Gulzat Matisakova, is a documentary filmmaker interested in the stories of the oppressed. She describes her approach to filmmaking as personal in perspective and political in scope. The stories she tells are intimate and focused on highlighting social injustices. She tries to make films in the spirit of radical softness when the well-being of the characters must be paramount, even if that means the film might not get made.
Gulzat has studied documentary film in the fully funded Erasmus Mundus master’s program “Doc Nomads” and since 2017, she has been based in Hamburg and Berlin. For the Berlin Bishkek Art Weeks She will be presenting a short movie she has previously shown at “Kunsthaus Hamburg” based on her upbringing in Kyrgyzstan.
Kadir “Amigo” Memiş is a creative artist whose childhood memories inform his work as a dancer, choreographer, and calligrapher. Growing up as a shepherd in a village of 300 people in Anatolia, he moved to Berlin with his parents in 1984, where he discovered hip-hop culture and breakdance.
As an urban nomad, Amigo immersed himself in the city’s diverse culture, which he translated into his unique movements. He is one of the pioneers in Germany who combined hip-hop with other elements, like traditional Turkish folk dance zeybek, which he fused with breakdance to create Zeybreak.
After graduating from high school, Amigo trained as a technical draftsman, which influenced his choreography with its emphasis on precision. His calligraphy, which he has been producing for over thirty-two years, also reflects this attention to detail. The black lines of his drawings move impulsively yet thoughtfully, creating circles and setting points. In his work, the boundaries between performance and visual art become increasingly blurred.
Amigo is also active in the street art scene and was part of the exhibition project Backjumps – The Live Issue in Berlin in 2003. The project explored the interfaces of street art, aerosol culture, and hip hop, presenting the contemporary developments of these art forms. Amigo was influenced by Berlin writers Akim, Tagno, and Zast of the legendary Jazzstyle Corner. In all his work, Amigo strives to achieve a form in which intuition and reflection are in harmonious accord with each other.“I draw my inspiration primarily from contemporary everyday objects, artifacts and memorabilia.”
Kartelovic’s often large-scale works break down the design boundaries between traditional craft and digital design and transfer them into a new context, with which he addresses the interplay between nostalgia and the present.
Beverly Destiny Renekouzou is a painter, performer, and artistic director.
Her work is deeply rooted in her experiences of moving by different social classes and political contexts. She had explored life between France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Central African Republic, and Germany.
Through an intersectionality lens, Renekouzou’s large-scale paintings depict a lifelong process of healing, where black women suspend time to reflect in a contemplative posture.
Thus, in a spirit of collecting and honoring old lives memories, she dresses up their mediums of expression with second-handed pieces of jeans carrying multiple individual stories. A reason to protect the widespread vulnerability and melancholy of these characters’ paintings with an intermediate presence of wisdom.
Moritz Lindur is at the forefront of an emerging generation of artists in Berlin.
His career has taken him from a business school education to tattooing and, in recent years, to canvas. As a tattoo artist, he traveled around the world, gathering perspectives and experiences and permanently inscribing them into the skin of those who seek him out.
Lindur’s work is a mirror that sincerely shows case studies of society and what it means to be a citizen of this current edition of civilization. This is not to say that his work is easy. It isn’t. His art is rich with “unseen” detail. An intentional challenge that the artist proposes directly to the viewer, a gift to the hunter of discrete detail.
By taking time to observe, one can explore a world rich with generational differences, injustices, political chaos, and issues of privilege. His medium of choice, the ballpoint pen, is directly related to one of humanity’s most natural yet complex forms of expression: language and the written word.
In response to this phenomenon, Moritz Lindur has developed a visual language all his own. A language that allows the viewer to see everything – or nothing at all.
Apl315 started off as a graffiti writer in the early 2000’s and to date had numerous solo exhibitions in the Ukraine and abroad. His education is key to understanding the artist’s individual strategy: as a professional entomologist educated at the Odessa State University’s invertebrate department, he researched organic aesthetics and created images, which, from afar, looked like the silhouettes of insects.
While continuously working on the streets, Apl315 began to move into new territory and migrated to post-graffiti practices. In the second half of the 2010s, he began using alternative media when creating new works. In interdisciplinary art projects, the artist combines his entomologist background with the newly acquired passion for amateur archaeological research and metal detection. In his case, the metal detector becomes a tool of artistic expression as most of his newer artworks are assembled from objects found on the streets, beaches and in parks. Old nails, coins and rusted cans tell the stories of bygone days, referring to the classical baroque vanitas genre which was focused on the transience of life. His most recent projects are dedicated to the war-torn areas in Ukraine and the Balkans. In large-scale multimedia installations, he asks questions about the fragility of modern-day ecosystems and uncovers deep historical traumas of Eastern and South-Central Europe.Vincent Grunwald is a visual artist who works in multimedia, using writing and language to critically examine the mechanisms of control, organization, and punishment in our present. His work has been presented internationally in cities such as Buenos Aires, New York, Belgrade, Moscow, and Paris. Later this year, exhibitions of his work will be held in Milan and New York.
Tony Futura is an artist based in Berlin who works in a multidisciplinary manner and focuses on critically reflecting on current social issues. The artist primarily concentrates on the excessive materialism, Western pop culture, and the so-called ‘First World Problems’ of our modern lives. Futura critiques them in often ironic ways and ruthlessly exposes their weaknesses. In his sculptural and installation works, iconic motifs and objects are frequently found.
„Bigoteacrochet“ (Tino) an berlin based Artist from Chile. He is a member of WEBEREI, a collective, that produce textile with an artist inclination. With his work he experiment with different visual techniques and translate everything he wants in a textile language.
Thomas Korn
Niklas Apfel, is an interdisciplinary artist based in Berlin. While focusing on graphic design and illustration in his professional work, Apfel explores contrasting themes in his personal artistic endeavors. Working in his studio K18 at Südstern, he creates large-scale canvases through dynamic and sport-like sessions.
Apfel’s approach is characterized by abstracted and transformed depictions of figures, scenes, and typography. In his Master’s thesis, he explores the proportions of figures, aiming to create a spatial installation to be presented at the 2023 exhibition.
Malte Fröhlich, is a visual artist renowned for his documentary media practices. Based in Berlin and Cologne, his works delve into captivating narratives and thought-provoking concepts.
Hisartistic journey has taken him from working as a director and technical assistant in theater and media productions to studying at prestigious art institutions across Europe. With a focus on performative works and interventions in public spaces, Fröhlich’s art invites viewers to engage with compelling experiences.