Emily Jacir (Palestine, 1970) is an artist and educator. Based in the Mediterranean, the artist uses a wide range of media and methodologies including film, video, photography, sculpture, installation and performance to investigate personal and collective movement through geography and time. She has been working in the South of Italy (mainly the Salento but also in Basilicata and Sicily) for the last 20 years. Her most recent work We Ate the Wind presents a large cinematic installation comprising new and archival footage addressing questions of visibility and invisibility, proximity and distance, hospitality and exclusion, exploring specific migration policies and their consequences on individuals and communities. Drawing on rituals such as dance, processions and games, the artist charts the way space, collectivity and memories are claimed. She has been studying and dancing pizzica and other tarantelle since 2015. She is the recipient of a Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund in The Hague (2007); the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum (2008); the Alpert Award (2011) from the Herb Alpert Foundation; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome (2015) American Academy of Arts and Letters price (2023) and an honorary doctorate from NCAD in Dublin, Ireland. Her works are shown all over the world in solo and group exhibitions. She is the founder of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem.

Michael Rakowitz (Iraq, USA, 1973) interrogates social geographies on a local, regional, and global scale, working at the intersection of problem-solving and trouble-making. Among his first projects is paraSITE (1998-ongoing), a series of custom built inflatable structures designed for unhoused people that attach to the exterior outtake vents of a building’s HVAC system. Recently, he has been the recipient of the 2018-2020 Fourth Plinth commission in London’s Trafalgar Square; the 2020 Nasher Prize; and the 2018 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. His work has appeared in MoMA, Whitechapel Gallery, MassMOCA, and Tate Modern, among others. Rakowitz is a Professor of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.