, prints, and performance pieces— bringing forward aspects of historical authenticity, hybridity, and embodiment, that expound on the immigrant experience. She was the receipt of the kültüř gemma! grant in 2014/2015, and has recently concluded her Artist Residency Grant in Yogyakarta with the Federal Chancellery of Austria (BKA). Her current projects include co-curating Behind the Terrain: Sketches on Imaginative Landscape a traveling exhibition in Yogyakarta, Hanoi and Tokyo (2016-17), and Archipelago / Mountain with Ana de Almeida in Galerie 5020 in July 2017. www.stephaniemisa.com.
Lym Moreno was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela and currently lives and works in Vienna, Austria. She works with a wide variety of medias and techniques including drawings, collages, assemblages of paper and print making. In public space she appears under her pseudonym »Mosta« performing her visual language in a different context. “In my work, I seek to connect shapes and objects within figures that are carefree, joyful and spontaneous, usually focusing on issues that call my attention around the complexity of human behavior in relation to the Human-animal hybrid appearance, as well as anthropomorphism.” Lym Moreno also runs workshops for kids and adults. Together with Natalie Pelet she founded Studio Katu for textiledesign and workshops.
Catrin Seefranz is a cultural worker and reseacher based in Vienna. With a longtime working experiences in the art world (e.g. documenta 12, Film Festivals Viennale or Identities), an academic background in Latin American and cultural studies, and research experience (University of the Arts, Zurich) she tries to contribute with her work to a critique of hegemonialities and colonialities within the field of arts and art education. Her research interests range from Latin American, especifically Brazilian modernisms to today’s art field and its institutions. She has published the book Tupi Talking Cure on Freud, Psychoanalysis and Brazilian modernism and is now researching the political “Alphabetization” of the museum in Brasil in the 1960es. She is part of the transnational research network Another Roadmap, trying to map critical, first of all decolonizing practices of art education. Since 2012 she is head of kültüř gemma!, a project promoting migrant positions in the field oft arts and culture. With Galia Baeva and Marissa Lôbo she founded the initiative oca, linking arts, mediation, activism and research with the perspective of political education.