Sue Koppel (Ecuador) works at the intersection of physical theater, improvisation, directing, cultural education, and multilingual theater education. She combines somatic practices and interdisciplinary formats with socially engaged outreach. She lives in Berlin.

In her artistic work, Jasmin Namondo (Germany) combines poetry, spoken word, and community organizing. With a bachelor’s degree in psychology (B.Sc.) and a master’s degree in management (M.Sc.) currently in progress, she creates spaces for marginalized voices, particularly BPoC. Since 2019, her performances have taken place in cities such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Cologne. Her first solo exhibition, Voices of Self, will follow in 2025. She will be working in Berlin in 2026 as part of her artistic projects.

Roxana Safarabadi (Germany) writes prose and poetry. She studied acting in Hamburg and has since worked as a freelancer in theater, film, and television—including at the National Theater Weimar, Thalia Theater Hamburg, Theater Bonn, and Kampnagel. In addition to her acting career, she is a co-founder of REMISE – interdisciplinary lab for art and research in Hamburg and was part of the editorial team at DRAMA – Magazine for Scenic Literature. She lives in Berlin.

Edith Steyer (Germany) lives in Berlin and works as a saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer at the intersection of composed and freely improvised music, sound art, and contemporary and ethnic music. She studied ethnology at LMU Munich and saxophone at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz, Austria (graduating in 1994). In addition to her work as a solo artist, she is active in numerous ensembles and regularly organizes interdisciplinary events.

Janina Agnes Baakes (East Berlin) lives in Berlin with her lesbian partner, has been appearing in the ZDF series SOKO Stuttgart since 2018, and is completing a screenwriting program at Schreibhain. In 2023, she received funding through the “Diverses Erzählen” program (DFFB/Serial Eyes). Her writing explores care work, class, the body, and queer-feminist anger and humor. In her spoken-word piece “Mom by Day—Gangster by Night,” being a gangster at night becomes a form of survival: care by day, rebellion by night—a way of coping that navigates the space between reality and possibility.

Sarina Panahideh (Iran) explores themes such as identity, resistance, and women’s rights in depth. Through a powerful fusion of movement and performance, she creates moving works that intertwine personal experiences with political realities. Her pieces have been presented on various stages across Europe and are characterized by their radical physicality and socio-political urgency. Her work has been featured on the BBC, ARTE, DW, and other broadcasters, among others.

Marina Kurochka (Ukraine) completed her training in acting at the L. Utesov KMAECM, specializing in pantomime, as well as at the renowned GITIS acting school in V.A. Andreeva’s workshop. During her studies, she worked at the Kyiv Circus. After graduating in 2020, she worked in theater and also appeared in films. She sings, plays the drums, dances, and teaches acting and stage speech to children and teenagers. Due to the war, she currently lives in Berlin, where she is appearing in the production “The Run Refugee Rave,” directed by Anja Demidova, and also performs at the Galli Theater Berlin.

Anja Demidova (Russia) is a theater director and producer who received classical acting training in Russia, as well as additional training with Jan Fabre (Troubleyn) and Odin Theater, focusing on physical theater and dance. In 2018, she founded the independent theater company Urban Forest Echo. Due to her activism against the war and state persecution following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she lives in exile in Berlin. There, she founded Can.Act e.V., a nonprofit organization that promotes artistic and cultural dialogue and supports artists in difficult situations. Her international experience shapes her artistic work, which has been presented in Russia, Romania, Austria, and Germany—including at the Volksbühne and HAU Berlin, among other venues.

Maria Bitti (Russia) has been living in exile in Berlin since 2023 and is the founder of the Wondering Theater—a theater for children and adults that captivates audiences with its warmth, humor, and family-like atmosphere. Her productions combine imaginative storytelling with lovingly designed spaces and familiar stories, reimagined.

Sasha Andjelo (Russia) lives and works in exile in Berlin. With a classical background in violin and a fascination for retro synthesizers, his style spans post-punk, new wave, and electronic music. As the frontman of the band Behavior Model, he creates melancholic, dark soundscapes and explores the emotional impact of sound beyond traditional song structures. In addition to his artistic work, he works with light and sound, organizes concerts and festivals, and runs an independent music label through which he releases music by artists who, as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, no longer receive support or performance opportunities in their home countries.

Marjan Sareh (Iran) is a transdisciplinary artist whose practice lies at the intersection of fiction, mythology, and cultural memory. Her work focuses on questions of migrant identity, female perspective, and transcultural narration. She trained at the renowned Karnameh Art Institute in Tehran, where she studied under Majid Barzegar and Shahram Mokri, among others. There, she deepened her knowledge of screenwriting, directing, and visual storytelling. Since moving to Germany, Sareh’s artistic practice has explored new forms of collective memory and belonging. She currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master’s degree in Heritage Studies.

Ruoming Zhao (China) is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on the transcendence of meaning within states of indeterminacy and silence. She examines the relationships between femininity, materiality, and social structure through imagined representations of everyday life, love, death, memory, and vulnerability within an intertwined reality. In 2025 she was selected for the “Conditions – Alternative Art Education Program.”

Zeynep Cekinmez (Türkiye) is an Alevi-Turkish poet. She is pursuing a Master’s degree in English Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Her MA thesis focuses on “Refugee Motherhood” in the poetry of Ocean Vuong. Her poems address sexualized violence, migration, intergenerational trauma, panic and anxiety disorders, solidarity, and friendship.

For many years Meri Koivisto (Finland) has lived and worked in Germany. Her career includes numerous roles in film and television productions in the German-speaking world, including leading and supporting roles in series such as Schloss Einstein, Tatort, Großstadtrevier, and SOKO Wismar. Alongside her work in front of the camera, she is also active on theater stages. Her presence is characterized by versatility, Nordic clarity, and a subtle sense of humor.

Victoria Hohmann (she/her. preferably without pronoun) is a German author, text artist and as a mother performing the daily challenge between art and care-work. For her writing means activism. As text artist, she works at the interface text and image. 2024 she founded Offbeat-Publishing for experimental texts. She sees Publishing as an artistic discipline. Her long poems “Potenz.” and the newly republished “Der Frau” (2025) have appeared there. Her debut novel “Lautgemalte Nacht” was published in April 2026 by Literaturverlag Schruf & Stipetic. She lives in Berlin.

Ana Rocío Jouli (Argentina) is an Argentine poet, performer, researcher, and curator. In her work, she explores the possibilities of poetic language in various formats, such as poetry film and lecture performance, which question the boundaries between art and science. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities” at Freie Universität Berlin, where she coordinates the transdisciplinary project Activation Lab: Rewriting the Archive. The lab investigates how archives can be re-read and activated through expanded writing practices and artistic approaches.

JURO (Argentina) studied graphic design and photography at the Escuela de Artes Aplicadas Lino Enea Spilimbergo of the Provincial University of Córdoba. In her current work she focuses on children’s books and graphic novels, where she combines fantastical elements with personal narratives about migration, belonging, and imagined worlds. She lives in Berlin.