People

Dr. Mari Bastashevski is an artist grafted in academia as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer. Her work centers on the future of cultural imaginaries beyond the binary of techno-optimism and collapsism.

In 2024 she completed a hybrid theory and practice PhD focused on modelling mixed reality worlds as spaces of field research into interspecies intelligence. The work was exhibited across Europe and yielded additional publications, including a chapter in Incomputable Earth, published by Bloomsbury Press. She also wrote a monograph focusing on the work of students around the concepts of other-than-human time.

Dr. Lenora Ditzler is an assistant professor at the Farming Systems Ecology Group at Wageningen University. She studies the design of complex farming systems, working closely with all kinds of collaborators (farmers, designers, artists, mathematicians, robots) to tackle current and future farming challenges in inter- and trans-disciplinary research and co-design processes. She teaches in the Master of Resilient Farming and Food Systems program at WUR, and occasionally at design academies.

Dr. Clemens Driessen is a cultural geographer at Wageningen University, where he teaches in programmes ranging from Landscape Architecture to Molecular Biology. He works on more-than-human understandings of technology, and is interested in the ways in which organisms such as animals, plants, and humans shape each other’s lives in contemporary and historical landscapes.

He has published on cows, pigs, ducks, high-rise farms, milking robots, rewilding, cultured meat, beavers, bumblebees, greenhouses, and Cartesian landscapes. Together with Henriëtte Waal, he edited Water Works: Ecosocial Design (Valiz publishers, 2025).

Antye Guenther, aka (baby) DATA DIVA, is a glitter-loving knowledge-inventor and unreliable narrator, born in a country that no longer exists. Rumoured to have been a former child test subject in Soviet brain experiments, she now interrogates the conditions and fictionalities of Western data and knowledge regimes. With a fondness for troublemaking, she mischievously crosses disciplinary boundaries, often while crafting cheap-ass rhinestone jewellery as part of an ongoing collaborative glitter-as-(communal)-care-practice.

Hilde Stiegler Rubecksen is an artist, designer and researcher currently undertaking an inter-disciplinary artistic research PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) across Trondheim Academy of Fine Art and TrollLabs in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. The title of the project is Reactive and Proactive materials in the Anthropocene. She has previously trained and worked as a fashion designer, design consultant, fashion entrepreneur, trend analyst and design tutor mainly in England – but also in Norway, France and Japan. She holds an MA in Fashion Womenswear from the Royal College of Art (2002) in London and a BA (hons) Fashion Design from the University of Central Lancashire (2000), and completed a Practical Teacher Training for Artists, Musicians, and Designers at the University of Bergen in Norway in 2020. Within NTNU, she also participates in the Horizon Europe project PACESETTERS within a creative case study called Investigations into Circular Aesthetics of New Materials in Artificial Biology Systems and in the Strategic Topic Group Fashion SHIFT within EIT Culture and Creativity.

Henriette Waal is an artist and designer known for her interdisciplinary work spanning artistic research, biodesign, and social engagement. She is co-founder of Atelier Luma, a biodesign lab in the south of France focused on bioregional practices and material development.

Henriette has led field research in Mediterranean wetlands, connecting communities across Southern Europe, Africa, and West Asia. Her work explores co-fabrication systems for products, dyes, beverages, crafts, and spaces, as part of a search for a new ecosocial balance. Her projects have been exhibited internationally, reflecting her commitment to social and ecological resilience.

She teaches on the Master’s programmes in Social Design at Design Academy Eindhoven and works as visiting critic and lecturer in schools across Europe & internationally. She is a board member of Villa VanDoesburg in Paris. Since 2023, Henriëtte has applied her methodology as director of Veenweide Atelier, a multi-year programme that brings together farmers, nature managers, scientists, and designers in a testing ground for new livelihood models in peatland landscapes.

CATHRINE KRAMER

Cathrine Kramer is a Norwegian artist, curator and exhibition designer based in the Netherlands and working internationally. She is the co-founder of the Center for Genomic Gastronomy, an artist-led think tank that investigates the mysterious corners of the food system. Cathrine has curated exhibitions about food, strange weather and the future of the human species for the Center of Contemporary Culture, Barcelona (CCCB), MIT Museum in Boston and Science Gallery, Dublin. She has lectured at numerous academic institutions around the world, and holds degrees from the Royal College of Art, London and the University of Technology, Sydney. Cathrine works at the intersection of art and science, with a focus on the ecological, cultural and ethical dimensions of life on Spaceship Earth.

ZACK DENFELD

Zack Denfeld is an American artist who lives in Amsterdam. Since 2010 he has co-directed Genomic Gastronomy, CoClimate and the Office of Life + Art with the Norwegian artist Cathrine Kramer. They create artworks, exhibitions & events about food systems, emerging technologies and the life sciences. Their current research is on taste, place & change and agricultural biodiversity.

In 2007 Zack co-founded the Center for Experimental Media Art at the Srishti Institute of Art Design & Technology (Bengaluru, India) and in 2010 he helped launch the MFA in Collaborative Design (Portland, OR). His work has been reviewed in Science, Nature and Gastronomica and exhibited at the World Health Organization, Kew Gardens, V2_, MU, V&A Museum, Science Gallery, MIT Museum and others. Zack holds degrees from Syracuse University and the University of Michigan.