Meet the Artists

Tebogo Boikanyo Matshana is a visual artist and writer based in Johannesburg South Africa. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Art from Rhodes University in 2017 and is currently completing an MA in Information Design through the University of Pretoria. She has founded the Birdhouse Interactive platform which combines visual art, narrative poetry, and technology towards digital storytelling. In addition, she works as an Archivist at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg South Africa. She has previously self-published an anthology of illustrated poems titled a blackbird makes as sound (2020) and her poem For the Broken Boy appears in the Sol Plaatjie European Union Poetry Anthology Vol IX. Her work can be seen on @blackbirdmakesasound and interactivebirdhouse.com

Miriam Shenitzer lives and works in Boston. Her work is about drawing and connecting. Miriam draws the world around her as a way of seeing that world more clearly. She connects with others as she draws them and draws with them. Most recently, Miriam has become involved in the creation of urban gardens as a way to support insects, people and plants. Miriam has shown at the Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, at the McMullen Museum of Art in Boston, and at the National Library in Ottawa. Her work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the New York Public Library, and Yale University, among others. Her work can be  seen on @miriam_shenitzer and miriamshenitzer.com

Michael Zank holds a PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University and is Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies and Medieval Studies at Boston. His areas of expertise are Jewish thought and philosophy, Continental philosophy, Jerusalem in history and religion, and the literary aspects of biblical reception in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Currently, he works on literary aspects of philosophical writing; political philosophies of “eros” and “agape;” and blasphemy in law and religion. Currently traveling in Europe and India, he is working on a book-length study on Maimonides and his modern readers (Spinoza, Cohen, Strauss). His work can be seen on blogs.bu.edu/mzank/

Vanessa Valero is a textile artist based in Bogota, Colombia. In 2013, she studied an MA in textile art and design at Aalto University in Finland. During her time in Scandinavia, she explored different aspects of surface design and the winter landscape. She had the opportunity to create a carpet for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, with a large design she made from her observations of changing light during winter. Over the summer of 2015, she did an internship in Iceland where she learned how to make hand-tuft tapestries that she now uses into her practice. In 2016 she founded Studio Vanessa Valero that focus on creating tapestries based on her own interpretation of what means living in the Andes. Her work can be seen on @studio_vanessavalero and vanessavalero.com

Hans De Pelsmacker is a sculptor based in Czechia. Until the mid-1990s, he designed autonomous monumental sculptures made of steel, then gradually developed spatial work, where the relationship between the environment and the functionality prevailed. His works are considered in a hybrid zone between a sculptural and a functional object, often within an architectural context. More recently, Hans has redefined his artistic scope and has returned to creating objects in form of new furniture designs, ceramics and glass objects, sculptures, bronze, tapestry and graphic in collaboration with various glass factories, a ceramics studio, textile companies and graphic studios. His work can be seen on @hansdepelsmackerand hansdepelsmacker.com

Thérèse is an Irish born multi-disciplinary artist, who lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She studied Fine Art at Leeds Beckett University. After graduation, Thérèse built a successful career as an editor, cutting programmes for television, while bringing up her family. Returning to an artistic practice in 2016, Thérèse has exhibited her work in a number of solo exhibitions, including Unfixed (2022) and Salvage (2023) as well as contributing to group exhibitions. She attended residencies in Scotland, Finland and Morocco and was Filmmaker in Residence for Glasgow University’s Moving Image Project. Her work can be seen on thereselynch.com

Susanne Hangaard is a ceramist who lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hangaard has a hybrid practice. She gets energy from making crossovers between her own field as a ceramist and other art disciples such as art, film, performance and literature. In her latest work Hangaard used digital 3D modeling and printing. Hangaard is educated from KADK, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Design, Copenhagen, Denmark and Rhode Island, School of Design, Providence, US. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and has received grants and awards from The Danish Art Foundation amongst many others. Her work can be seen on @susanne_hangaard and susannehangaard.dk

Debby Akam is a visual artist based in the Lake District, England. New woodcut prints and paintings on canvas are investigations of layered space created through colour relationships and gestural brush marks that result in representations of stilled- action or vitality.  She is interested in the influence of place, and vernacular art forms on visual culture. Central to her work is potential of colour as a source of positive emotional response linking personal experience with wider themes of celebration, mutability and renewal. Debby holds an art-practice based PhD from the University of Sunderland, has worked extensively on public art projects and regularly exhibits her work, recently at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London 2023. Her work can be seen on @akamdeb and debbyakam.com

Gary is a visual artist focusing on Sculpture.  Gary has an MPhil. in ‘Art in Architecture;’ completed many Commissions; and carried out research into Public Art when he was a Harkness Fellow based at University of Washington. Until recently he was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sunderland where he was the MA Fine Art Programme Leader. Gary’s current work Tintotem Parade reference architectural motifs and images typically found in the traditional Public Monuments. They revise and examine this convention in a playful critique of hubris and grandiosity. This alternative collection of Counter-Monuments while still utilising plinths, the pedestal, and different kinds of columns and towers are made from discarded tins and additional found objects transformed by colour to celebrate the value of upcycling. Recently he has shown his work at the Trinity Bouy Drawing Prize 2018; Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2021; and the Royal Scottish Academy  2022 & 2023. His work can be seen on @garypower8 and garypower-art.com