Marcia Fortes

Lihsing Wang is the founder of Utopia, a forward-thinking art and design community in New York City. Known for his impactful roles in fashion and product design, he curates the international 40×40 design exhibition, showcasing top 40 design talents from 40 countries. Lihsing’s work has earned accolades from A’ Design Award, IDA, European Product Design Awards, NYCxDESIGN Awards, iF Design, and Red Dot. His awarded works have been showcased in 6 international exhibitions, including America, Italy, China, Istanbul and Taiwan. Lihsing is a member of the IAD, IDC, and ICCI. His projects with brands like the Tory Burch and regular contributions to the 2021, 2022 and 2023 NYC fashion shows and runways underscore his commitment to pushing design boundaries.

Mr. Song Weiyi began his career with an international brand in South Korea, five years later, he joined Amer Sports. From 2019 to 2023, Mr. Song elevated ARC’TERYX’s retail image in China to unprecedented heights. His design philosophy and innovative spirit shook the traditional retail market in China, enhancing both the brand’s power and its status. He participated in internationally award-winning projects including the ARC’TERYX Mountain Classroom at Beidahu, Chengdu Taikoo Li, Chengdu IN88, Beijing Sanlitun, and Shanghai Wheelock Square. These projects reflect his meticulous attention to detail and deep understanding of aesthetics.

Mr. Song’s success is no accident. Behind his works are countless attempts and improvements, an obsession with perfecting every detail, and the courage to relentlessly pursue innovation. He knows that every innovation is a risk, but it is these risks that keep his designs fresh and forward-thinking.

In 2024, Mr. Song embarks on a new journey as the Director of the Image Management Center for Bosideng’s Division at Bosideng International Holdings Limited.

Danilo Villanueva Jr is a Creative Director, Design Director, and Entrepreneur with 15+ years of international experience working in multinational agencies like TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles, Saatchi Los Angeles, Leo Burnett Dubai, BBDO Beijing and MRM/Mccann New York. He’s built global and regional integrated campaigns for major brands like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Toyota, Emirates Airlines, Cartier, VISA, Enfamil, Tencent, Sony and others. He is also Creative Director & Founder of Makina & Co, a creative studio that provides design solutions for its own brands and for other local brands that play in the world of accessories/apparel and automotive with work that have been featured by international style, watch and news publications like: Esquire, Monochrome Watches, Entrepreneur, Worn & Wound, Time & Tide Watches, ABS-CBN, Oracle Time, Manila Times and others. His work has gained recognition from international creative organizations such as: ADC Annual Awards, Dubai Lynx, Webby, IDA International Design Awards, NY Product Design Awards, Design Boom, European Product Design Awards, Luerzer’s Archive, Madstars, Effies, London Design Awards, Muse Design Awards, Architecture & Design Community and others.

Christina, who specializes in creating exceptional spaces. She has worked within the hospitality, commercial and residential design industry in the past few years. Her varied experience and international exposure lends an unique perspective to her work. She is involved in all facets of hospitality projects from conceptual design through design implementation. Her multi-language skills and extensive background in all design areas makes her a diverse and experienced talent from luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retail, restaurants to high-end residential. Christina is well versed in different design styles and is able to adapt to the requirements befitting each particular project. Her creativity has afforded her the opportunity to work on a wide variety of exciting projects. She delivers a design strategy tailored to the unique demands and challenges of every project and suited to the clients needs, schedule parameters and requirements. When she was in design school, she had the privilege to be on juries and really understand the aspirations of young creative minds. By evaluating approximately a hundred creative finalists in the area of architecture and interior, she understands the importance of listening, understanding, being patient., having a mentor role and conferring an award or judging the merits of a project, maximizing transparency. She has opened new doors to meet and craft a future envisioned by young talent.

www.kuuoliving.com

Ricardo Lopes is the founder of the Instituto de Ensino Superior Amaro de Araujo Lopes (IADAL). He was, until July 21, coordinator of the postgraduate course in lighting and interior design and of the higher courses in Photography and Audiovisual Production, in addition to being a professor at Universidade Estácio de Sá. Master’s in health, Laboratory Medicine and Forensic Technology from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). Judge, in 2011, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, online of the IESNA – Illuminating Engineering Society of North America – for a global lighting design competition. Residence Lighting member (voting member) and IESNA Security Lighting recommendation consultant. Judge, in 2009, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 for the access group carnival at Marques de Sapucaí. In 2020 he was judge for the access group carnival in Vitória / ES.

Ricardo Lopes started his professional activities at Philips do Brasil S/A in 1977. He left in 1992 the Philips and joined as a commercial representative of Osram Cia de Lampadas Elétricas until 1999. In 1999 he took a degree in technology in Interior Design at Universidade Estácio de Sá (UNESA). In 2000, at the request of UNESA, he created, together with the architect Mariangela de Moura, the first postgraduate course in Lighting Projects. Some projects such as Rock in Rio (2001 – with Peter Gasper), Super cabins for the Rio de Janeiro carnival belonging to the magazine Rio, Samba and Carnaval (1992), Wedding cake lighting with Regina Rodrigues (1999), certification AQUA BAIRRO technical by consultancy for Ilha Pura (RJ), Maracanãzinho project lighting (by General Electric do Brasil – GE).

Architect, urban scholar and planner, curator born in 1977 in Budapest. He got an MSc in Architecture degree in 2003 with diploma prize and a PhD degree in 2015 with his dissertation entitled: Pedestrian space usage of tourist-historic cities – comparing the tourist space systems of Vienna and Prague to Budapest”. He is teaching and doing research as associate professor at the department of Urban Planning and Design at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, his research focuses on the spatial development of urban spaces and urban tourism in European cities, and on the usage of user generated digital content in urban research. He also teaches the rehabilitation of historic urban centres, tactical urbanism and participatory design.

He runs his architecture studios, involved in works from building design (in Opinion Builders Ltd) to urban development concepts (in ADI Studio Ltd), participating in exhibitions and competitions. On the other hand, he is activist in architectural NGOs since 2000, organising conferences, workshops and social events. Today he is president of Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre (KÉK, www.kek.org.hu), the largest professional NGO in the field of architecture in Hungary.

Hao SHAN graduated from École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Limoges, France. He served as art director of Publicis and visual design director of Technicolor Group in Paris. Currently he is the director of the visual communication design department of the School of Art Design and Media of East China University of Science and Technology (Shanghai, China), the founder of CRE+ DESIGN.

He won numerous international design awards including Award of Excellence in Communication Arts Advertising Competition, Platinum Award in MUSE Creative Awards, Gold Award in Graphis Poster Design Competition, Award of London International Creative Competition, etc. And he is also one of the juries on the A’ Design Award & Competition, Muse Creative Awards and VEGA Digital Awards.

A contemporary Chinese interior designer and the founder of ENJOYDESIGN, he advocates rational design, thinking for the sake of users, and insisting on the future. In his view, space is a container of beauty, and he realizes a tense and self-contained space design with a minimalist and contemporary method.

Azadeh Gholizadeh is an international designer and art director based in Iran. She has been working as an instructor in universities as well as judging at several festivals and Awards like A’design Awards and Cow International Design. She won numerous awards including Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron A’design Awards in 2020, Second Prize of Cow International Design 2017, Diploma from the Union of Designers of Ukraine 2015. Besides, her works were displayed and published in many parts of the world such as USA , France, Denmark, Italy, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Hungary and India. Moreover she takes part in some design week like Hebei, Xi An, Schenzen and Utopa. She has been the Senior Partner of World Design Consortium (WDC) since 2014 and a member of International Council of Creative Industries (ICCI), International Association of Designers (IAD), International Society of Product Manufacturers (ISPM), (IDC), (IBSP) and (AIBA). She is also the Founder of Azadeh Gholizadeh Studio.

Chiara Onida is an Italian designer based in London. After graduating in Industrial Design at Central Saint Martins, she gained experience working both for independent design studios and as part of creative teams for global companies (Panasonic, Ford) developing objects, materials and experiences.
She is currently working as Design Lead in D-Ford – Ford’s human centric design centre in London – to shape future experiences in mobility.

Maybe one of a few Creative Directors in the world to have worked across 6 Continents (yet to break into the Antarctica market), as well as CD, my business card also reads Illustrator, Furniture Designer, Photographer and Director, all with various degrees of success. Thankfully, my advertising work has been recognized and rewarded at International events and shows around the world. Living in Los Angeles with my wife, 2 kids and 1 scruffy little dog.

Elham Mirzapour is an Iranian designer. Since the age of 20, she has been working in the Furniture Design and Interior Design industry, and after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from I. Art University of Tabriz, Product Design was at the core of her activities. She has won more than 10 prestigious international design awards including Red Dot Design Award 2020: Best of the Best and IDA 2017: Emerging product designer of the year and her works have been presented in International design exhibitions and design weeks such as Como, Xiongan New Area, and Shenzhen. She is currently one of the juries on the A ‘Design Award & Competition and is also a member of the World Design Consortium (WDC), The International Society of Product Manufacturers (ISPM), and The International Council of Creative Industries (ICCI). (IAD), (AIBA), (IBSP) and (IDC). Besides, she is currently the Head of Design at Arena Design studio.

Davide Angeli was born in Imola, Italy, in 1982.  He graduated from IED in Milan, he began his career in 2004 alongside Michele De Lucchi, collaborating at his research and sculpture works. Winner of the “Top Young Italian Industrial Designer Award” promoted by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, he then joined AMDL CIRCLE, where today he is Deputy Managing Director and Head of International Business.

His work at AMDL CIRCLE led him to design, among others, interiors and installations for Poltrona Frau, Moschino, Kempinski, Artemide, Ferrari, Fiat, Azimut Yachts, Lavazza, etc. Products for Molteni, Guzzini, Produzione Privata, Unifor, Riva, Maruni, Enel; museum exhibitions for Triennale Milano, Scuderie del Quirinale, Reggia di Venaria, Cini Foundation, and Caixaforum; graphics and brand image for Intesa Sanpaolo, Banca Popolare Italiana, Zambon.

AMDL CIRCLE is a creative multidisciplinary studio renowned for its humanistic architecture and design. It is led by Michele De Lucchi, one of Italy’s leading architects and designers. Headquartered in Milan, Italy, the Studio is built on 40 years of pioneering projects including the Unicredit Pavilion in Italy, the Bridge of Peace in Tbilisi and Artemide’s Tolomeo, the world’s most popular designer lamp. Viewed from a humanistic perspective, the constant search for quality of life, both physical and intellectual, is at the very foundation of design.

Mr. Jason Wang is the leading figure in the Chinese design arena who had devoted himself to the design industry as a curator up to 2009. Wang is the Secretary-General of Asia Pacific Design Center (APDC) as well as the Secretary-General of the Organizing Committee for the APDC Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards for Elite.

In 2010, Mr. Jason Wang established the Asia Pacific Design Center (APDC) in Hong Kong, China. He also initiated the Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards for Elite with the theme ‘Celebrating Creativity’, which has become one of the most important design awards in the Chinese community.

Christian Baun has worked as a professional graphic designer and Creative Director for more than 30 years. He has worked as a specialist in logo design and branding, and he is one of the graphic designers who has designed the most logos in Scandinavia (about 350+ logos for companies and products). He has been around the world as a jury member (New York, Tokyo, Milano, Düsseldorf, Montréal, Stockholm, Copenhagen) and he has won numerous awards himself.

German photographer Thomas Wunsch started working in the field of photography at age 17, when he moved to the USA and became a member of the Kodak Young Photographers League. When he opened a photo studio in Hamburg he devoted himself to fashion, still life and portrait photography. In Hamburg he also had his first two solo exhibitions.

After moving back to the USA, Thomas was working as a still photographer at a movie production company and started taking abstract fine art photographs in the year 2000. These photographs were exhibited at museums and in numerous galleries throughout the world. They were also published by the renowned German record company ECM as LP and CD covers.

Thomas Wunsch is curating photography exhibitions in Germany and he has been teaching “Creative Photography” at the Anglo-American University in Prague. He has also held lectures about photography in Germany, USA, China, and South Korea.

Laurence Gartel is known to the world as the “FATHER” of Digital Art for over 40-years. His career started working side by side with video guru Nam June Paik at Media Study/Buffalo in upstate New York. He taught Andy Warhol how to use the Amiga Computer in order to produce the album cover for Debbie Harry (Blondie). Growing up in New York City during the Punk Rock era he was friends with Stiv Bators, Sid Vicious, Joey Ramone, Wendy O. Williams, and exhibited his work with Robert Mapplethorpe. Creating Digital Art before the birth of the personal computer his work has been exhibited with the Museum of Modern Art, Long Beach Museum of Art, Princeton Art Museum, Norton Museum of Art as well as included in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History, Bibliotheque Nationale Paris and Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum, London.

Gartel has traveled the world exhibiting and projecting his work in Australia, Spain, Germany, Italy, as well as going to India, creating a Bollywood Music/Video for Universal Entertainment. He has been commissioned to produce artwork on Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as for corporations such as Coca-Cola, Philip Morris, Walt Disney, National Basketball Association, Gibson Guitars, Bang & Olufsen, and known to most for his ABSOLUT GARTEL ad for Absolut Vodka. As a working Artist, 2015 could have been its own book. Gartel was the Official Artist of the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, Los Angeles.

The Xavier Hufkens Gallery is one of Europe’s leading galleries for contemporary art. Located in Brussels, the gallery maintains a diverse programme with solo exhibitions by multiple generations of leading artists and estates. The gallery deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and installation-based work.

Xavier Hufkens represents some forty artists from different generations. He was part of the six-member selection committee for Art Basel during seven years and also participates in up to eight international art fairs annually. The gallery has partnerships with the estates of Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe and Alice Neel.

Yasmine El Rashidi is an Egyptian writer. She is the author of The Battle for Egypt: Dispatches from the Revolution and Chronicle of a Last Summer: A Novel of Egypt, a coming-of-age novel set in 1984 in Cairo that was long-listed for the 2017 PEN Open Book Award.[1] She is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, and a contributing editor to the Middle East arts and culture quarterly Bidoun.

The Breeder Gallery is one of Athens’s most exciting cultural platforms. Co-founded by George Vamvakidis and Stathis Panagoulis, the gallery originated from The Breeder magazine. The gallery started in 2002 as a means of generating international attention for Athenian artists and has since evolved into a leading cultural voice with global influence. In spite of the city’s rich history, there are few other contemporary art galleries of The Breeder’s stature. The National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), which opened in 2000, closed in 2003 and only opened its doors again in 2016. Meanwhile, institutions such as the Benaki museums or The Museum of Cycladic Art frequently offer contemporary art exhibitions, yet their focus is mainly on exhibiting their vast historical and ancient collections – and rightly so. On the other side are initiatives – such as Neon – that take over spaces in Athens for different exhibitions. None has managed to sustain and build upon a forward-looking, dynamic program for as long as The Breeder, and certainly not as one gallery.

Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu (M.Arch [Hons], B.Arch, ARB, RIBA) is an internationally practicing architect, previously collaborating at Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) as the project designer and architect of international designs on a variety of scales including several competition-winning projects such as the London Aquatics Centre for 2012 Olympic Games, the Kartal Pendik Masterplan in Istanbul and the regeneration of Eleftheria Square in Nicosia, Cyprus. His internationally most acclaimed project is the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, which was completed in 2013 and of which Saffet is acknowledged as co-author next to the two ZHA-principals, the late Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher. Saffet is also the designer for many of the product and furniture designs, such as for the critically-acclaimed Aqua Table.

Saffet has set up his own practice Kaya Design in 2017 with locations in London, Istanbul and Cyprus.  His focus remains on pursuing an architecture of innovation and excellence.

Saffet’s interests lie in the expression of smart architectural surfaces informed by inherent conditions and contextual data – organizing designs with multiple orders into architectural landscapes. He investigates space as a fluid medium, where continuous variations have the ability to generate an implied motion. In terms of design methodology, Saffet emphasizes the significance of intuition and experimentation, deliberately engaging with a diverse set of innovative design processes and media rather than favoring a singular technique.

Before joining ZHA, Saffet had collaborated with Frank O. Gehry & Associates for five years where he was involved in the design and development of high profile, large-scale projects such as the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Lake Front Music Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

Saffet received his Bachelor of Architecture degree at the Istanbul Technical University, and his Masters of Architecture with Honors from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He has been a visiting critic, lecturer and tutor at various international architecture schools.

Rebecca McClelland is a Photographic Director, Content Producer and passionate visual storyteller working in London. Most recently she has spent a year working with Airbnb to produce and commission their photography and video campaigns across EMEA.

After spending seven years as a Photographic Editor at the Sunday Times magazine, where she oversaw many of their special issues, she went on to be NewStatesman magazine’s first photographic lead, responsible for elevating the visual content of the magazine after it’s redesign to challenge readers with dynamic, intelligent photojournalism & illustration.

She has enjoyed roles at Wallpaper*, Art World magazine and Avaunt magazine & PORT magazine where she won a D&AD Award for Magazine & Newspaper Design Front Covers.

She is the Deputy Director & Curator of the Ian Parry Scholarship, a role she has fulfilled for sixteen years as well as Associate Lecturer at University of Creative Arts, Farnham & Coventry University. She writes for various publications on photography, judges numerous awards and is a nominator for the Joop Swart Masterclass and the Prix Pictet.

Peter Frank (born 1950, New York) is an American art critic, curator, and poet who lives and works in Los Angeles. He was the Senior Curator at the Riverside Art Museum and an art critic for Angeleno magazine. He is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post. Until July 9, 2008, he was a long-time critic for LA Weekly. He was a past editor of Visions Art Quarterly and was an art critic for The Village Voice and The SoHo Weekly News in New York.

Frank contributes articles to numerous publications and has written many monographs and catalogs for one person and group exhibitions. He has organized many theme and survey shows for placement at institutions throughout the world. He has taught at colleges and universities and he has lectured all over North America and Europe. Frank received his B.A. and M.A. in art history from Columbia University.

Jesper Thomsen graduated with distinction from London’s Central St. Martin’s College of Art and Design with a Master in Communication Design and Photography. He has pursued a long career as a Creative Director in the digital media industry before launching MEWS42, a private art gallery in London’s South Kensington, working with and showing artists such as Bill Brandt, Damien Hirst, Parviz Tanavoli, Robert Fry and others. He is also a fine art photographer and a jury member of several photographic competitions.

Hossein Farmani is a creative director, gallerist, exhibition curator, philanthropist and founder and president of the Lucie Awards in New York, International Design Awards, International Photography Awards, Paris Photo Prize, London Creative Awards, Focus on AIDS and Farmani Gallery. 

Hossein’s passion for photography has taken him to all corners of the world and he has organized and curated over 200 photographic exhibitions. For the last 20 years he has been lecturing at universities and colleges, sharing his appreciation of photography with the next generation, as well as being a jury at many festivals and awards like Photo Lucida, Photofest, Arles Photo Festival, Yangong Photo Festival and many more.​

Hossein also co-founded the Palm Springs Photo Festival, Snap Orlando, Month of Photography Los Angeles, and the Istanbul Photo Festival. In 2014, Hossein spoke at TEDx ChiangMai and again in 2016 at TEDx Bologna, sharing his passion for photography and design. 

More recently, Hossein has curated the Global Climate Change Exhibition for the United Nation at the COP21 in Paris, 2015. As a philanthropist and environmental activist; Hossein has lectured in Universities in over 25 cities globally, using his passion for photography & design to highlight important social issues. 

Hossein Farmani’s personal collection of contemporary and vintage photography is one of the most important private collections in the United States. 

He is the founder of Farmani Group.