Habibi.Works

Michael Wittmann works at the intersection of artistic practices with forms of solidarity and articulations in socio-political fields. His focus is on collaborative (artistic) processes, common workshop settings, and installations in public spaces. In 2016, he joined the open transcultural workshop Habibi.Works, located near Ioannina, Northern Greece, with the aim of supporting people who arrived in Europe after being forced to flee their home countries and creating space for exchange with local communities. As part of this work, he co-developed the sub-project Habibi Dome, a collaborative building project and an open platform for public spaces. Since 2018, the project has been carried out in various European cities and was exhibited at the X-Depot of the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in 2022. Michael graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (MA) in 2018 and is currently pursuing his PhD at the University of Arts Linz, Austria. Additionally, he teaches in various settings, most recently at the University of Arts Linz and the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

Jon Rubin is an interdisciplinary artist who creates collaborative interventions into public life that re-imagine individual, group, and institutional behavior. His socially engaged projects include running a barter-based nomadic art school, founding a national museum, operating a restaurant that produces a live talk show with its customers, and co-directing another that only serves cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. Rubin has exhibited at the Shanghai Biennial; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Mercosul Biennial; the Carnegie International; The Lyon Biennale; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; The Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico; The Rooseum, Sweden; as well as in backyards, living rooms, and street corners. His work has been reported on internationally by outlets including The New York Times, The Associated Press, Art in America, The Boston Globe, La Repubblica, Al Jazeera, and the BBC World News. Conflict Kitchen, Rubin’s collaborative seven-year work with artist Dawn Weleski, was named as one of the 100 Artworks that “Defined the Decade” by Artnet News. Rubin is a Professor in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.

Resonar Lab

Ivan Txaparro is an artist, musician, designer, and researcher based in Berlin, committed to promoting political participation, transdisciplinary art, electroacoustic music, storytelling, and artistic activism. In recent years, Ivan's work has focused on facilitating artistic mediations that promote environmental protection, social justice, and empathetic repair, integrating art, music, and design. Ivan is a researcher at the University of the Arts in Berlin and the creative director of Resonar Lab, an international collective of artists, designers, musicians, and activists dedicated to promoting eco-social transformations. Resonar Lab collaborates with communities, individuals, and collectives, using a participatory and transdisciplinary approach to develop strategies of resistance, experiences of radical imagination, and alternative solidaristic futures. Please visit https://linktr.ee/txap to explore his work.

Parto + Upfarming

Tiago Sá Gomes (Lisbon, 1992) is an architect and co-founder of the Parto studio. Alongside his work at the studio, his professional journey in the field of urban horticulture and community development is particularly noteworthy, especially his past three years as president of Upfarming. Throughout this journey, he has made numerous public appearances on the themes of community and participatory urban horticulture. In this context, in addition to participating in reports dedicated to urban ecology, he has also been invited as a speaker and mediator at conferences, festivals, workshops, and specialised seminars. From the perspective of the recognition of the work carried out by the NGO, the following are worth mentioning: an Honourable Mention in the Fernando Pereira National Environment Prize from CPADA in 2021; the BPI Foundation "La Caixa Solidário” Award in 2022 and the "La Caixa Capacitar" Award in 2024; the mention of the project in Torres Novas Prison as an example of good practices during the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council in 2024; and more recently, the award of the "Prison Achievement Award" by the European Organisation of Prison and Correctional Services.

Habibi.Works

Mimi Hapig is co-founder and strategy director of the intercultural maker-space Habibi.Works in Greece. Born and raised on the German border with Switzerland and France, she has lived, worked, and studied in various Latin American and European countries. At the age of 25, she moved to Greece, where she spent seven years building, maintaining, and reinventing the flagship project Habibi.Works. The project offers 11 free workshop areas for people living in refugee camps and local Greeks, where they can acquire or share skills, build objects and relationships, and create their own solutions. Over the years, Mimi has built a community of thousands of men and women, including craftsmen, specialists, activists, artists, supporters, and many others from all over the world, joining forces to show that the phenomenon of forced migration and its impact on people's lives can be approached differently: with solidarity, respect, and with the goal of creating autonomy and dignity. The project has received various awards, and Mimi has been recognised in several leadership programmes.