Minerva Cuevas

Minerva Cuevas – Artist – Mexico

Le Conclave 2017

Minerva Cuevas is a conceptual artist who generates projects in response to politically- charged contexts. Several of the artist’s works take the form of re-branding campaigns— exhibited as murals and product designs — that question the role corporations play in the management of natural resources, fair labor practices, and evolving forms of neo- colonialism.

Cuevas finds provocative ways to intervene in public space, whether through interventions, the deployment of billboards, mural paintings or by hacking public utilities to provide discounted or free services. Cuevas has addressed the negative impact that humans have on the environment through sculptural installations and paintings coated in tar. She is the founder of Mejor Vida Corp. (1998) and the International Understanding Foundation (2016).

Recent solo exhibitions have been presented internationally at venues including Museo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico (2012); Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2010). Cuevas’s work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as South London Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2016); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2015); Musee d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France (2012); and the Centre Pompidou (Paris 2010). Cuevas was awarded the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) in 2004.

Leah Borromeo

Leah Borromeo

Le Conclave 2017

Leah Borromeo is a journalist, filmmaker and arts interventionist. With over a decade’s experience in television news at an editorial level, she bridges arts practices with documentary. Much of her work involves public and private space, social architectures, the environment and banging on about how journalism is an art.

Currently directing ‘The Cotton Film: Dirty White Gold’, a feature film on Indian farmer suicides and fashion which dissects the clothing supply chain and casts a satirical eye on ‘white-saviour’ documentaries, she is working on ‘Climate Symphony’ – a data soni cation project that pulls narratives from climate change data, ascribes musical instruments to those stories and then turns them into a four-part symphony.

In addition to coming up with short-form interventions that document and occupy real and virtual spaces, she’s also made a series of short films on arts activism for British station Channel 4’s “Random Acts” and hosted Resonance FM’s “The Left Bank Show”.

Illac Diaz

Illac Diaz – Founder of Liter of Light

Le Conclave 2017

Illac Diaz is a social entrepreneur and founder of MyShelter Foundation and Liter of Light. Liter of Light is a global, grassroots movement committed to providing affordable, sustainable solar lights to people with limited or no access to electricity. The concept is simple: collect plastic bottles, ll them with water and bleach, and install them on rooftops. The bleach- lled bottles then refract the light from the outdoors into the house, lighting
up like a lightbulb. They also can be upgraded with an LED bulb, micro-solar panels and a battery to provide a low cost night-time lighting system.

Liter of Light has installed more than 450,000 bottle lights in more than 15 countries, as well as a few thousand streetlights. Liter of Light’s open source technology has been recognized by the UN and adopted for use in some UNHCR camps.
Liter of Light is the recipient of the 2016 St Andrews Prize for the Environment, the 2015 Zayed Future Energy Prize and a winner of the 2014-2015 World Habitat Award.

Romuald Hazoume

Romuald Hazoume – Artist – Benin

Le Conclave 2017

In the mid-1980s, Romuald Hazoume began an extended series of works made from discarded plastic containers, and in particular from gasoline canisters. After slight modi cations, these objects became masks, which subtly reveal Hazoume’s critical vision of political systems. He has said of his work: I send back to the West that which belongs to them, that is to say, the refusal of consumer society that invades us every day.

His work has been widely shown in many of the major galleries and museums in Europe and beyond, including the British Museum, the Guggenheim, Bilbao, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Fondation Louis Vuitton, ICP, New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Hazoume has participated in the Biennale de Lyon and Gwangju Biennale (both 2000), as well as the 3rd Biennale of Contemporary Art at the Garage Museum for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2009). He was awarded the Arnold Bode-Prize for his participation in Documenta 12 (2007).

 

Edda Hamar

Edda Hamar – Australia

Le Conclave 2017

 

Edda is the co-founder of Australia’s largest sustainable fashion runway show, Undress Runways. Held across different Australian cities, the event showcases sustainable, ethical and forward-thinking fashion designers from around the world. For over six years she has built a movement in the fashion industry that introduces the public to a world that respects garment makers and cares for the planet.

Edda is also the editor of The Naked Mag, advocating for diversity, respect, equality, sustainability and smart textiles in the fashion industry, and empowers its readership to make informed and socially conscious decisions when making purchases.

Today, Edda is the CEO of a startup called UNDRESS; an online peer-to-peer platform where people can rent out their quality clothes. It’s the share economy for fashion. She wants
to use this platform to help people have a healthier, more sustainable relationship with fashion.

In September 2016, Edda was named a UN Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals. She was also recently awarded QLD Young Achiever of the Year 2017.

Soukeina Hachem

Soukeina Hachem – Morocco

Le Conclave 2017

 

Entrepreneur and designer, Soukeina Hachem is recognized as one the most creative young people in Morocco. Placing cultural development, ecology and awareness through art at the heart of her concerns, Soukeina is involved in the transformation of her country towards sustainable development through creation.

After studies in design, she embarked on the great adventure of entrepreneurship in 2012 by founding Shape, a strategic consultancy in global design that promotes a holistic and social approach.

In 2014, she initiated Houna (‘‘here’’ in Arabic), a collaborative platform and cultural & artistic incubator that accompanies young artists and designers in the production and media coverage of their projects. Houna includes the Kouzina program, a Label and FabLab dedicated to creation and prototyping. At the COP22 in Marrakech, Houna organized a prototyping hackathon where designers, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers gathered around eco-committed projects with a strong social impact.

Also an artist, Soukeina has produced videos performances, VJing installations as well as a multi-awarded short- lm.

Ibrahim Mahama

Ibrahim Mahama – Artist – Ghana

Le Conclave 2017

Ibrahim Mahama uses the transformation of materials to explore themes of commodity, migration, globalisation and economic exchange. Often made in collaboration, his large- scale installations employ materials gathered from urban environments such as remnants of wood and textiles or jute sacks, which are sewn together and draped over architectural structures.

Ibrahim’s interest in material, process and audience has led him to focus on jute sacks
in particular since they are synonymous with the trade markets of Ghana. Fabricated in Southeast Asia, the sacks are imported by the Ghana Cocoa Boards to transport cocoa beans but end up as multi-functional objects, used for both the transportation of food and commodities and for many daily chores around the home.

His work has appeared in international exhibitions including Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017), The Gown Must Go To Town, Accra, ‘All the World’s Futures’, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice (2015); ‘Artist’s Rooms’, K21, Dusseldorf (2015); ‘Material Effects’, The Broad Art Museum, Michigan (2015); ‘An Age of Our Own Making’, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen and Holbæk city (2016); and ‘Fracture’, Tel Aviv Art Museum, Israel (2016) and Orderly Disorderly, Accra.

 

Archana Prasad

Archana Prasad – Artist – India

Le Conclave 2017

 

Archana Prasad, is an artist from Bangalore, India. Her work is a particular conjunction of visual art, technology and urban community art, steeped in design and research methodologies.

Archana has been actively engaged with community art practices for the last decade. She is the Founder-Director of Jaaga, a community based urban art, tech and activism project. Starting as early as 2004 with ‘‘Standing On Fish’’ a small project that engages the public with street art to in the context of the Bangalore City Project, a project that aims to explore ways by which people can connect with the city through cultural practices.

Apart from her formal studio work in drawing, animation and painting, she explores the world of art through multiple lenses. Previously, she has collaborated with Bangalore’s early experimental bands –Lounge Piranha and Bobbleheads- as lights and video performance artist. She has performed at more than 50 events and has toured across several Indian cities with these bands. Additionally she initiated an experimental docu-performative sound and video public intervention project – CitySignals.

Vincent JF Huang

Vincent JF Huang – Artist – Taiwan

Le Conclave 2017

Vincent JF Huang is an eco-artist and activist who combines art practice with environmental issues, aiming to raise awareness on climate change while simultaneously inviting the public to rethink modern civilization and sustainability.

Huang has focused his art and activism on a single question: “When extreme weather rages around the world, how can art take a stand, and furthermore, play a role in social reform?” Huang creates art that act as a catalyst capable of turning the experience of global warming into personal and public action, all the whilst creating transcendent aesthetic events that awaken passion for global ecology.

Starting in 2010, Vincent has been working with Tuvalu, a small island nation in South Paci c that is facing the risk of becoming uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. Vincent has represented Tuvalu as an of cial delegate at the UNFCCC since 2012. Vincent represented the Tuvalu Pavilion at the 55th & 56th la Biennale di Venezia.

In 2013, in acknowledgment of his sustained art activism in support of global environmental issues, he was awarded the Presidential Cultural Award in Taiwan.

 

Leyla Acaroglu

Leyla Acaroglu 

Le Conclave 2017

Dr. Leyla Acaroglu embodies the innovation that instigates positive environmental and social change. A New York-based Australian designer, social scientist, and sustainability expert, she is internationally recognized as a leader and developer of the disruptive design approach she has several pioneering sustainability and educational initiatives. Leyla is the founder of two design agencies, Disrupt Design in New York and Melbourne-based Eco Innovators, as well as the UnSchool, her uniquely rebellious experimental knowledge lab that is all about disrupting the mainstream way that knowledge is gained and shared.

Her works such as Design Play Cards, Game Changer Game, Secret Life of Things, Designercise, and the AIGA Gender Equity Toolkit are at the forefront of activated experience design. She has authored several handbooks for change makers and continues to agitate for new ways of solving complex social problems through beautifully designed interventions.

She was awarded 2016 Champion of the Earth by United Nations Environment, and her 2013 mainstage TED talk that has collected over one million views is one of the most watched TED talks on sustainability.