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Vanessa Wagneur (b.1970, Campos dos Goitacazes, Brazil) is a Brazilian art-designer with a multidisciplinary background in branding, graphic design, sustainable fashion and visual arts. Inspired by Nietzsche’s “Three Metamorphoses of the Human Spirit,” she developed her “Theory of Circularity” – a life framework for creating and living with intention. A Rio native with a visionary soul, Vanessa displayed artistic sensibility from an early age. Her fascination with packaging and consumer behaviour led to the creation of her brand, ZÓIA, which pioneered a new mindset – challenging norms and redefining consumption through design as an act of awareness. 

Her practice is rooted in the daily challenge of transformation. She is the mind behind concepts like CREATIVE Sustainability, the EMPACT Movement (entrepreneurship + empathy + positive impact + love), and the New P’s of Circular Marketing – all aimed at inspiring more conscious narratives. Vanessa curates fashion and design brands for the LivMundi Festival and promotes Brazilian artists through Contaí Trajetórias Internacionais. Now based in Belgium, she builds bridges between cultures through projects like TrampolineB and AGNI-CE. Her artistic values are simplicity, authenticity and poetic activism. 

Deepak Kathait (b.1988, Chamoli Garhwal Himalaya, India) is a visual artist based between India and the UK. Kathait’s multidisciplinary practice includes drawing and painting, photography, text, collage and digital media. His work explores themes of existential, geo-political and ecological mapping, collective consciousness and the human condition in uncertain times, and envisaging a new design for living with awareness and balance. 

Since the pandemic, Kathait’s practice has responded to the global growth of mental health and the ecological crises, embodying holistic wellness and sustainability as practice. In 2020, Kathait received and MA from the Royal College of Art, also winning its new photography prize. His image-based works have received honourable mentions several times from the prestigious International Photography Awards (IPA). He was also the recipient of a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The artist has recently shown at Arles Photography Festival, Method Gallery, New Delhi and Bangalore Art Weekend. He also had a solo show with the Gujral Foundation, New Delhi. 

Muhammad Amdad Hossain (b.1999, Chittagong) is an award-winning visual artist and photographer from Chittagong, Bangladesh, acclaimed for his evocative documentary photography. Amdad’s work captures fleeting yet profound moments, focusing on communities grappling with floods, pollution, poverty, and displacement. His lens reveals not only hardship but also the quiet resilience and cultural richness of rural Bangladesh, documenting traditional festivals like the Polo Bawa fishing festival, horse races, and bullock cart competitions. With over 170 international awards to his name – including multiple first-place prizes – Amdad’s images have appeared in more than 150 leading publications worldwide, such as The Guardian, Forbes, National Geographic, The Times, BBC, CNN World, UNESCO, and PetaPixel.  

His work has been exhibited in over 30 countries, giving voice to vulnerable communities and urging action through visual storytelling. Amdad has also served as a judge for renowned contests like Wiki Loves Earth, the MUSE Photography Awards, the Global Photo Award, and the New York Photography Awards. He collaborates with respected agencies including Zuma Press (USA), NurPhoto (Italy), and Solent News (UK). Amdad continues to inspire awareness and change, using photography as a bridge between communities and the world. 

Thiago Rocha Pitta’s (b. 1980, Tiradentes MG) diverse practice is connected to a deep fascination with the subtle transformations of the world around him. The slow erosion and alteration of desert terrain, the descent of a fog and the fluctuations of underwater formations. His installations, videos, and paintings capture the vibrancy of a living planet by training the viewer’s eye on the slow changes of materials, the physical progressions of miniscule particles of land, and the sudden shifts in weather. 

Rocha Pitta was awarded the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize, Brazil (2005) and the Open Your Mind Prize, Switzerland (2009). In 2011, he was shortlisted for the EFG Bank & ArtNexus Acquisition Award Nomination. In 2014, he participated in the artistic residency program Circulating AiR, organized by Stiftelsen 3,14, Norway. 

Venâncio Evensen Ulombe (b. 1994, Lubango, Huíla Province, Angola) is an Angolan photographer living in Brazil. A keen eye and technical mastery enable Ulombe to transform ideas into powerful and expressive images. His work spans advertising campaigns, fashion and lifestyle editorials, and original artistic projects, which have been exhibited in museums, solidifying his presence in the cultural scene. He served as curator at the Photography Library of the Moreira Salles Institute (IMS) and is recognised for his contributions to photography in Brazil through lectures, encouraging the growth of new professionals.  

Known for his constant pursuit of innovation, excellence, and passion for creating images that impact and inspire, his career reflects a commitment to visual art, combining technique and creativity to express memorable concepts. Today, he continues to expand his horizons and impact the visual landscape with images that unite aesthetics, sensitivity and purpose. 

Justin Brice Guariglia (b.1974, New Jersey, USA) is an American artist whose work explores the relationship between humans and the natural world. Frequently collaborating with scientists, poets, and philosophers, Guariglia’s research-based practice bridges art and science, catalysing vital dialogue around ecological themes. Through methodical investigation and creative translation, his work seeks to challenge viewers to perceive our environment through new lenses. By disrupting everyday life, his work transforms abstract ecological concepts into visceral experiences that seek to plant an “ecological thought” in the viewer’s mind. 

Notable collaborations include a series of 2015 missions with NASA scientists documenting Greenland’s rapidly changing ice, images from which were used as foundational source material in his paintings and prints. Guariglia’s recent public artworks, notably his takeover of London’s Somerset House, REDUCE SPEED NOW!, offer a democratic, accessible way to challenge prevailing narratives. By making ecological issues tangible and immediate, his work aims to elevate public consciousness and inspire meaningful action beyond gallery walls. 

UÝRA (b.1991, Santarém, Para) lives and works in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. UÝRA is a biologist with a master’s degree in Amazonian ecology, a visual artist and an art educator working in traditional communities. She lives in an industrial area in the middle of the forest, where she transforms herself into an Árvore que Anda (a walking tree), always using natural materials.  

UÝRA uses the body as a medium to narrate stories of different natural origins through photo performance, performance, and installations. She is interested in living systems and their violations, and from the perspective of diversity, dissent, functioning, and adaptation, she (re)tells natural stories of enchantment and diasporas existing in the city-forest landscape. UÝRA has participated in more than 50 group exhibitions, both national and international, and has presented five solo exhibitions, including her debut at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the Currier Museum of Art (USA). She featured at the 34th São Paulo Biennial, Manifesta! (Kosovo), the 13th Architecture Bienniale of São Paulo, and the 1st Bienniale of the Amazon. 

UÝRA was awarded the SIM Prize for Racial Equality (2023), FOCO Arte Rio Prize (2023), PIPA Prize (2022), and the EDP Prize in the Arts – Tomie Ohtake Institute (2020). Her works are part of national collections, private collectors, and institutions such as the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Instituto PIPA, and international institutions such as Castello de Rivoli (Italy), Institute for Studies on Latin American Art of New York (ISLAA), Currier Museum of Art, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (USA). 

Yinka Shonibare (b.1962, London), studied Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (1989) and received his MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (1991). His interdisciplinary practice uses citations of Western art history and literature to question the validity of contemporary cultural and national identities within the context of globalisation. Through examining race, class and the construction of cultural identity, his works comment on the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe, and their respective economic and political histories.  

In November 2022, Shonibare hosted the international launch of Guest Artists Space (G. A. S.) Foundation, a non-profit founded and developed by the artist. The Foundation is dedicated to facilitating cultural exchange through residencies, public programmes and exhibition opportunities for creative practitioners from around the world.  

Olinda Tupinambá (b.1989, Pau Brasil, BA) is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, performer, and curator from the Tupinambá and Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe peoples in Bahia, Brazil. Her practice interlaces performance, film, and environmental activism. Among her film works are Kaapora: The Call of the Forest (2020) and Ibirapema (2022), which illustrate her approach to Indigenous storytelling and environmental resistance. In 2024, she represented Brazil at the 60th Venice Biennale with her installation Balance at the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion. Her work has been featured in institutions such as the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP), the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, and the Museum of Image and Sound in Ceará, Brazil.  

In 2025, she presented performances at the Theaterformen Festival in Germany and exhibited at Verso Gallery in Lisbon. Olinda has curated numerous film programmes, including Caméra-Flèche: Voies du cinéma autochtone au Brésil in Paris and Piracema Nu Bai in Lisbon, as well as Brazilian festivals such as Cine Kurumin, Amotara – Indigenous Women’s Perspectives, and the Kaapora Festival of Indigenous and Environmental Film, which she directs. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the PIPA Prize in Brazil and was a guest speaker at Brown, Duke, and Yale universities in the United States. From 2025 to 2026, she will co-lead the project Environmental Education and Film in the Atlantic Forest: Eco-Activism Through Indigenous Perspectives, as part of a British Academy ODA Global Innovation Fellowship alongside the University of London. 

Hayden Kays (b.1985, London) is a celebrated British artist known for his sharp–witted fusion of Pop art and street culture. Working across painting, sculpture and printmaking, Kays draws on a rich visual lexicon from 1950s Pop icons to Young British Artists, infusing his work with acerbic wordplay, deadpan humour and a striking sense of cultural timing. His pieces often blend irreverence with sincerity, inviting the viewer to laugh, then linger. With a bold, uncompromising voice, Kays critiques the absurdities of modern life while celebrating its contradictions.