August 2022

Bettina Wilpert is a feminist writer whose work is concerned with topics such as sexual violence and reproductive rights. She studied Cultural Studies and English Studies in Potsdam and Berlin as well as Creative Writing at Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig. Her debut novel "That kind of thing doesn't happen to us" was published by Verbrecher Verlag in 2018. The novel won several literature prizes and was adapted as a play by Thalia Theater Hamburg and others. It has been translated into several languages. Furthermore, the film adaptation will air in April 2023 on German television. Her second novel "Drifters" was published in 2022 and is concerned with deviant women who were incarcerated in the GDR under the pretext they had an STD. Bettina Wilpert lives with her family in Leipzig, Germany.

Ute Wassermann is a vocal artist and composer living in Berlin. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg with Henning Christiansen and Claus Böhmler. Her artistic work comprises the areas of composition, improvisation, and performance art. Her singing is extreme and polyphonic. It shimmers between human, electronic, animal, and inorganic sound qualities and can enter into relationships with specially composed or existing acoustic habitats. In addition, Ute Wassermann extends her voice with bird whistles, field recordings, resonant and loudspeaker objects. Ute Wassermann takes part in festivals and concert series in Europe, Australia, Asia, Mexico, Brazil, and the US. Regularly, and in an international context, she performs with other musicians. Numerous works works written for her voice premiered in collaboration with ensembles and orchestras.

Find her vimeo channel here.

Clemens von Wedemeyer, born 1974 in Göttingen, Germany, studied photography and media in Bielefeld and fine arts at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, where he now holds a professorship for media art (expanded cinema). As a filmmaker and artist he lives in Berlin. His films and complex video installations embrace several storylines and points of view. His works explore the personal and collective history of the 20th century as well as the power and control structures of the present.

Kurt Drawert, born in Hennigsdorf, Brandenburg in 1956, held an apprenticeship as an electronics specialist in Dresden, worked various temporary jobs, graduated high school from evening classes, and studied at the Institute for Literature in Leipzig from 1982 to 1984. Kurt Drawert works as a freelance author in the fields of prose, poetry, drama, and essay. After residencies in the Federal Republic of Germany and at Villa Massimo in Rome, he now lives in Darmstadt since 1996, where he is the director of the Center for Young Literature. He is a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry and the Academy of the Arts in Saxony. His work, in all genres, encompasses a fundamental theme: the intersection of body, language, and time. The experience of the totalitarian East plays an important role in the work of Kurt Drawert.

Carola Bauckholt was born in Krefeld in 1959. After working at the Theater am Marienplatz (TAM), Krefeld for several years, she studied composition at the Musikhochschule Köln with Mauricio Kagel. Since 2015 she has been teaching composition with a focus on contemporary music theater at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, Austria. A central moment in her work is thinking about the phenomenon of perception and understanding. Her compositions often mix elements from visual art, musical theater, and concert music. To do this, she likes to use noisy sounds, which are often generated with unfamiliar means and not incorporated into a given composition grid, but rather observed and continued in their free development.

Silke Fischer, born in Karlsruhe in 1961, studied visual communication with a focus on film at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. After graduating, she co-founded the Hamburg filmmaker collective Abbildungszentrum and edited the video magazine Der Renegat together with Jan Peters and Peter Ott. During this time she realized several documentaries and short feature films (among others "Buy1Get1Free" D1997; "Putzen in Paris" D1998). At the same time, under the label Sisi Voss, she designed commercials and image films together with Stefanie Wirth. In 2001 she designed the production design for the debut film "Bungalow" by Ulrich Köhler. In the following years she worked as a production designer team with production designer and filmmaker Volko Kamensky for various cinema and TV films. Since 2011 Silke Fischer has been working exclusively as a production designer - mainly for European co-productions: among others "Lore" D/AUS 2012 director: Cate Shortland; "Toni Erdmann" D/A 2016 director: Maren Ade; "3 Tage in Quiberon" D/A/F 2018 director: Emily Atef; "In my Room" D/I 2018 director: Ulrich Köhler.

Silke Fischer's cinema and television films have received numerous awards. For the Netflix series "Unorthodox" (D2020, directed by Maria Schrader), she received the German Television Award 2020 in the category Best Set Design together with costume designer Justine Seymour.

Silke Fischer lives in Hamburg and Zurich, where she has headed the Production Design course at the ZHdK as professor since 2018.
The Ballhaus Fellowship is supported by the Federal Foreign Office

Silke Fischer studied visual communication with a focus on film at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. After graduating, she co-founded the Hamburg filmmaker collective Abbildungszentrum and edited the video magazine Der Renegat together with Jan Peters and Peter Ott. During this time, she realized several documentaries and short feature films among others Buy1Get1Free (1997) and Putzen in Paris (1998). At the same time, under the label Sisi Voss, she designed commercials and image films together with Stefanie Wirth. In 2001 she designed the production design for the debut film Bungalow by Ulrich Köhler. She worked as a production designer in a team with production designer and filmmaker Volko Kamensky for various cinema and TV films. Since 2011 Silke Fischer has been working exclusively as a production designer - mainly for European co-productions such as Lore (2012, director: Cate Shortland), Toni Erdmann (2016, director: Maren Ade), 3 Days in Quiberon (2018, director: Emily Atef), In my Room (2018, director: Ulrich Köhler), Plus que Jamais (2022, director: Emily Atef).

For the Netflix series Unorthodox (2020, directed by Maria Schrader), Silke Fischer received the German Television Award 2020 in the category Best Set Design together with costume designer Justine Seymour.

Silke Fischer lives in Hamburg and Zurich, where she has headed the Production Design course at the Züricher Hochschule der Künste as professor since 2018.

Ilija Trojanow was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1965. In 1971, his family fled Bulgaria through Yugoslavia and Italy to Germany, where they received political asylum. In 1972, the family moved to Kenya. After a stay in Paris, Trojanow studied law and ethnology at Munich University. He is the founder of the Kyrill-und-Method and Marion Publishing Houses, both of which specialized in African literature. Trojanow has lived in Mumbai, Cape Town, and Mainz/Germany and currently resides in Vienna.

In the 1990s, Trojanow wrote several non-fiction and travel books about Africa, published an anthology of contemporary African literature, and translated African authors' works into German. His first novel, Die Welt ist groß und Rettung lauert überall (The world is big, and salvation lurks around the corner), appeared in 1996 and recounts his family's experiences as political refugees and asylum seekers. He published the science fiction novel Autopol which was created on the Internet as a "novel in progress," Hundezeiten (dog days), a travel account of a visit to his Bulgarian homeland, and books dealing with his experiences in India. His reportage Zu den heiligen Quellen des Islam (To the divine sources of Islam) describes a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Trojanow received, among others, the Bertelsmann Literature Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition, the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, and the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in the category of fiction for his novel Der Weltensammler. The book was published in English as The Collector of Worlds, inspired by the biography and travel writings of British colonial officer Richard Francis Burton, and translated into more than 30 languages.

Louise Steinman is a writer, artist, and literary curator. Her work frequently deals with memory, history, and reconciliation. She is the author of three books, most recently The Crooked Mirror: A Memoir of Polish-Jewish Reconciliation. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships including the Chora Prize 2018, and residencies at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Ucross. She is the co-director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities at the University of Southern California.

www.louisesteinman.com

www.crookedmirror.wordpress.com