Adam Štěch

As an art theoretician, writer, and curator, Adam Štěch is focused on design, architecture, and fashion. He is a co-founder of the creative collective OKOLO, responsible for dozens of design publications and exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad. Since 2009 he has been the editor of Prague-based magazine Dolce Vita. Štěch writes for Wallpaper, Modernism, DAMN°, Cool Hunting, Domus, Architonic, Mark, Frame, A10, and Sight Unseen. He has collaborated with Phillips de Pury, Casa Mollino, Gubi, Designblok, Tolix, Verreum, Form, Design Museum Holon, Depot Basel, Bratislava Design Week, Vienna Design Week, Ziba, Dox, Qubus, Maharam, and more.

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Anja Neidhardt

Currently based in Berlin, Anja is a reader, writer, editor and curator travelling between languages, countries and the various fields of design. In 2016, she graduated with a master in Design Curating and Writing from the Design Academy Eindhoven. Her texts have been published by form, The Weekender, PLOT, Fictional Journal and Designabilities, among others. She is also teaching design history at the Academy of Visual Arts Frankfurt.

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Anna Sansom

Anna Sansom is a British-born, Paris-based journalist who writes about art, design, and architecture for DAMN°, Frame, Mark, The Art Newspaper, Whitewall, Art Now and Noblesse (China).

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Anne France Berthelon

Trend analyst and journalist Anne-France Berthelon is an adept of crossovers, versatility and mobility. While studying Languages, she was also creating knitwear patterns and then found herself working as a freelance copywriter in the last golden years of advertising before becoming a marketing strategy analyst for fashion offices. Her passion for design and its global ecosystem makes her a regular contributor of design publications such as Next-Libération, AMC, Ideat, The Good Life, AD China and, more recently, DAMn°.

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Claus Meyer

Believing in food as a driver for social change, Claus Meyer co-founded the Melting Pot Foundation USA in 2015. This was a natural consequence of the philan- thropic entities he had initiated in his native Denmark, where he taught prisoners how to cook, and in Bolivia, where he created a number of cafeterias and restau- rants to train young people for jobs in the food world. It was with the aim of improving the quality of life for vul- nerable and marginalised residents that Meyer started to look for new opportunities in NY. He then met with Lucas Denton, who had life-long experience in the poverty and failing health situation in Brownsville, a Brooklyn neighbourhood. The Brownsville Community Culinary Center was born, in an area that had not had a proper restaurant in perhaps 50 years.

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Cristina Guadalupe Galván

Cristina Guadalupe Galván is a visual artist, architect and writer from Spain based in New York. She is principal at Idée Fixe, a trans-disciplinary studio of art and architecture where she addresses social and cultural issues through critical thinking and media-specific projects.

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Daniel Charny

Daniel Charny is a designer, curator and design educator. He is creative director at From Now On, a creative and cultural consultancy. Involved in design education for 20 years including Senior Tutor at the at the Royal College of Art, Charny is now Professor of Design at Kingston University and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Between 2002 - 2010 he was the founding curator of The Aram Gallery for experimental and new design. From Now On are Content and Interpretation Consultants to the Design Museum London.

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Elien Haentjens

Since 2006 writes for different magazines, newspapers, books and websites about art, design, architecture, culture and lifestyle in general. Since 2012 curates exhibitions, mostly about Belgian design and art in Brasil.

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Emmanuel Babled

Born in France, Emmanuel Babled graduat- ed in industrial design, and since founding Emmanuel Babled Studio in 1992 (which from 2016 has been based in Lisbon), he has developed glassware, tableware, furni- ture, lighting, luxury objects for the fashion market, limited editions and unique pieces for clients including Baccarat, Bulgari, Laurent Perrier, Magis, Superego and FontanaArte, to name just a few. A curator of exhibitions, he has also collaborated with the Domus Academy and Design Academy Eindhoven, as a visiting professor. His design approach is based on the idea that a good project comes about through direct contact and physical presence in the territory of its production, and as result he works closely with numerous European craft districts.

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Eva Steidl

Eva Steidl is a London based journalist, curator and design communication strategist. After studying arts management, she worked for Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin and curated Haus der Gegenwart, an experimental exhibition space in Munich, and now realises publications, exhibitions and workshops for international brands, companies and institutions.

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Francesco Spampinato

Francesco Spampinato is a New York-based contemporary art historian and writer. He is Adjunct Professor at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, and Ph.D. candidate in Arts et Média at Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris. He is the author of Come Together: The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design, Princeton Architectural Press, New York (2015) and Can You Hear Me? Music Labels by Visual Artists, Onomatopee, Eindhoven (2015).

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Gabrielle Kennedy

Gabrielle Kennedy is an Amsterdam-based design journalist and editor. From 2009 to 2014 she was editor-in-chief of Design.nl, and from 2014 to 2017 was the in-house journalist at Design Academy Eindhoven. She has written about design for The Australian, The Japan Times, Singapore Straits Times, The Economist, POL Oxygen, Dezeen, Wallpaper, and Icon Magazine among others.

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Ieva Laube

Ieva Laube is a journalist exploring the creative scenes of Europe ‘on the go’, contributing to digital and printed publications back home in Latvia and abroad. While pursuing a career in writing with a focus on design, architecture, photography, fashion, art and creative initiatives, she loves to engage in non–related endeavors that strive to overstep the perception of conventional thinking, carrying out multidisciplinary performative projects. She is also the managing director of fashion label Collar Swimwear.

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Inês Revés

Lisbon-based design journalist, studied product design in the Portuguese capital and earned her master's in design cultures in Amsterdam. Having completed her degree, she joined the Frame magazine's team as an editorial intern before moving back to Lisbon to work as a freelancer. She has since contributed to publications such as Domus, Metropolis, Disegno and Damn.

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Jean Grogan

Jean Grogan is a Dublin-born graphic designer, design writer and editor-at-large who fulfilled a lifelong dream of living beside the Eiffel Tower, unaware that it would one day be the Euro 2016 FanZone. She writes on design, typography, photography and architecture for Creative Review, Wallpaper*, Icon, Pulp and DAMNº, amongst other titles. Her coup so far this year was cornering Ai Wei Wei at a cocktail in Paris and asking him “Are you happy?” which produced guffaws of Champagne fuelled laughter from the artist.

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Johanna Seelemann

Johanna Seelemann is a designer based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. She is interested in object identities, resources and systems in our global material culture. Her collaborative works have been presented during Antenna 2017, a conference curated by Design Indaba and the Icelandic DesignTalks in 2018. She graduated from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, previously worked for Formafantasma, persistently develops works with three friends, attends the Contextual Design master programme at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and recently writes for DAMN°.

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John Thackara

John Thackara writes stories and talks about his research in a widely read blog and in dozens of published books. The most recent of these is How To Thrive In The Next Economy (2015). He studied philosophy and then went on to produce design and architecture events at the Pompidou Centre (Paris), Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Axis Gallery (Tokyo), and other venues. In the early 1990s, Thackara was Director of Research at the Royal College of Art. He subsequently became the rst Director of the Netherlands Design Institute in Amsterdam (1993—1999). He is currently Senior Fellow at the Royal College of Art in London, Fellow at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, and professor at SVA in New York. In 2015 Thackara received an honorary doctorate from Plymouth University in England, and he’s also a member of the UK Parliament’s Standing Commission on Design.

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Jurriaan Benschop

Jurriaan Benschop is a Dutch writer, art critic and curator who is based in Berlin. He is a regular contributor to Artforum International and DAMn* magazine. He published several books, among them De Berg van Cézanne (2006, essays on painting and photography, in Dutch) and Francis Bacon, Graphic Work (2014).

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Leen Creve

After working nine years as a fulltime design editor for the main Belgian lifestyle magazine Knack Weekend, journalist Leen Creve (1981) left the mothership to work as a freelancer, interviewing people in the creative areas of design, interiors, architecture, gardening, crafts and photography. In Belgium and abroad. Proud stockist of Damn.

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Léopold Lambert

Léopold Lambert is an architect, writer, and editor of The Funambulist Magazine and Archipelago podcast that both examines the politics of the built environment in relation to bodies. He is the author of Weaponized Architecture (dpr-barcelona, 2012), as well as Topie Impitoyable: The Corporeal Politics of the Cloth, the Wall and the Street (punctum books, forthcoming 2015), and La politique du bulldozer (B2, forthcoming 2015).

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Liliana ALbertazzi

Liliana Albertazzi is a Paris-based university research director, aesthetics professor, and author. She is involved with the Ministry of Culture as a consultant for The Grand Paris project and is also engaged in research development for university programmes in design and art.

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Lyle Rexer

Lyle Rexer is an independent critic, curator and writer. He is the author of numerous books, catalogue essays, and articles on art, architecture, and photography. He contributes to many publications and writes a regular column for Photograph magazine. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. His website is under construction. Photo credit: Daguerreotype by Jerry Spagnoli.

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Marc Viardot

Marc Viardot is managing director (Central Europe) & director of marketing and products at Laufen Bathrooms AG in Laufen, Switzerland. Over the past seven years he has turned Laufen into a well-known and appreciated premium brand, targeting international architects and interior designers as well as the traditional distribution channel of wholesalers and plumbers. Viardot has developed several successful collaborations with strategic partners such as Claudio Luti of Kartell and Alberto Alessi, along with designers like Roberto Palomba, Konstantin Grcic, Toan Nguyen, Patricia Urquiola and Marcel Wanders.

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Maria Ribeiro

Maria is an artist living and working in Cascais, Portugal. Graduating in Fine Arts at the University of the Arts London - Chelsea College of Art and Design, Maria has exhibited in London and Lisbon for the past few years. Her work has been selected for the 10 Artists to Watch in 2014 by Degree Art London. Her passion for arts led her to work among many artists, auction expertise, art consultant and event curator. Maria currently works as a designer for Universal Music Group, and is DAMN°’s online editor assistant.

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Massimo Bottura

Massimo Bottura, the stellar chef whose restaurant Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy was awarded first place on the list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants this year, has a lot to say outside of his kitchen. Aiming to shed light on the issue of food waste and to raise awareness of the importance of fully utilising the food supply, he created Refettorio Ambrosiano during ExpoMilano 2015, and during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil, he has instated another Refettorio Gastromotiva. An important part of this project is the cultural aspect. Architects, designers, and artists have donated their work in order to make Refettorio Gastromotiva a beautiful and inclusive space where everyone feels comfortable, welcome, and inspired. Metro Architecture, Vik Muniz, the Campana brothers, and Maneco Quinderé were among those who contributed to making the space unique, infusing it with art, beauty, and design.

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Nadine Botha

Now based in Rotterdam, Nadine Botha is an editor, writer, reader, watcher, listener, student, curator and poet from South Africa. She has worked for Design Indaba, Mail&Guardian and VISI, and written for the FT, Metropolis, Coolhunting, Design Observer, Core 77, Art South Africa and Chimurenga, among others.

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Norman Kietzmann

Norman Kietzmann, born in Berlin in 1979, studied industrial design at Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee (KHB) and at Ecole National Supérieure de Création Industrielle Paris. Since 2003 he has been working as a freelance journalist covering architecture, design and fashion for publications such as Baunetz, Designlines, DAMn°, Domus, Quality, Rondo and Handelsblatt among others. In 2011, Norman Kietzmann was awarded the prestigious "COR-Preis Wohnen und Design" for young journalists. He lives and works in Milan.

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Oscar Duboÿ

Born in Paris, raised in Venice and then back to Paris to study cinema. I eventually choose design and architecture, learning on the job at Condé Nast. That’s how I became a journalist, mainly collaborating now with AD France and Mixt(e).

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Patrizia Coggiola

Event curator, costume researcher, journalist, and editorial manager, Patrizia Coggiola is from Milan but is based in Stockholm, where she curates design events and teaches costume and textile history. Her subjects of focus are design, food, costumes, art, and sustainable projects. Coggiola is DAMN°’s productivity editor.

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Pedro Gadanho

Pedro Gadanho is the recently appointed Artistic Director of MAAT, the Museum of Art Architecture and Technology, in Lisbon. Previously he was a Curator of Contemporary Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York. He holds an MA in art and architecture and a PhD in architecture and mass media. His book Arquitetura em Público (2011) was the recipient of the FAD Prize for Thought and Criticism.

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Piero Gandini

Piero Gandini joined Flos, the leading lighting company of which his father Sergio had been chairman since 1964, soon after studies. In June 1996, he was appointed CEO of Flos. In 2009 he won the most prestigious international awards with the launch of the Soft Architecture collection, a cutting-edge project that showed his poetic approach to interpreting revolutionary new technologies. Piero Gandini has also been Chairman of Assoluce, Italy’s leading business association in the lighting sector, from 2008 to 2013.

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Pieter Vermeulen

Pieter Vermeulen is a researcher, philosopher, art critic and curator. He is currently course director & lecturer at the Master of Research in Art & Design at St Lucas School of Arts in Antwerp (BE) and research assistant at Ghent University (S:PAM - Studies in Performing Arts & Media).

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Rogier van der Heide

Rogier van der Heide, born in the Netherlands, is a well known designer in the public and commercial realm. He has recently been appointed Chief Design & Marketing Officer at Zumtobel in Austria. Immediately prior to this, he was Vice President and Chief Design Officer at Philips, following his work as Global Business Leader at Arup Lighting. van der Heide’s focus is on innovation-led design as an enabler of bridging technology and the creation of meaningful, life-enhancing solutions. He has 20 years’ experience worldwide in engaging, inspiring, three-dimensional design that fuses light, image projection, architecture, and product design to create memorable, authentic experiences. He has received over 20 individual design awards, and some 35 with his design team at Philips. Rogier’s work is widely recognised as leading the eld in creative and independent design.

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Sam Steverlynck

Brussels-based art critic Sam Steverlynck writes for DAMN° and various other publications. In 2014 he curated A Simple Plan, an exhibition in a private villa designed by Stéphane Beel. He is also one of the driving forces behind an artists’ residency in a 1958 villa designed by artist/architect René Heyvaert.

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Sandra Hofmeister

Sandra Hofmeister is a writer and facilitator whose focus is on architecture, art, and design. She studied architecture, art history, and Romance languages/literature in Berlin and Munich, where she earned a doctorate researching the Italian pre-avant-garde. Her numerous journalistic articles and books have been published in German and English newspapers and magazines. From 2012 to 2015, she was editor-in-chief of the German edition of Domus. Today Hofmeister regularly contributes to Neue Züricher Zeitung and DAMN°, and also works as a moderator and consultant.

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Silvia Anna Barrilà

Silvia Anna Barrilà is an Italian journalist based in Milan and Berlin. She has been a contributor of DAMn magazine since 2009. Besides, she writes about art, the art market, design, and architecture for various Italian and international media, such as Il Sole 24 Ore-ArtEconomy24, ICON Panorama, and AD Italia.

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Sophie Rzepecky

Sophie Rzepecky is a designer, editor, coordinator and communication strategist based in Berlin. She has an avid interest in connecting interdisciplinary modes of creative knowledge through digital platforms, exhibition-making and publications. In 2016, she co-founded Fictional Journal where she works in an editorial and curatorial capacity to facilitate design responses to societal questions, generating collective knowledge and debate. She previously worked at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), and currently works with artist Tomás Saraceno.

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Stefano Micelli

Stefano Micelli published his authoritative analysis of Italian artisanal craft Futuro Artigiano in 2011. His research shows how artisan traditions have evolved to include sophisticated contemporary tools and technologies. In 2012, the book received the ADI Design Index prize. Professor of Business Economics and Management at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, he is the author of several articles and volumes, one of the most recent being Fare è innovare. Il nuovo lavoro artigiano (To make is to innovate. The new craftwork, edited by Il Mulino, 2016). Central to his work is how craftsmanship, using a local and digital-based approach, can be the key to the international future of manufacturing diffused prosperity, especially in the face of mass-produced industrial design.

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Tasya Kudryk

Tasya Kudryk is a communications specialist, editor, and photographer currently based in Berlin. Tasya's work, both as a photographer and a writer, has been featured in Vogue.com, Calvert Journal, Sleek Magazine, Thisispaper magazine, to name a few. Her experience in writing, online publishing and communications combined with practical skills in photography, let her undertake a wide range of projects related to art, design, and culture. In 2016 Tasya has joined DAMNº team as its Press & Marketing Assistant.

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Thomas Geisler

Thomas Geisler is a curator, author and critic. A former head of the Design Collection at the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna he now directs Werkraum Bregenzerwald - an exhibition hall designed by Pether Zumthor and dedicated to contemporary crafts, design and architecture. He has taught and published on contemporary design and design history. Thomas is co-founder of the Vienna Design Week and was instrumental in establishing the Victor J. Papanek Foundation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

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Torgny Holmgren

Torgny Holmgren is Executive Director of the Stockholm International Water Institute. Since 1991, the SIWI has organised World Water Week in Stockholm, a meeting place for scientists, policy makers, and private sector and civil society actors to network, exchange ideas, and foster new thinking around the most pressing water-related issues of today. It inspires collaborative action and bridges science, policy, and practice. This year’s World Water Week (27 August –01 September) will bring together minds from across all sectors to address the challenges presented by wastewater management.

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Veerle Devos

Veerle Devos (aka VOS) is a historian who has been active in journalism for many years, working with DAMNº since 2005. She's co-founder of the Office for Urban Reporting, a research centre and production house that investigates and communicates about 21st-century urbanisation. In her free time she’s preparing a personal travel guide for Portugal.

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