Contributor

Sebastian Herkner (born 1981) studied Product Design at HfG Offenbach University of Art and Design. During his studies he began to focus on designing objects and furniture, honing his keen sense for materials, colors and textures. For a short while he then worked for Stella McCartney in London.

Lilli Hollein is the newly appointed general director of the MAK-Museum of Applied Arts Vienna. She was until May 2021 director and one of three co-founders of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK, Austria's largest design festival. She completed her industrial design studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

Carsten Höller applies his training as a scientist to his work as an artist, concentrating particularly on the nature of human relationships.

Architect, Founder Bjarke Ingels Group
Bjarke believes the architectural profession is best explained with the traditional Danish word for design: Formgivning. As the name suggests it literally means form giving. When you design something, you give form to that which has not yet been given form – you are shaping the future. When you design a space, a building or a city, you are giving form to the world you yourself would want to living in.

Timothy Ingold is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He has carried out fieldwork among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology, and social organization in the circumpolar North, on animals in human society, and on human ecology and evolutionary theory. His more recent work explores environmental perception and skilled practice. Ingold’s current interests lie on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art, and architecture.

Established in 2005, Random International is a post digital art group exploring the impact of technological development on the human condition. Best known for their large-scale interactive installations, the group works across an array of media including sculpture, light, kinetics, video, print, and sound. Led by founders Hannes Koch (b.1975, Germany) and Florian Ortkrass (b.1975, Germany), the group has a studio in London and comprises a global team of complementary talent. Experimental by nature, Random International’s practice is fuelled by research and scientific discovery.

Co-Founder and Director, Superflux & Professor, Design Investigations, Angewandte, Vienna.

A designer, filmmaker, futurist and educator, Anab Jain grew up in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, within the entangled postcolonial landscapes of a fast-growing nation. Through a series of planned and unplanned circumstances, she has made London her home. Although the idea of a ‘home’ remains as expansive as our hearts and minds.

Dr Shelley James is an international expert on light and well-being, blending her roles as lighting design consultant and curator, TEDx and keynote speaker, author, and elected member of the WELL Light Advisory Team. Dr Shelley is also a visiting lecturer at both RCA and UCL. Dr James has made significant contributions to the field, including a TEDx talk that was one of the top three most-watched worldwide in the month following the launch and a social media campaign reaching over 2.5 million adolescents worldwide.

Born in Sofia in 1978. Graduated from the National School of Italian Language and Culture in Sofia, she studied Economics and Commerce in Milan, where she worked in the fashion photography sector, dealing with publishing and advertising campaigns.

She has always drawn.

The strong focus on marketing and product strategy, as well as image, persisted over the next twenty years of tangible expressions, on the border between art and design.

Nasir Kassamali, is a pivotal figure in the contemporary design landscape co-founder of Luminaire, is renowned for revolutionizing the design and home furnishing industry in the US. After emigrating from Kenya, he and his wife, Nargis, opened Luminaire in Miami in 1974, initially focusing on lighting but soon expanding to offer a wide range of design products. Luminaire grew to become a beacon of contemporary design, known for its curated exhibitions, educational programming, and efforts to make design accessible to a broader audience.

The internationally acclaimed architect Francis Kéré garnered critical praise from the beginning of his architectural practice when awarded the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first ever building - a primary school he designed, raised the funds for and realised in collaboration with the residents of his native Gando, Burkina Faso. In 2022, he became the first African architect to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize. 

Anniina Koivu is a design writer, curator, consultant and teacher, who divides her time between Milan and Lausanne. She works across a number of fields, from curation to art direction, product development, and editorial and research projects, which she develops for clients such as Kvadrat, Iittala, Vitra, Camper and the Fogo Island Workshops and Shorefast Foundation.

Arianna Lago is an Italian photographer currently based in Los Angeles. Arianna pursued a BA in Sound Art and Design at the University of the arts in London. During her degree, she began playing with images which consequently led her to work as a compositor and visual effects artist. While working on feature films, advertising, and tv Arianna self-trained in photography and kept shooting personal work. It became more clear to her that photography was her only outlet for her creative vision Through passion and determination, She turned her love for photography into a career.

Gaia Lamperti is a multimedia journalist based in London covering art, design and technology through the lens of social inclusion and sustainable innovation. With a degree in Italian Literature from the University of Milan (2015-2018) and a Master’s degree in International Journalism from City, University of London (2019-2020), Gaia has worked with international media companies, online publications and non-profit organisation across news reporting, feature writing, podcasting and visual storytelling.

Charles Landry works with cities to help them make the most of their potential. Acclaimed as a speaker, author and innovator he facilitates complex urban change projects. An authority on using imagination in self-sustaining urban change he has worked and given talks in over 60 countries and helped shift how we harness possibilities in reinventing our cities. Charles has written over a dozen books, most recently: The Creative Bureaucracy and The Civic City in a Nomadic World. His best-known works are The Creative City: A toolkit for Urban Innovators and The Art of City Making.

Graduated in Liberal Studies in Communication from the University of Milan in 2021, he later earned a Master in Music Publishing and Production from the IULM Communication School in 2022.

After curating a cinematography-centered radio program broadcasted from Radio Statale during his university years, he served on the editorial staff for the Milan-based indipendent station Radio Popolare.