Charles Case was born in 1969 in Belgium and lives and works all over the place. He is a filmmaker, photographer, and artist. He studied Graphic Communication at La Chambre and his work is inspired by Dumas, Orozco, Basquiat, and Kapoor. He made his first films in 1997 and directed several short films, and installations: Friday, June 18 (1999), City of London (1999), Man Walking (2004), Atomic Tree (2006), Woman Walking (2006), Inner Eclipse (2012), Guide de politesse à l’attention de nos forces de l’ordre (2014).

Lothar Hempel was born in 1966. He lives and works in Cologne. He draws his inspiration from German history, Californian New Wave, Greek tragedy, pagan culture, music, and cinema. What matters to him is not the reference as such — taken for what it is or for what it conveys in today’s Western society — but a re-appropriation of these images and this reality to circulate within his individual universe, taking possession of them and thus creating a series of possibilities for specific interpretations by each individual person, in a journey between reality and dream.

Teun Hocks – The Netherlands (1947-2022)

The author of a small theater of the strange, Teun Hocks writes stories without plot and creates untitled paintings, allowing the viewer to freely interpret the meaning - or rather the nonsense - of the images presented to them. His physical omnipresence does not mean he is imposing. He gives us the possibility to inhabit his works, temporarily absenting himself from them, as in the video where he clings to a chandelier swinging back and forth endlessly, intermittently forced to leave the camera’s field of vision and that of our gaze.

Kelly Lamb is an artist and designer born in 1969 and based in Los Angeles. For more than twenty years, she has worked in various disciplines such as sculpture, video, ceramics, furniture, and interior design.

Alexandre Perigot, born in 1959, lives and works in Paris. Through videos, installations, music, and dance, Perigot works to uncover the signs of the society of the spectacle. The territory of his works is situated in the turbulence of the interface between social space and the constitution of the singular self. Attuned to the reality of the world and its multiple manifestations in our society, he is constantly aware of the illusory mechanisms of identification: how do we let ourselves be seduced by celebrity? The models of representing reality, especially through video games, influence our behavior in our daily lives? Is it possible that we use the larger-than-life persona that we often assign to celebrities as a template for constructing our own identity?

La Ribot, born in 1962 in Madrid, lives and works in Spain and Switzerland. She is a renowned artist who works internationally. She studied classical dance in Madrid from the age of thirteen and embraced performance and contemporary dance in the mid-80s. She worked initially in Cannes with Rosella Hightower and then in Germany and New York. Upon returning to Madrid, she created her first piece in 1985, Carita de Ángel. The following year, she founded the Bocanada Danza group with Blanca Calvo, which dissolved in 1989. In the early 90s, she choreographed her first solo work, Socorro! Gloria!, which takes the form of a humorous cabaret show: thus La Ribot was born.

Manfred Sternjakob, born in 1955, lives and works in Germany. He is a video artist whose works are pictorial compositions that stand out for their movement. Influenced by his childhood spent in West Germany and by the American education that shaped him, Manfred Sternjakob weaves references taken from these two cultures which nourish his vivid paintings.

António Olaio, Lubango, Angola, 1963. Lives in Coimbra. Painter and performer. His performances in the early 80’s led him to music. He was one of the founders of the rock group “Reporter Estrábico” in 1986 and, since 1995, the songs he makes with many different musicians are frequently presented in his videos and exhibitions. Solo exhibitions and performances in Portugal, Spain, Holland, Germany, USA, United Kingdom. Diretor of the College of Arts, University of Coimbra from 2013 to 2023.

Beatriz Soares Dias is a queer choreographer and performer who has been questioning language through her body. She navigates between states of empowerment, resistance, intimacy, freedom and sexuality - reflections of her personal rediscoveries - seeking time as a power of (re)construction of her identity as a person and artist.
Highlights collaborations with Companhia Olga Roriz, Wbmotion Kulturverein, Tamara Cubas, André de Campos, Maurícia | Neves, André Uerba, Diana de Sousa, Bruno Alexandre, Francisca Manuel, Mariana Magalhães and Teatro do Mar. She is a trainer at F.O.R. Dance Theatre, being interested in a reconfiguration of educational practices as potencies of change, proximity and manifest. She is developing E c o, an autobiographical project that talks about her breaking the silence to empower her sexuality and identity, with premiere scheduled for 2025.

Francisca Manuel is an artist and film Diretor. She made a trilogy in the Azores between 2017 and 2023, with the video installations “Catherine ou 1786”, “Vale das Dúvidas” and “Seven days with the sea on my left”. Besides the fiction works “211 Avenue”, “Travel Shot”, “Madame” and the documentaries “Courage of Lassie” and “Jungle Red”, she collaborated with other creators in the direction of “Our Skin”, “Mina” and “The Gesture”. In 2011 and 2014, she worked in Brazil with the production companies Filmes de Quintal and Anavilhana. Member of O Lugar do Meio, a cultural and environmental association.

Francisca Dores, Porto 1998. Studied Video, at EASR, and graduated in Audiovisual Communication Technology, at ESMAD. Currently, attending the Master in Cinema, at Escola das Artes, in a pursuit to refine and mature her authorial work. Alongside her work in the field of Cinema, as Diretor, screenwriter, sound Diretor and editor, she also worked on photography projects and sound explorations. Francisca was one of the founding members of the ORCA collective (Orchestra of Robots, Computers and Speakers), at ESMAD, and participated in Miguel Pipa’s Workshop for Experimentation and Alteration of Electronic Circuits and Noise Generators, with a live presentation at “Modes of Use - Workshop #1”, part of the Circular Festival. Francisca’s work explores the psychological, and creation is seen as an act of catharsis that is not independent of its creator.

Ian Capillé (1991) editor and filmmaker born in Rio de Janeiro, currently based in Lisbon. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Audiovisual from UFF (Brazil) and a master’s degree in Multimedia Art from FBAUL (Portugal), under the guidance of filmmaker Susana de Sousa Dias. His early short films have been screened in various festivals in Brazil, winning several awards, including the Revelation Award at the São Paulo International Short Film Festival for the film “Se” (2013). In 2022, he was selected for the artistic residency at Casa do Xisto, working with 16mm celluloid film and presenting the result at Curtas Vila do Conde the same year. Ian is one of the founding members of Laboratório da Cave, a collective of filmmakers dedicated to learning and working with analog filming and handmade cinema, and he is also a member of CORTE - Portuguese Association of Film Editors.

João Saramago (1985) Lisboa/Cardiff. Portuguese born João Saramago trained at Lisbon’s renowned Escola Artística António Arroio, where he specialized in graphic design. Currently working between Cardiff, Wales and Lisbon, Portugal. Meditation and spiritual practice are at the core of his creative output, which he translates into intricate drawings. His practice extends to video, performance and site-specific to explore the human condition, vulnerability and absurdity of existence. Often in a playful way, he links personal and intimate experiences, recurring to repairing narratives using the landscape to meditate on current matters, setting a bridge between mental well-being and environmental issues.

Lula Pena, 1974 (Lisboa).
Poet, composer and visual artist.

Maria Peixoto Martins, Almada, 1996. Lives and works in Lisbon.
In 2014, she began studying Film, Video, and Multimedia Communication, and in 2018, she completed her Bachelor’s degree in Photography at the Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias.
In her artistic practice, she primarily explores photography, video, and installation. She is dedicated to addressing social issues, often using humor, focusing on the psyche and the human body. Performance, representation, and self-representation occupy a central place in her projects. She increasingly examines the limits of digital photography, such as pixelation and chromatic aberrations.

Miguel Leonardo, Portuguese writer, actor and musician, has participated in several works in cinema and theater. He fell in love with cinema in his first work as a main character in Contra Tempo, by André Ivo for the 48 Hours Film Project. The Boy Who Dreamed Too Much is his first film, nominated at three festivals, in the UK and Lisbon. Nominated for the Joaquim de Almeida Grand Prize.

Rafael Raposo Pires (1994) is a Portuguese visual artist with a postgraduate degree in Multimedia Art (Moving Image) from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon. His artistic practice consists of performative photographs and videos produced along pedestrian drifts made in various urban spaces and also related to the body: about its movement in a given landscape and the limits of physical wear and tear.
He exhibits regularly since 2018 in Portugal and abroad. In 2022 he was selected for the Vila Franca de Xira Photography Biennial, and participated in the artist residencies AiR_Cachopo (PT) and Default 22 (IT). In 2023 he obtained a mobility grant through the Culture Moves Europe program, funded by the European Union.

Ricardo Leandro (b. 1982) is a visual artist, filmmaker and creative producer based in Lisbon. His work has a strong presence of video and sound, installation and writing. Lately he has been developing projects that use transmedia practices where the concepts of art and entertainment are constantly put to the test, in order to create debates about the message of the artistic work and its relationship with the public.

Sarah Legow (b. 1982, Youngstown, Ohio, USA) is a multimedia artist living in Porto, Portugal. She earned an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania (2016), BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2011), and BA in Art History from Grinnell College (2005). She has had screenings, exhibitions and site-specific projects shown the US, Canada, Germany, Finland, Czech Republic and South Korea, including at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum (Chicago), Grizzly Grizzly (Philadelphia), Tomato Mouse (Brooklyn), the Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), and ArtSpace Bremerhaven (Bremerhaven, Germany). Her experimental fiction and poetry have appeared in Superpresent Magazine and Maintenant 16: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art.

Sofia Santa-Rita, born in Lisbon in 1994, holds a degree in Communication Design (2017) and a master in Contemporary Typographic and Editorial Practices (2023) from FBAUL, with projects in the field of concrete poetry and video-poems. Defining herself as a multidisciplinary artist, she has a penchant for the paradoxical nature of things, focusing mainly on the image/text relationship, combining poetry, writing and lyrics with photography and video. Endowed with a very flagrant sensory aspect, her work is born from the need to fill the gap between herself and the other. The genesis and consequently the culmination of her work is found in the impetus to tell stories, finding in cinema her current focus and ultimate inspiration.

Anita Nemet is a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist and curator who engages in photography, graphics, installation, and performance. She frequently collaborates with musicians and theater artists in interdisciplinary projects. She was a founding member of the artistic group UPALA (2015-2018). Her work delves into various themes, including local urban contexts and communities, POP culture, radical feminism, queer culture, Ukrainian art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, fashion, beauty practices, language, and the intersection of artistic practice with motherhood. Anita Nemet has a diverse background, which includes previous roles as a TV presenter, university teacher, kindergarten educator, and director of a museum of modern sculpture. In 2022, Anita Nemet was forced to flee the motherland due to the full-scale invasion by Russia. Since July 2022, she has been residing and working in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel.

Carolina Rocha was born in 1987 in the Azores. She is currently an artist in residence at the Art School A Base. She holds a BA and an MA in Visual Arts from the School of Arts and Design (ESAD), Caldas da Rainha. In 2017 she was selected to integrate the catalog “PEAC 2017 - Portuguese Emerging Art Catalogue”, published in Lisbon. In 2013 she received the Artistic Creation Grant from the Regional Direction of Culture of the Azores, which resulted in an individual exhibition entitled “Mistérios da Tinta” (Mysteries of Ink). In 2012 she finished in first place in the Labjovem competition. She currently lives and works in Angra do Heroísmo, on Terceira Island. Her work is represented in several private and public collections, namely: Soroptimist International Club Portugal; the António Duarte Museum, in Caldas da Rainha, the Angra do Heroísmo Museum, and Arquipélago - Contemporary Arts Center.

Elliot Sheedy is a musician, music producer, film-maker and actor. He was born in Pennsylvania, USA, but currently resides on the island of São Miguel, in the Azores. He holds a degree in Visual and Performing Arts from the University of Pittsburgh and completed his Master of Fine Arts in Media Art and Cinema at Emerson College in Boston. As a multidisciplinary artist, Elliot Sheedy creates both the visual and musical elements for his plays and other artistic projects, which blend cinema, creative narrative, and musical composition. His works transport audiences to unusual worlds, immersing them in another dimension. In 2015, Sheedy produced his debut feature film, “Crown of Gamma,” which was filmed in Boston and Pittsburgh. In 2016, he co-founded with the Azorean artist Sofia Caetano Spectacular House, an audiovisual production company. In 2019, he embarked on a United States tour with the album “Cowboy Microwave Music” as part of the Microwave Queen Tour. Currently, he is in the post-production phase of his upcoming feature film, “Miguel the Mystic,” a psychedelic western.

Fernando Nunes was born in the early 1970s in a city on the Portuguese coast: Póvoa de Varzim. He studied philosophy at the University of Coimbra and is currently a secondary school teacher in São Miguel, Azores. Between 2010 and 2016, he collaborated regularly with the Fazendo Cultural Bulletin, based on Faial Island, which is now in its 108th edition. He is the author of four dramaturgies: “O Olhar de uma Inatingível Ternura” (The Gaze of an Unattainable Tenderness); “As Charlas Quotidianas do Doutor Mara” (The Everyday Chats of Doctor Mara); “Podemos Controlar o que os Outros Pensam de Nós?” (Can We Control What Others Think of Us?); and “Sala de Embarque (Departure Lounge)”. Since 2012, Nunes has been a contributor to the blog “Douta Melancolia” (Versed Melancholy), where he shares his poetry and writes about cinema. He also maintains an epistolary correspondence with the character Janeiro Alves, who serves as the alter ego of the artist Pedro Gaspar. Additionally, he has acted in the series “Escrito no Basalto” (Written on Basalt), directed by Zeca Medeiros (2018), and in the documentary “Hálito Azul” (Blue Breath), directed by Rodrigo Areias (2017). He is one of the editors of the fanzine FALTA, which is currently in its 6th edition, and his goal is to promote and disseminate graphic arts, poetry, and visual arts.

Gustavo Fernandes was born in the cradle of basalt on the Madeira Islands. The winds, Atlantic currents, and the embrace of the island of Pico all contributed to infuse life into him. Molded by the demands of computer engineering, he became a defector from formalism due to an innate hyperesthesia that led him to embrace less formal modes of expression, whether through writing, sound, or audiovisuals. As a promoter of the project ‘Ilhas à Escuta - Paisagens Sonoras dos Açores’ (Islands Listening – Soundscapes of the Azores), Fernandes writes for the magazine 9 Bairros (Azores 2027) and collaborates on the project ‘Rede de Memórias - As Mãos das Mulheres nesta Vivência de Ilhéu’ (Network of Memories - Women’s Hands in this Islander’s Experience). He is also a member of the team behind the publication Tramela Aberta, an initiative of the Corvo Vivo Association. However, despite it all, he remains simply an islander.

Luís P Brum is a landscape architect, artist, and cultural producer based on São Miguel Island. He was born in Biscoitos, on the island of Terceira in the Azores, in 1985. He holds a degree in Architecture from the Lisbon School of Architecture, University of Lisbon, and he studied and worked in Barcelona in 2009 and 2010. Upon his return to Portugal, he continued his research in urban intervention, which led him to engage with eco-sociological themes. In 2011, he presented his first solo exhibition at CCC in Angra do Heroísmo and was selected to exhibit at the Interpolos project in Lisbon. In 2014, he participated in the Walk&Talk - Arts Festival, creating a series of murals and holding an exhibition at ARCO 8. In 2016, he became a part of the Anda&Fala team, taking on roles as a producer and artistic director. His short film ‘O Despertar do Melro Preto’ (The Awakening of the Blackbird) was screened at the 5th Mostra LabJovem in 2016. In 2020, he directed a collection of video-essays titled “Um Balanço Sobre Pedro” (A Balance About Peter), which explored different aspects of the exhibition “We Never Say Never na vaga” (We Never Say Never in the wave) (2020) and Fendaatelier (2023). Currently, he is involved in the development of various artistic and architectural projects related to the secondary and tertiary interactions of military personnel at the Lajes Air Base.

Tatiana Costa Nunes, born in 2000 at São Miguel island, Azores.

Tiago Correia was born in Ponta Delgada, on the Island of São Miguel. His love for dance began at an early age, prompting him to commence studies at the Escola de Dança Paz in 2008. Over the years, Tiago Correia has solidified his trajectory as a dancer, collaborating with the Ballet Teatro Paz company and other dance groups. In 2011, he enrolled in the Higher School of Dance (ESD), in Lisbon. He co-founded, along with eight dancers from the Azores, the 37.25 - Núcleo de Artes Performativas, resulting in the creation of numerous shows, performances, videos, and festivals. Tiago Correia is also an actor and has appeared in films such as “Azores: A Dream Journey.” Currently, he is actively involved in several dance projects, including the choreographic project “Açorada,” inspired by the book “A Escrava Açoriana” (The Azorean Slave) by Pedro Almeida Maia. His dedication and passion for dance continue to shape his career in the worlds of film and the performing arts.