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.