Alexander Schmoeger is an architect and part of the firm schmidt-colinet • schmoeger, which works chiefly on residential and school buildings as well as exhibitions and research projects. He regularly taught at the Vienna University of Technology. Together with Lisa Schmidt-Colinet and Florian Zeyfang he develops projects, exhibitions and films on architecture in Cuba. They published the reader Pabellón Cuba (2008) with Eugenio Valdés Figueroa.

Florian Zeyfang is an artist, filmmaker and author. His recent projects have addressed architecture, film/archive and permanence of images. He has taught as a professor at the art academies in Umeå and Aarhus and publishes studies on experimental film, technology and art. Together with Lisa Schmidt-Colinet and Alexander Schmoeger, Zeyfang develops projects, exhibitions and films on architecture in Cuba. They published the reader Pabellón Cuba (2008) with Eugenio Valdés Figueroa.

Lisa Schmidt-Colinet is an architect and part of the firm schmidt-colinet • schmoeger, which works chiefly on residential and school buildings as well as exhibitions and research projects. She is deputy director of the Institute of Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Together with Alexander Schmoeger and Florian Zeyfang she develops projects, exhibitions and films on architecture in Cuba. They published the reader Pabellón Cuba (2008) with Eugenio Valdés Figueroa.

Siggi Hofer was born on January 21, 1970, in Brunico, Italy. He studied at the Master School of Painting under Prof. Gerhart Lojen in Graz and at the University of Applied Arts under Prof. Mario Terzic in Vienna. He lives and works in Vienna.

Susanne Jirkuff is a visual artist and filmmaker. In her works she depicts urban spaces and the stories and narratives that are embedded in them. The(re)presentation of space via media channels is footage for drawings and is further developed to semi-fictional animated films and installations.

Meike Schmidt-Gleim was born in 1972 in Wolfsburg, Germany. From 1995 to 2000 she worked as a freelance art critic. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, she graduated with a doctorate in philosophy in 2005. From 2007 to 2008 she taught at the Kunstakademie Münster. She has been a research associate at Fulda University of Applied Sciences since 2019, specializing in democratic theory, critical theory, image theory, and gender studies.

Markus Schinwald's interdisciplinary body of work encompasses video, performance, dance, theatre, painting, photography, installation, and even puppetry. The artist creates mysterious and unsettling atmospheres that hint at their Viennese production context, through references to the austere Biedermeier style or to psychoanalysis. His work focuses on processes of manipulation and transformation of bodies and their environments. This emphasis is rooted in his early training in fashion and costume history, which not only awakened his general interest in clothing, but also drew his attention to the ways in which people are physically and emotionally limited by their cultural context.

Schinwald has declared himself a 'builder of prostheses for undefined cases', and alters 19th-century portraits by painting improbable apparatuses on the characters' faces and bodies, such as bandages, splints or wires that seem to fasten their limbs together. The artist has also developed a series of manipulated pieces of furniture, often using Biedermeier table or chair legs that are characteristic of the style valued by a growing middle-class in that period. He transforms these items by sawing off the legs and rearranging them in uncanny ways that often bring out their anthropomorphic qualities.

Birgitta Rottmann was born in Kufstein, Austria. She received a Master's degree in Architecture at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

Jun Yang is a self-taught, multifaceted, and resourceful artist who uses a broad range of techniques and materials creating art pieces in a variety of sizes and locations, from intimate canvases to full scale murals. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Jun has made San Francisco his home for the past 12 years. The city continues to inspire Jun and his art with its cultural diversity, celebrated urban landscape, natural beauty as well as the socially inclusive culture which provides support and protection for queer artists like him.

Jun’s work seeks to evoke emotions through his use of space and colors. Jun’s art speaks to viewers across cultures and continents in a unique way, transcending the need for common language. Each piece is incomplete until the viewers contribute their own contexts to the artistic conversation.

Sophie Thalbauer (Esslinger) was born in 1970 in Graz, Austria. She attended the Technical College for Sculpture in Graz, and studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Gustav Peichl, Rüdiger Lainer, Michael Sorkin, and Nasrine Seraji.

painting animals, plants, humans, mythes fairy tales and old truths

Karoline Streeruwitz was born in 1977 in Vienna, Austria. She studied architecture with Hans Hollein at the Academy of Applied Arts Vienna and with Nasrine Seraji, Michael Sorkin, and Robert Mull at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. From 1999 to 2000, she participated in the MAK-Schindler Artists-in-Residence Program with Franka Diehnelt. In 2001 and 2002, she studied Architecture and Urban Studies at the University of Buenos Aires. In 2002, she completed her diploma, In the Pampas of Buenos Aires, with Robert Mull in Vienna.

Franka is an award-winning designer with a Master’s degree in Architecture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. In her co-owned studio practice, she is responsible for the execution of large scale multi-million-dollar public art works for commercial entities and municipalities. Franka specializes in conceptual integration of color and their emotional effects in any form of design.

Mathias Poledna was born in 1965 in Vienna and has lived in Los Angeles since 2000. His work often takes the form of highly sophisticated films that betray a tension between the visuals presented and their cultural and political implications. Entertainment and its production are key subjects for Poledna as he focuses on the forms and materials that capture the imagination and illustrate societies to themselves. In all of his works the detail and precision of the images are seductive as they, in a sense, explore artifice through artifice. Although invariably newly produced, they often create the impression of having been found as they are, seemingly extricated from present-day or historical collective memories.

Poledna studied at the University (then College) of Applied Arts and at the University of Vienna. He has participated internationally in numerous major and group exhibitions, including the 2004 Berlin Biennial, the 2006 Whitney Biennial, the 2008 Yokohama Trienniale, the 2013 Sydney Biennial, the 2018 Liverpool Biennial, and Made in L.A. 2020. In 2013 Poledna represented Austria at the 55th Venice Biennial. Other solo exhibitions include the Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria, in 2001; Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig Vienna, in 2003; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2006; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA, in 2007; Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany (with Christopher Williams), in 2009; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York City, USA, in 2010; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 2013; and the Vienna Secession, Austria; The Renaissance Society, Chicago, in 2014; Halle für Kunst, Graz, Austria, in 2024; Central Museum, Utrecht, in 2026, amongst others. In 2009, the artist was awarded the City of Vienna Prize for Visual Arts, and in 2023 the Austrian State Prize for Art.

Wolfgang Koelbl was born in 1965 in Austria. He studied architecture at the Technical University in Vienna, the University of Michigan, and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

After completing his studies, he turned to new media (digital videos) and theoretical work. His interests include mass phenomena such as the Internet and metropolitan environments.

Selected exhibitions include Tokyo Superdichte (audiovisual installation, Podroom, Vienna, 2000), Superheroes (video projection, Podroom, Vienna, 2000), and Total Control, 24 Hours Video Supervision (Cochran Ave, Los Angeles).

Awards include a purchase prize from the Membrane Design Competition (Japan, 1997) and a purchase prize from WBW Traumhäuser heute (Germany, 1996).

Judith Ammann was born in 1954 in the Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland. From 1970 to 1976, she studied Graphic Design at the Lucerne School of Design. Between 1988 and 1997, she pursued studies in Film and New Media in Frankfurt and Offenbach am Main, Germany. She lives in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Michael Wallraff studied scenery design at the Academy of Fine Arts and architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, as well as at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. Since 1997, he has worked independently in Vienna, Munich, and Los Angeles. His Vienna-based architecture office, established in 2004, has been active in a wide range of fields—including urban planning, adaptations, conversions, extensions, new buildings, stage design, exhibitions, furniture, and everyday cultural objects.

In addition to receiving the Schütte-Lihotzky Fellowship (1998) and the Schindler Fellowship (1999), Wallraff was awarded funding from the City of Vienna’s “departure” program in 2009. He has also received numerous competition prizes, including first prize in the EU-wide, two-stage open competition for the State Vocational School Center Graz-St. Peter (2007). A solo exhibition of his work opened in October 2011 at the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art in Vienna.

Carl Schaeffer was born in 1973 in Mittersill, Austria. From 1988 to 1993, he attended high school for fashion design. He studied architecture at the Technical University of Vienna from 1993 to 1995 and continued his architecture studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1995 to 1998.

Walter Kraeutler was born in 1974 in Hohenems, Austria. From 1992 to 1995, he studied architecture at the Technical University of Vienna. From 1995 to 1998, he continued his studies in architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna under Prof. Fuksas and Prof. Penttilä.

Tobias Urban was born in 1966 and lives and works in Vienna, Austria. He is a member of Gelitin, a collective consisting of artists Ali Janka, Florian Reither, Tobias Urban, and Wolfgang Gantner, who first met at summer camp in 1978. They formed Gelitin in the mid-1990s in Vienna and began exhibiting internationally in 1993.