The Initiators:
Gus Drake (Seattle 1995) is an Amsterdam-based artist and documentary photographer who graduated in 2022 from the Royal Art Academy in the Hague. In his artistic practice he focuses on the interrelationship of people and non-human life and their environment. Using photography as a tool to connect and enter into dialogue. His work engages in cultural and ecological discourse addressing the heritages of the landscape and the decision-making consequences.
With a background in arts and journalism, Dirk-Jan Visser (Assen, 1978) is a documentary photographer, senior lecturer at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and is an active participant in the cultural and political arena, currently among others holding a position in the supervisory board of World Press Photo Foundation. In his practice, he uses photography, stakeholder management and public affairs to share perspectives and insights and to facilitate dialogue. His work aims to contribute to solutions around societal and ecological challenges.
Mohamed Zakaria is a PhD candidate at Wageningen University and Research, specializing in the study of desert vegetation communities, with a particular focus on Sinai. His research encompasses various aspects such as plant diversity, conducting vegetation surveys, analyzing vegetation data, utilizing ecoinformatics, and exploring plant ecology. His primary goal is to gain insights into the distribution of desert vegetation communities, classify them, and predict their future distribution based on environmental factors. He has extensive experience studying Sinai desert vegetation since 2004 and has actively participated in international projects related to nature conservation and global vegetation.
"Marianna Ohanyan (Armenia, 1998), a computer vision specialist with a passion for science and art. Marianna obtained an undergraduate degree in computer science and pursued graduate studies in applied statistics and data science. After graduation, she founded her first startup in the field of Artificial Intelligence, startup is focused on generating creative social media content for starting and developing businesses. Marianna is always exploring new concepts that push the boundaries of what is possible with AI, especially in art.”
Mohamed Zakaria
Marianna Ohanyan
Gus Drake
Dirk-Jan Visser
Research-based artist and writer Nienke Roth (Netherlands, 1999) graduated from the photography department of the Royal Academy of Art in 2023. Thoroughly weaving the visual and the written together, she probes at the unsightly and the urgent (ecological processes, nature's rights, folklore, death) through a combination of research, science and speculation. Her photography , video work and material experiments result in publications and immersive installations. Her work aims to share the knowledge found in the spaces where imagination and science meet, to have people collide with the importance of the invisible and the nonhuman.
