Artists

Fatih Kurçeren works as a freelance photographer in Essen.

Sebastian Heine, born in Wesel in 1987, has been playing minigolf professionally since 2003 and is a multiple European champion.

Sebastian Sowa and Gianluca Torini work as SOWATORINI Landschaft between garden, landscape and art.

Stefan Seifert has been playing club mini golf since 2013 and currently works for BGV Backumer Tal Herten e. V.

Tunay Önder works at the interface of text, performance and discourse, with a focus on emancipatory struggles in the migration society.

The RuhrgebietsSpatzen, Pani Kostka & Mercedes Tuccini, combine entertainment and art by examining social issues and historical perspectives of the Ruhr region.

Tim Holland, author and co-publisher, deals with visions of the future and speculative writing in his poetry collection “wir zaudern, wir brennen”.

Caren Jeß, born in Eckernförde in 1985, studied German philology and modern German literature in Freiburg i.Br. and Berlin. 

Nikita Teryoshin, photographs defense exhibitions worldwide. His award-winning book “Nothing Personal” was published in 2024.

Mona Schulzek is a visual artist from Berlin and studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She trained as a radio operator for her artistic research.

In her artistic practice, Marlin de Haan deals with the tensions between bodies and objects in space as well as the possibilities and limits of action areas, performance and narrative formats.

Jonas Leifert's work addresses social issues from the perspective of the Ruhr area, Franziska Pierwoss develops site-specific installations that question personal and political relationships.

In her artistic practice, Paula Pedraza is concerned with decolonial and feminist theories, surveillance architecture and is interested in experimental design and hybrid spatial constructions.

Anna Haifisch writes and draws comics, works as an illustrator for national and international media and designs print series, posters and design products.

Anna R. Winder (*1995 in Aarhus) is part of the b_books collective, which runs a bookshop and a publishing house and is a co-editor of wormhole newspaper.

In her practice, Tekla Aslanishvili observes the shifting relations between governments, people, and their territories through the lens of large-scale infrastructure projects.

Borjana Ventzislavova (born in Sofia, Bulgaria) lives in Vienna and works with video, film, photography, installation and often works in public space.

Working between documentary and speculative fiction, Emilija Škarnulytė's video works take viewers through nuclear power plants, deep-sea data storage units and uncanny natural phenomena.

The ruїns collective was founded by Oleg Isakov, Elias Parvulesco and Teta Tsybulnyk in 2017 in Kyiv and is a film and art union.

In his work artist Asad Raza often explores dialogic exchange and rejects disciplinary boundaries. Raza conceives of art as a metabolic, active experience combining human, non-human beings.

In June 2022, Irena Haiduk opens the exhibition Healing Complex (2018—ongoing) in the former church of St. Bonifatius, which is becoming a new meeting and community place in Gelsenkirchen.

In her cross-media works, Anne Arndt critically and humorously scrutinises our public living space as a mirror of social cultures of power and remembrance.

In his films and sculptural video installations, Driant Zeneli (*1983 in Shkoder, Albania) interweaves representations of power, science, mythology and fairy tales with individual narratives.

In her artistic work, Nino Kvrivishvili reflects on the history of textile production in Georgia, which was a central branch of industry in Soviet times.

In her work, Eva Kot'átková explores forms of power, manipulation, discrimination and control exercised by institutions upon those who deviate from the norm (or what is perceived as such).

With The Ancient Masked Temple, Camilo Pachón aims to create a collective space in the Healing Complex with a programme of workshops, readings, performances and the traditions of carnival.

In her practice Dana Kavelina often touches upon military violence and war, historical and individual trauma, memory, and critical perspectives on the historical canon.

Katja Auleger's artistic works critically observe (social) contexts and systems with aesthetic precision and are infused with subtle humor.

Sven Johne is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. In his text, photo and video works, Sven Johne combines historical research and fictional narratives and deals with post-socialist biographies.

Anna Daučíková lives and works in Prague. In her practice she is working with painting, photography, video, and performance exploring authorship, gender and sexuality.

Zhanna Kadyrova (*1981 in Brovary, Ukraine) has been working in the field of sculpture for 20 years and is currently one of the best-known artistic positions from Ukraine.

Nikita Kadan (*1982 in Kyjiv, Ukraine) works with painting, graphics, and installation, often in collaboration with architects, sociologists and human rights activists.

Jana Gunstheimer (*1974 in Zwickau) often combines drawings, paintings and objects in her artistic practise to create complex overall installations.

Uli Golub's (*1990 in Kharkiv, Ukraine) artistic practice includes video, installation, performance, photography and mixed-media collages. Storytelling forms the basis of her work.

Soviet-Ukrainian artist Fedir Tetianych was a visionary who was influenced by the ideas of space exploration and the flight of the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to space in 1961.

For Ruhr Ding: Schlaf, the Welsh artist Angharad Williams as part of the collective The Wig adevelops a work for the Makroscope rooms.

Felix Bork deals with the important things in life: cute animals, beautiful flowers, colourful stones, poop and love.

Marta Dyachenko creates installations with model-like sculptures that critically question the relationship between nature, man and landscape.

Etienne Dietzels works, which are frequently developed in cooperation with artists and specialists from various fields, are technical in nature, their appearance relating to their own genesis.

In his works, Julius von Bismarck examines perception, natural phenomena and urban space at the interface between art and science.

Nicole Wermers uses sculptures and collages to depict urban space, social structures and the recomposition of everyday objects.

In his sculptures, David Jablonowski shows the changes in communication and media content, influenced by industrial materials and technologies.

In her sculptures and installations, Sofía Táboas (*1968) explores how man-made and natural space is perceived and reshaped.

Markus Jeschaunig works as an artist and architect, his projects combine art, natural sciences, ecology and activism.

Michele Mondin works in a family business that has been equipping ice cream parlors and pizzerias in the Ruhr region for 50 years.

Dietmar Osses, Deputy Director of the Ruhr Museum, focuses on the industrial culture and migration history of the Ruhr region in his exhibitions.

In her sound installations, Darsha Hewitt depicts the effects of sound technologies and raw materials policy on people and the environment.

Erdem Teper writes about everything that makes Erdem feel. Themes in his poetry are often taken from philosophical and religious contexts.

Barbara Welzel, Professor of Art History and Cultural Education at the Technical University of Dortmund, researches and teaches culture and cultural transfer in the Hanseatic region.

Johanna Gonschorek's work explores the relationships between memory, epistemes, politics and power relations.

As a documentary photographer and videographer, Natalka Diachenko approaches questions of cultural heritage and the relation between the personal and intimate and global historical narratives.

Yuri Yefanov (*1990) is an artist and filmmaker from Ukraine. His works use computer-generated imagery and game simulations to create digital dimensions of otherworldliness.

Haha Wang works mainly in sculpture and installation but also in video. In her works, the intimate feelings of both humans and animals are conveyed and transformed by unexpected objects or events.

Based on photography and its extension in the medium of film, Alina Schmuch uses artist's books, video and installation to investigate the interaction between the visual medium and reality.

Henrik Nieratschker's artistic work deals with the social implications of our lives within a digital infrastructure.

Nollaig Molloy works with moving image, sculptural installation and sound while sometimes using workshop and event-based outcomes, to explore landscape through material means.

Philipp Modersohn's sculptures, animated films, and interdisciplinary projects highlight the vibrancy of things / matter and confront these with man-made structures and systems of social organization.

Lubov Malikova is a Ukrainian artist and – together with Max Poberezhsky – runs the collaborative art group and experimental design studio DIS/ORDER.

Iris Ward Loughran is sculptor, photographer, and urbanist living and working in Brooklyn, NY.

In Magdalena Los’ digitally collaged visual worlds, everyday views collide with private screenshots or references to popular film scenes, works of art and current news from various departments.

Marc Kokopeli's work is overly concerned with how identity is formed during childhood.

In his work, Jan Kiesswetter produces publications and, increasingly, film documentaries. Recurring themes in his work are the representation of architectures and archives and the reading of images.

Fabian Hampel deals with contemporary technologies and is interested in linear, reflexive forms as well as abstract borderlands.

Jan Berger's practice is primarily occupied with the ludic formation of cultural mythologies and the production of subjectivity in online spaces.

In his work Deniz Aktaş captures human and environment relations affected by urban decay, environmental collapse, human migration, and the traumatic transformation of city and nature.

In her performances, videos and paintings, Nadja Abt constructs feminist narratives that reference the world of literature and film.

In his artistic practice, Viron Erol Vert probes – against the background of his own intercultural experiences – identity constructs and different aspects related to the self and the other.

By means of multi-channel installations, associative, reflective and surreal sequences, Taube works against conventional cinematographic codes.

Natural sciences, visual culture and mythological stories inspire Nadine Rangosch to build her own vocabulary, translating abstract concepts into spatial arrangements.

Kristina Paustian examines cultural anthropological and socio-political topics. In cinematic images she focusses in particular on the themes of times of upheaval and technical utopias.

In his cinematic / sculptural works David Reiber Otálora deals with exoticisms and colonial representations of the so-called other and explores possibilities to affirm them into ambiguous narratives.

Vanessa Nica Mueller's films and artwork focus on aspects of memory, the relation of human, nature and urban space, the uncanny and the construction of conditions.

Nicoleta Moise is a visual artist, writer and researcher with different mediums combining photography, video and performance and focusses on making visible less known stories, characters or events.

In her works, Julia Lübbecke deals with the relation between body and institution. She explores this connection to examine dominant structures of order and creates processes to make them fragile.

Laura Leppert works with film, installation and text. Her installations and cinematic spaces are constructed in fragments and are constantly in motion.

In his recent projects Guy Königstein researches the different ways we live the past in the present, for instance through practices of commemoration, archiving or archaeology.

Yuki Jungesblut seeks out potentialities and instances of overlap between imagination, fiction and reality, often exploring underdetermined states and liminality in general.

Jessica Arseneau explores the way human perception and subjectivity is shaped by social codes, patterns of behaviour, accelerating culture and technological progress.

Adriana Arroyo's works reference to geological activity, to reveal possible relationships between the movement of the Earth, politics and the fragility of the body and the mind.

Kyoco+Nico are an artist duo from Tokyo and Berlin. The behaviour as well as the verbal syntax of the two cities tend to be exact opposites.

Nastassja Simensky uses moving image, writing, music and performance to develop a material understanding of politics and history.

Euridice Getulio Kala is an artist based in Paris. She was trained as a photographer at the Market Photo Workshop, Johannesburg.

In her practice Marianna Christofides deals with entangled narratives that constitute the different layers of multi-authored places.

Ana Alenso art focuses on the global dependence on resources and the concomitant political, social, and economic exploitation.

Matshelane Xhakaza is a South African artist. The point of departure for Xhakaza’s work is her immediate environment and the artist’s personal, everyday experiences.

Katrin Winkler is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. She work in the fields of expanded cinema, critical research, photography and video.

Wiersbinskis projects operate at the interface between art, science and technology, touching on architectural discourse, entomology (the study of insects) and cybernetics.

Viola Relle and Raphael Weilguni have been working together since 2012. They model simultaneously on large ceramics that become relics of a communication and negotiation process.

During 2018/2019 Wasim Ghrioui is participating in our residency programme “Zu Gast bei Urbane Künste Ruhr”.

Jan Brokof was born in former Eastern Germany. In his early work the social environment of his youth with its Plattenbau apartment buildings and the chimneys play a prominent role.

Often involving external participants, managers, coaches, employees, Céline Berger creates objects, videos and installations exploring our professional lives.

Mohamed Altoum is a Sudanese visual artist, photographer and cameraman. n his works he combines selected visual impressions with storytelling.

Stacey Gillian Abe’s concepts highlight specific complex situations as autobiographical documentation drawn from earlier and continuous experiences.

Achim Lengerer explores medial language in his practice. He examines images, texts and original soundtracks as vehicles for political power and emancipatory potential.

Stephanie Kiwitt captures the transformation of rural areas in her photographic work - most recently in Saxony-Anhalt with “Flächenland”.

In his sculptural works and workshops, Aram Bartholl explores digital media, surveillance and platform capitalism in public space.

Arhun Aksakal is interested in human perception, urban psychology and geographical infrastructures and investigates phenomena of civilizational activity and geological time.

Ramona Schacht studied photography in Heidi Specker's class at the HGB Leipzig until 2020, Luca Bublik completed his doctorate at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Both live in Leipzig.

Britta Peters works as a curator specialising in art in public spaces. She has been the Artistic Director of Urbane Künste Ruhr since January 2018.

Lydia Röder has managed a hospice service for over 20 years. She has been working with people at the end of life since the beginning of her professional career.

Kasia Fudakowski works with sculpture, film and performance to uncover social enigmas through surreal logic and theory.

Amina Falah is a designer and photographer. Her work sheds light on everyday life and the stories of the people around her, with a focus on social issues.

Tobi Dahmen is a German comic artist and illustrator. Growing up in Wesel, he discovered his passion for drawing and storytelling at an early age.

Luna Ali, born in Syria in 1993, has worked as an author on productions at the Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Hanover theaters as well as in Berlin.

Jul Gordon lives in Hamburg and works as a comic artist. In addition to drawing, she curates exhibitions and works as a lecturer at the HAW Hamburg.

Lütfiye Güzel is a poet and has been publishing poems under her own label go-güzel-publishing since 2014.

Lisa Klosterkötter is an artist and curator, supporter and co-designer of socio-cultural spaces.

The artist Paula Erstmann works primarily with food as an artistic medium.