International Theatre Centre “Light People” was created as a social project to develop and modernize the modern theater. It is the largest school of acting in St. Petersburg, with a large selection of different educational programs (intensives, workshops, semi-annual conferences, residencies). Students choose from an extensive list of supporting disciplines such as dance, language, acrobatics, singing, or movement. “Light People” also functions as a research center for international and local projects in the field of arts management, organizing lectures, seminars, and meetings.

Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon, is widely considered a leader in the genre of street art. She is best known for her intricately cut, life-sized portraits found on streets and abandoned buildings in cities around the world. Often found in beautiful states of decay, her wheat-pasted installations are populated by realistically rendered people going about everyday activities in a cityscape of her own invention. Swoon’s prints and paper cutouts take inspiration from the German Expressionists of the early twentieth century as well as Indonesian shadow puppetry.Her work belongs to the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum, and has appeared in exhibitions at ICA, Boston (2011), Deitch Projects (2008) and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (2008), amongst others.

Ilya Gaponov graduated from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in 2004 and from the Mukhina Academy of Art and Design in the Department of Monumental Art in St Petersburg in 2007. He also studied in the contemporary art program for practicing artists at the “Pro Arte” Foundation of Arts and Culture. He lives and works in St. Petersburg.

Terry S. Hardy addresses themes of identity, human rights, sexuality, and religion, examining social concerns through painting, sculpture, performance and installations. His most recent work focuses on the intimacy of loss and memorializing those who are forgotten.His work has ben included in over 80 exhibitions in venues throughout the US and abroad, including Lincoln Center in New York, The Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC, and The Historic Freedom Riders Museum in Montgomery, AL. Hardy has presented large scale public works at the Art Prospect Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, the National Center for Contemporary Art in Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia, The Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta, GA and in Art in Odd Places in New York and Sydney, Australia.EDUCATIONArt Institute of Art, Atlanta, GABevill State Community College, Fayette, AL

Linda Hesh combines the personal and political playing with taboos and challenging social norms in a variety of media. Born in Chicago, Illinois, she lived in New York City for a while before landing in Alexandria, Virginia. Graduating Summa Cum Laude from the University of Illinois , she went on to receive her MFA from State University of New York. Hesh’s art is held in public collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Kinsey Institute, and The Library of Congress. Her work has been selected for exhibitions by international curators including Milena Kalinovska, Sanford Biggers, Claudia Gould and Philip Brookman. She has exhibited locally including the Art Museum of the Americas and G Fine Art as well as nationally in Bergamot Center in Los Angeles and Exit Art in New York City and internationally in a public art festival in Saint Petersberg, Russia. The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Huffington Post have featured her art. EducationB.F.A. University of Illinois at Champaign-UrbanaGraduate study at University of Wisconsin at MadisonM.F.A. State University of New York at New Paltz

Paul Notzold is a new media artist and designer specializing in mobile and interactive technology. Notzold received his MFA from Parsons, the New School for Design’s graduate Design & Technology program, where he later taught. His most notable work TXTual Healing (www.txtualhealing.com) has been exhibited and performed internationally, appearing in Google’s Creative Internet (slide 65), notable publications including The Economist, Wired, Time Magazine, Overspray, and the books Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art published by Taschen, Touch of Code published by Gestalten, and Street Art and the War On Terror: How the World’s Best Graffiti Artists Said NO to the Iraq War. – See more at: http://www.cecartslink.org/wordpress/2012/10/02/paul-notzold/#sthash.sxSSWwRz.dpuf

Sheryl Oring has an interdisciplinary practice that incorporates both old and new media to tell stories, examine publicopinion and foster open exchange. Her artwork is interactive and process-based, relying on public and community inputfor its ultimate manifestation as performances, installations, sculptures, photo and video works and artist books. Oring’swork has been shown at Art Prospect festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Encuentro in São Paolo, Brazil; the Jewish MuseumBerlin; the 01SJ Biennial in San Jose, CA; Bryant Park at The New York Public Library; the Boston Public Library; and theMcCormick Freedom Museum in Chicago. She has received a number of grants including a Creative Capital Foundationgrant and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. Oring is presently at work on a public art commission at the SanDiego International Airport.EDUCATION2011 M.F.A. in Visual Art: University of California, San Diego.1987 B.S. in Journalism: University of Colorado, Boulder.

Born in the Krasnodar Region, Andrei Rudyev graduated from the Mukhina Academy of Art and Design in St. Petersburg in 1993. A member of the Union of Artists in St. Petersburg since 1994, Rudyev is an active participant in exhibitions, festivals and biennials in Russia, America, Germany, Holland, France, Austria, Pakistan, Georgia and other countries. Working primarily in painting, collage and mixed media, Rudyev’s work explores the wide variety of socio-political models around us, challenging the viewer to contemplate how these multiple, often contradictory systems can coexist. – See more at: http://www.cecartslink.org/wordpress/2013/02/25/andrei-rudyev/#sthash.Pc7eDzkQ.dpuf

Born in Krasnoyarsk, Veronika Rudyeva-Ryazantseva moved from Siberia to St. Petersburg when she was 19 to study at Mukhina Academy of Art and Design and the Program for Young Practicing Artists at the Pro Arte Foundation. She considers herself part of the generation of “Perestroika’s children” and her work draws special attention to research on post- and post-post-Soviet space. Rudieva-Ryazantseva focuses her work on people and their energy. Very often her works are almost documentaries, but made from a specific and personal point of view. The artist’s main characters are real people who become symbols of time, place and their generation. Sections of the project were presented in 2010 at the 2nd Moscow International Biennale of Young Arts, “Stop! Who Goes There?,” the Festival of Contemporary Arts “Live Perm” in Perm, Russia and the exhibition “Hydroponics.”September 20-23, 2012 – See more at: http://www.cecartslink.org/wordpress/2013/02/25/veronika-rudyeva-ryazantseva/#sthash.gra6y3mL.dpuf

Andrea Steudel is an art producer and maker from the Midwestern United States, recently acting as the Producer for Northern Spark nuit blanche and site manager for Giant Sing Along by Living with Our Time. Steudel specializes in creating mobile platforms for the broadcasting of technology-based media. She is a founding member of the acclaimed Minneapolis Art on Wheels ensemble and has worked with them in San Jose, Beijing, Grand Rapids, Istanbul, Budapest and other cities around the United States. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley and is an alumni of the University of Minnesota’s Undergraduate Program in Experimental and Media Arts. She is also a former Art(ists) On the Verge Fellow.

An artist, performer, curator, and producer, Ed Woodham’s work addresses communication in private and public spaces questioning the relationship between art/viewer, performer/spectator. He has led workshops in public art for the School for Visual Art’s Public Art Residency and for Parson’s School of Design. In Atlanta, he founded and directed the multi-disciplinary arts space, 800 East producing over 250 visual and performance art events. For the Arts Festival of Atlanta, he created and directed the public visual and performance art event, Art in Odd Places (AiOP) for the 1996 Olympics, which he continues today as an independent project in New York City. AiOP is an annual festival along 14th Street NYC that presents art in unexpected public locations.