2022 ARTISTIC & PROJECT PARTNERS:

Richard Hallward
is the leader of and co-backer of MADNICITY. He has been engaged academically, personally and professionally with madness, creativity, ideology and society for more than 40 years. A diversity warrior and highly experienced event promoter and producer, he has created and led numerous high profile transformative projects and enterprises across arts, culture, entertainment, government and business, among them Beyond Bedlam, which culminated in the publication of the first mainstream anthology of poems by survivors of mental illness. He is also the founder of CEEQA. the leading market insight platform and awards body for commercial real estate investment in Central, Eastern and South East Europe.

Dominik Lejman
has been described as a painter that works in the same manner as a magician does when daring us to see the invisible. One of the most important Polish contemporary artists working today. In recent years his socially-engaged concept of hybrid painting has been highly influential for the younger generation of artists. Winner of the 2018 Berlin Art Prize, he is an artist of wide repute and growing resonance on the international stage. With an established studio practice in Berlin he is also currently installed as a Professor of Painting at the University of Arts in Poznan, Poland.
(Phot. by Michał Gieniusz)

Mário Caeiro
is a lecturer, cultural programmer, curator and researcher. He has for many years been an independent cultural activist, focusing on the urban condition through lenses such as the concept of Nothing, the value of Light, and the emergent notion of Mythical Public Space. He is the author of Arte na Cidade – História Contemporânea (‘Art in the City – Contemporary History’, 2014) and has numerous curatorial credits, including Time-Space-Existence by Alessandro Lupi at the 2014 Venice Biennale. Mario teaches at ESAD / IPLeiria (Portugal) and has been curating works by Dominik Lejman since 2010.

Bianca O’Brien
is active in an astonishingly wide range of creative mediums and enterprises. She was, inter alia, the founder and curator of The Atelier in Paris, which provided a platform for talented artists and photographers overlooked by the ‘system’, and an editor/producer for Under the Influence magazine. She is an accomplished performance artist, who has worked at the Palais de Tokyo, and a photographer whose reportage about Detroit-based artists has been the subject of two exhibitions. Muse to numerous painters, designers and artists, Bianca is also a highly successful model, who has featured on 75 magazine covers, including Vogue.

Peter Morris
is an entrepreneur with interests spanning real estate, organic farming and venture capital. He is the principle financial backer of MADNICITY.

Claudio Valente
is a musician and tourism entrepreneur based in Venice.

2022 CURATORIAL BOARD:

Hubertus von Amelunxen
is an internationally renowned philosopher, curator and theoretician of photography and the fine arts. He holds the Walter Benjamin Chair at the European Graduate School, specialising in Media Philosophy and Cultural Studies, and from 2013-18 was the school’s President and Provost. A member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, Von Amelunxen has written and contributed to several books on photography, media theory and poststructuralism, and he is the long-time editor of the leading photography journal Fotogeschicht. He has also curated numerous high-profile international exhibitions, among them Photography after Photography (1995-6).

Mário Caeiro
(See above, ARTIST PARTNERS)

Raffaele Gavarro
is an art historian, critic and curator. He has curated numerous exhibitions in museums, public spaces and private galleries in Italy, and is the author of many texts on Italian and international artists. These include Oltre l’estetica (Meltemi Editore, 2007); L’arte senza l’arte – mutamenti nella realtà analogicodigitale (Maretti Editore, 2020); Avanti&Indietro – 16 conversazioni sull’arte nel tempo e nella realtà analogicodigitali (Maretti Editore, 2021). Raffaele is a professor of History and Theory of New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.

Richard Hallward
(See above, ARTIST PARTNERS)

2022 PROJECT COLLABORATORS:

Johnny Acton
is a direct descendent of the great Victorian historian Lord Acton, best known for his dictum that ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. He has authored over 20 non-fiction books on a bewildering range of subjects. In his twenties, he worked in a therapeutic community run by a disciple of RD Laing, an experience which cemented a lifelong interest in mental health issues.  He is currently working on a book about Maytree, a revolutionary London-based respite centre for the acutely suicidal.

Jędrzej Borkiewicz
is a visual artist, painter, VJ, muralist. 2020 graduate of BA studies in painting at the Faculty of Painting and Drawing at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań. Currently, MA student at the same university and an assistant in V Studio of Sculpture and Spatial Activities. In painting, he looks for new values based on his extensive experience in multimedia, street art and graffiti. His artistic debut took place at an exhibition at Zbrojownia Sztuki in Gdańsk, later he exhibited, among others, at Galleri NORD (Tromsø), in Stara Rzeźnia (as part of Poznań Art Week). He was also a participant of many individual and collective exhibitions in Poland. Involved in the multimedia scene, he took part in, among others, „Prawidła a multimedia walk around Poznań”, created scenography and theatre performances based on mapping. Photo by jachowski.pl (on ig/fb @jachowski.pl)

Katarzyna Gruszczynska
is an art teacher, having years long experience with alternative children education. Creator of MADNICITY Kids Asylum.

Mateusz Fahrenholz studied printmaking at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland. After completing his studies he continued his practice as an artist in a variety of mediums: print, editioned works, 3D constructions, writing, and worked as a lecturer in the Fine Art Department of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art

Aleksandra Łojowska
studies animation at Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań. Her interests include 2d animation and merging traditional techniques of animation with new technologies such as projection mapping and Virtual Reality.

Ben McPherson
is a novelist and television producer.

James (Jimi) Ogden — most people refer to him as a “maker” these days and this covers almost every creative medium. Trained in sculpture and design then moving to rocking horse maker, eco house builder, furniture, restoration. Music plays in his world as well, composing, writing, recording. Releasing 10 albums and writing for other artists. Jimi is a TV host for a program on HGTV worldwide about recycling and making. I also teach Art in a school.

Agata Wiórko da Câmara
is an assistant curator, producer and photographer (NomadBabe) having experience in creating cultural events and conferences. She’s PhD Researcher in Culture Studies at CECC, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.

Piotr Macha