Ana Gabriela Macedo (Portugal) is an Associate Professor at Institute of Arts and Humanities of University of Minho and Director of the Arts and Humanities Research Centre of the University of Minho. She holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Sussex, 1990, with the thesis "Wyndham Lewis's Literary Work (1908-1928); Futurism, Vorticism and the Poetics of the Avant-garde". She has taught courses in the areas of English Literature, Theory of Literature, Comparative Literature, Interarts and Gender Studies. She researches in the areas of Comparative Literature, English Literature (Modernism and Postmodernism), Gender Studies and Visual Poetics.
Ane Lan (Norway) is an artist that interprets history, religion, post-colonialism and gender by means of transvestism. The video works conceal ironic political statements about post-colonial western societies and their relation with multiculturalism. The female characters issue gender identities recurring to classic painting, mythology and iconic texts from authors such as Freud, William Blake and Jung.
Aurora Reinhard (Finland) through her work Aurora Reinhard explores female experiences, eroticism and transgression, gender boundaries, marginality, otherness and the construction of femininity from the angle of transsexuals. The attempt to categorize her characters recurring to traditional gender categories is doomed to failure. She challenges stereotypical thinking giving voice to social invisible people, to unique individuals, not attempting to tag them.
High Heel Sisters (Scandinavia) are a group of artist performers consisting of Malin Arnell (Sweden), Line Skywalker Karlström (Sweden/Danmark) Karianne Stensland (Norway) and Anna Linder (Sweden). Their work investigates and raises questions about the societies expectations in relation to its members. Using a feminist analysis they analyze the different kinds of privileges individuals can benefit depending on their gender, sexuality and class.
Jane Gilmor (U.S.A.) is an Intermedia Artist and Professor of Art at Mount Mercy College, Iowa. She holds a MA degree in Painting and a MFA degree in Intermedia from the University of Iowa. She has taught Graduate level courses in New Genres, Intermedia and Undergraduate level courses in Sculpture, New Genres, Drawing, Painting, Performance and Video, Senior Thesis, History of Women Artists, among others. Her recent works combine fabricated and handmade objects, found text, and video to explore issues of identity, dislocation and the construction of myth. A recurrent theme is the questioning of cultural myths often about women.
Jane Jin Kaisen (Denmark) is a visual artist working interdisciplinary with film, video, performance, text, and photography. Using reversed strategies and constructing multi-layered and non-linear narratives, her work attempts to complicate notions of subjectivity, discourse, and ideology. In her performances, through hybrid identities, she raises questions of history and collective memory, notions of race, gender, and culture in post-colonial contemporary Europe.
João de Oliveira (Portugal) is a researcher of Gender Studies and Feminist Theory at the Center of Research and Social Intervention at the Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE) and at Eira 33 (a cultural organization programming activities related to performative and visual arts). He holds a Master's degree from ISCTE and a PhD grant from FCT for the completion of the thesis "The Portuguese debate on abortion". In terms of intervention, he has been involved with Contemporary Arts Creation, namely contemporary dance and visual arts, and was curator of the Festival Temps d'Images - Portugal.
The performative video of Joanna Rytel (Sweden) investigates the social construction of female sexuality in western societies. Her provocative videos disrupt norms of social behavior permitted to individuals; through humor and irony she deals with taboo topics like prostitution, abortion and racism. Her videos are frequently erotic performances staged for animals.
Klara Lidén (Sweden) destroys and recreates objects and structures of every day life. The spaces and objects present in a material constructed context are deviated from their normal functions and uses thus creating transgressive and disquieting new environments. These actions of destruction and reconstruction constitute the artist's performances registered in video pieces that question the conduct and the everyday practices of the individuals in the social arena.
The documentary videos, performative video and live performances of Lilibeth Cuenca (Denmark) use anthropological and sociological points of departure to explore issues of identity, gender, rituals, family structures and social situations. She stages herself and her own multi-ethnic background as daughter of a Philippine mother and a Danish father. Key to her work is the use of humor, which allows her to formulate effective critics and deliver political messages.
The video performances of Lotte Konow Lund (Norway) investigate psychoanalytic and cinematic discourses. Her mentally distressed and disquieting personae, performed by herself, are in alternate states that proceed from assertiveness and aggressiveness to fragility and submissiveness. They give rise to ambiguous feelings of empathy and repulse creating a deep sense of uneasiness in the viewer.
Manuela Cristóvão (Portugal) is an Auxiliary Professor at DAV and Director of the Course Commission of the Visual Arts - Multimedia degree of the UE and researcher of CHAIA in the field of Artistic Mixed Techniques. She holds a Master Degree in Educational Multimedia Communication from the University Aberta and a Ph.D with the thesis "Mixed Technics in the Field of Pictorial Expression from the UE. She has taught courses in the areas of Painting, Photography and Printmaking. She is an artist with exhibitions in Mixed Media Art (Photography, Painting and Printmaking).
Pirjetta Brander (Finland) investigates interpersonal relationships, the family and hierarchies understood as power structures. According to the artist, the most powerful scenes of our lives are played inside our homes, with our loved ones. The family is acknowledged as the central stage of big events and big time drama.
Sanne Kofod Olsen (Denmark) is Rector of the Funen Art Academy, Odense and Associate Professor of the Department of History of Art of the University of Copenhagen (UC). She holds a can. phil. degree and a mag. art. degree in Art History at the UC with a specialization in American feminist art and theory. Since the mid-90s she has been specializing in Danish feminist art as well as contemporary art. She has been employed at the Danish Contemporary Art Foundation (1999-2003), Danish Arts Agency (2003-2005). Since 1994 she has been a freelance writer, lecturer and curator.
Teresa Furtado (Portugal) is an Assistant Professor at DAV of UE and CHAIA's researcher in women's video art. She holds a Master of Arts Degree from the Royal College of Arts, London and a PhD Grant from FCT for the completion of the thesis "The Feminine Territory of Video Art: Critic and Subversion of the Western Patriarchal Structures" at UE. She has taught courses in the area of Painting, Drawing and Multimedia. Her recent video art work combines dolls and miniature toys, which are used for the deconstruction of fairy tales from a feminist theory's perspective.
The Icelandic Love Corporation (Iceland) is a group of three artists: Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir, Jóní Jónsdóttir and Eirún Sigurdardóttir that create performances, objects and videos since 1996. Their ritualistic performances, transgressive, filled with humor, irony and implicit meanings recur to the social and political contexts that embrace the artists and art-historical references to elaborate subtle social critics.
