As an independent curator, Artel developed the Biennale of Young Artists in Tallinn, comprised of exhibitions, workshops, seminars and artists’ and curators’ residencies. She also ran an experimental project space that supported over 40 site-specific and information-based exhibitions. In the US, Artel examined self-sustainable collectives and interact with artists and activists involved with innovative, ecologically conscious solutions for alternative urban and rural lifestyles.

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Basarab’s work as a sculptor and multimedia artist translates common conceptions of public monuments into provocative community-produced tributes to popular themes. Her project Monuments for Concepts has been through several iterations including Mister Normality and Miss Individualism and she intends to develop a similarly-constructed, public and web-based artwork drawing on American ideals, in collaboration with a community in the US.

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Chuluunbat is the executive director of Globe Art Center, which has established an international documentary film festival, children’s art festival and series of workshops, meetings and training opportunities. She is also the founder of Gal Pictures, an independent film production company that creates documentaries, feature films and TV shorts. She hoped to learn from film festivals in the US about approaches to raising the quality and visibility of Mongolian films, particularly documentaries.

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An art critic, curator and director of The International Center for Contemporary Arts (ICCA) in Bucharest, Cios oversaw ICCA’s transition in 1999 from the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts to its current form. She has managed many local and international collaborative projects, curated exhibitions and lectured and written about important trends in contemporary Romanian art. Cios was interested in learning more about audience development and observing the effects of artistic practices and public artwork on communities.

Gulbis creates temporary public interventions that stress notions of art world accessibility and the slippage between public and private spheres. His projects often involve witty social interactions and have included a mobile Irish pub, a sculpture that invites the populace to become their own monuments and designs for a National Costume for the EU. He hoped to initiate similar public artworks in a culturally-diverse area of the US focusing on communities with limited exposure to contemporary art.

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Kuymdzhieva is an art critic and curator of the Zeniths Gallery, a non-profit exhibition space located in the central office of the CIBANK financial institution in Sofia. In 2008, she founded the Art Affairs and Documents Foundation, the first independent non-governmental association of curators in Bulgaria. She was interested in visiting art studios and meeting with galleries and other contemporary art centers in the US to learn about their exhibition, marketing, education and publication practices.

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Lekić’s participatory sculptures examine how an audience’s interaction with a work of art can transform it physically, aesthetically and symbolically. In one piece, a gallery carpeted in polyurethane foam maintained subtle proof of each audience member’s visit. Lekić has exhibited in galleries and public spaces throughout Croatia and Europe and in the US. She hoped to create projects in an American setting that would challenge notions of closed and open public spaces and to document the public’s reaction to her work.

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Through video, film, photography, drawing, painting and performance, Muja explores political and social transformation and the discord that war can produce. He has had artist residencies in Austria, Serbia and at the Santa Fe Art Institute in the US. During his residency, Muja intended to broaden his perspective on contemporary art and create new work in collaboration with a US artist. He also intended to share his experiences of the growing contemporary art scene in Kosovo.

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Working in painting, video and installation, Naprushkina examines the structure of the government in her native Belarus and investigates different political and social models from dictatorship to postmodern democracy. Her work has been exhibited widely in Russia and Europe and was included in the 2009 Istanbul Biennial. As a continuation of her explorations, she wanted to gain an inside perspective on the politics of the US and the lives of ordinary people.

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Poposki’s work combines painting, performance, digital media and public interventions to explore issues of liminality, urban memory and globalization. He has participated in numerous international festivals and exhibitions and has authored a book on the intersection of new media art and activism. Poposki wanted to extend his public interventions to an American context, focusing on issues of creative reuse and social reinterpretation of public space.

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Multimedia artist and founder of the SOSka gallery-laboratory in Kharkiv, Ridnyi aims to create an alternative to the commercial art market in Ukraine as well as examine social and cultural differences between youth culture in the East and West. Ridnyi’s work has been exhibited in Europe, Russia and the US, and through SOSka he has developed a series of exhibitions, lectures, screenings and workshops. He hoped to engage in collaborations with American social practice artists, curators and educators.

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Ugay’s photography and video work subtly investigates post-Soviet social environments and their connections to both Western and East Asian cultural references. As an ethnic Korean, he was interested in working with a Korean Diaspora in the US while producing work that may tie his hometown in southern Kazakhstan to the oil and cowboy culture of Texas. He has exhibited widely in Europe, Central Asia and the US, including at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the New Museum, the Istanbul Biennial and the Venice Biennale.

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