Photo by Fabrizio Farroni 2022

Elsa Mencagli (1990, Denmark/Italy) is a multimedia artist currently based in Italy. She holds a Bachelor's from the Aarhus School of Architecture (Denmark, 2016) and a Master of Fine Art in Performing Arts from the Iceland University of the Arts (Iceland, 2019). As a multimedia artist, she creates and thinks across media, from sculptural installation to video and performance. Through practices of attentive listening and attunement to both the body and the environment, her creative work takes form in the attempt to reveal and make felt what often remains unnoticed. She is interested in crafting conditions to experience diverse modes of encounter that may create shifts in perception and propose different modes of inter-relation. Her work is often situated in a specific environment, becoming with and within it.

Elsa has presented her work nationally and internationally in Italy, USA, Germany, Iceland and Portugal. Her most recent collaborations are with Paula Diogo (PT) in ”Terra Nullius”, presented at the National Theater D. Maria II in Lisbon, and with Alex Cassal (BRA) in ”A Biblioteca do Fim do Mundo”, presented at the Verão festival Azul 2021 in Loulé. She is a recipient of the Artists Development Programme 2022 of the European Investment Bank Institute with a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

Íris Stefanía (1989, Iceland) is a performance artist and curator working within the realm of feminism with a focus on women's sexual behaviour; their longings and desires, taboos and shame. Pleasure is the center and a starting point in Iris's practice. She has collected and published masturbation stories from women and held gatherings where she performs verbal flashing inspired by the Goddess Baubo.

Iris focuses on the pleasurable. In her work, she has been opening up the discussion and addressing some taboos regarding women's right to choose what they do with their lives and bodies with the aim to empower women all around the world.

Besides pleasure and masturbation Iris has recently been working with the themes; of ecosexuality, orgasmic birth and women who choose a childfree lifestyle.

Ellen Lili Vanderstraeten (1995,Belgium) is a performer, creator and curator. She is fascinated by co-creative ways of making art and the multiformity of textiles. Her work departs from daily routines of care such as walking, sleeping, cooking, reading ... which she experimentally loosens from their monotonous patterns to create new sensory experiences.

Ellen Vanderstraeten graduated in 2017 from the RITCS (Brussels) with the performance installation ‘Dancing Darlings’ in collaboration with fine artist Elise Gyshelen. In 2018 she created an artistic beauty salon in collaboration with children of the neighborhood Laeken (Brussels) and the project ‘UNI Beauty Salon’ was presented at the participatory festival ENTER BXL. Ellen has been working and presenting multidisciplinary artwork in Belgium, Ukraine, Iceland, Finland and Canada. In October 2019 Ellen obtained a Master in Performing Arts at the Iceland University of the Arts. After she assisted in several of collective projects such as Senselab (a laboratory for thought in motion initiated by Erin Manning) in Montréal, ‘After Erika Eiffel’ by Loren kronemyer in Finland at ANTI Festival, and ‘Cultural Diversity Lab’ at UQAM (CA) initiated by Romeo gongora.

Currently she shares the artistic direction with Leonie Buysse of the long term research project ‘Spa for Spirits’, an experimental wellness center operated by otherworldly creatures.

María Arnardóttir (1989, Iceland) is an artist based in Iceland. Trained in music, design, mindfulness, performance and ceramics - she uses her wide range of experiences as tools to manipulate and create spaces. Her work is often site-specific and exists at the blurry intersection of performance and installation. The work focuses on play and process more so than outcomes and results. This focus contributes to broadening the idea of performance by using it as an instrument for cultural exercise and social action.

She has developed a body of transdisciplinary solo and collective work in Europe and North America. María regularly collaborates with artists who share her ongoing fascination with the physicality of both performer and audience. Textures, rituals and Icelandic turf houses are topics of current exploration.

Paula Diogo (1977, Portugal) is a Lisbon-based performer and stage director with an artistic background based on collaborative processes. Meandering through art-making and producing, she holds a BA in Theater from the ESTC in Lisbon and a MA in Performing Arts from the Iceland University of the Arts. She is co-founder of several collectives, such as Teatro Praga, TRUTA and O Pato Profissional. She has also worked with several artists and companies both in Portugal and abroad.

Recently, she has been consolidating Má-Criação (Bad Creation); a platform that brings together creators from different backgrounds and geographies. She is a member of the collective CELESTIAL BODIES, a project dedicated to opening up spaces that integrate practices of solidarity, care, empathy and wonder.

Paula Diogo is one of the artists supported by apap - FEMINIST FUTURES a project co-funded by the Creative Europe Program of the European Union (2021-24).