SPEAKERS 2024

After graduating from Kuwasawa Design School, she worked as a men's designer at Onward Kashiyama Co. and joined One Stroke in 2013. While taking charge of overall management, also involved in design, illustration, and book production. Ai currently is the director of One Stroke and Gallery Komagata, promoting the work and legacy of his father Katsumi Komagata. She is in charge of basic design (fashion design) as a teacher at Kuwasawa Design School. Author of the books "Today is a Good Day" (2016), "Hands" (2020), "The Hands Touching the World" (2022). She has participated as well in the exhibition "Flower of Life," commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum in 2022. Judge of Kuwasawa Design School Festival “Fashion Show 2022”.

Alejandra Oviedo. She was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She is a visual artist, her work focuses on drawing and embroidering stories of her daily life, places, objects and people.  She has been very influenced by the culture of her country, its colours, textures, music, food and people. Embroidery has given her a lot, it taught her to be patient, to be able to express herself with threads, to meet new people, to meditate and to take time to take care of and discover her inner self. She teaches illustration and embroidery at Casatinta, and experiments with materials other than thread, such as paper or metal. She also likes to draw in the sand and then erase it with her feet.
 

Alejandro Moreno Marín studied industrial design and specialised in photography at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2016). He has edited books, made clothes, designed objects and painted streets. Everything that has occupied his time revolves around the narrative possibilities of the image and the exploration of media and materials. She has participated in group exhibitions in Bogotá and London (2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024) and solo exhibitions in Bogotá and Medellín (2023). His photographic work has been reviewed in editorial publications such as the Photographic Museum of Humanity (2019), Revue 6 mois (France, 2021) and Yogurt Magazine (Italy, 2020, 2021).

His current artistic work consists of creating works from textile materials. Through his work in photobook publishing, he has developed a special interest in the narratives that can be constructed through the interaction between the images and the material that supports them. Although the process of conceptualisation and the sketching methods he employs have much in common with traditional artistic practices such as drawing or painting, the use of techniques such as embroidery, weaving and patchwork imply specific possibilities determined by the material. Transitioning from paper fibres to textile fibres means being open to surprise, as the very nature of textiles conditions and determines the characteristics of the image.

His work is nourished by his sensitive experience; he does not look for outstanding events or issues, but rather explores the extraordinary in the everyday. His subjects of interest include religious iconography, material culture and popular graphic production. He finds in everyday materials and techniques an important input for the creation of his works, seeking to re-signify their artistic value and to propose new forms of application and interaction with them. By employing techniques traditionally associated with the home, such as embroidery and weaving, he aims to expand conventional narratives about these methods.

Born in Hradec Králové but raised in Zlín, Alžběta was profoundly influenced by painter and poet Jaroslav Kovanda at the Robinson art school, who taught her to appreciate colors, percieve the world around her and observe life. She completed her education at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Uherské Hradiště before advancing to study illustration and graphics at UMPRUM in Prague. Zemanová now works at the NaPOLI studio, specializing in creating paper foldings, cutouts, and author’s books. She is also a co-manager of the Xao Bookstore and Gallery in Prague's Vršovice district, alongside Klára Zahrádková, Jakub Plachý, and Zuzana Bramborová. A lover of nature, she cultivates a variety of plants including cornflowers, beans, and herbs in her garden in the Podkrkonoší region. Zemanová has a passion for bringing fictional characters to life, crafting them into both fabric and paper toys with their unique stories and personalities under her brand AKA.

Andrea Ganuza, (Pamplona, 1988) His artistic practice focuses on graphic narrative and drawing, experimenting with the expansion of the limits of comic language and understanding it as a discipline of contemporary art. With a language close to poetry and a sharp humour, she uses her own experiences to pay attention to the axes that run through us: the social, the political and the emotional. Starting from the premise that drawing is a language and is therefore influenced by the context, Andrea is constantly looking for different ways of understanding the world. This curiosity has led her to travel the globe, thanks to grants and artist residencies.  Some of the places that have shaped her ways of doing are Barcelona, Bilbao, Bristol, Angoulême, Quebec, São Paulo and Medellín, where ‘Atrviésame’, her first graphic novel self-published in 2023.

She is training and work develop inside and outside the Academy, alternating her participation and teaching in official spaces and festivals related to counterculture, graphic art, fanzine and DIY.  Her drawings have been exhibited in spaces such as Museo Reina Sofía, CentroCentro or La Parcería (Madrid), Fundación Suñol, Galería Policroma (Barcelona), Azkuna Zentroa (Bilbao) and can be found in the collection of the Museo de Navarra. In addition to her individual artistic practice, she has initiated and participated in numerous collective projects such as the independent space La Zurda, PUMPK Festival de Autoedición de Pamplona/Iruña, the feminist collective NENAZAS or Tormenta in Medellín (Colombia). She currently lives and works in Pamplona.

1970. Graduated in Fine Arts. With many hours of pigments, binders, essences and drawing behind him, this correct ballroom dancer is a good  conversationalist, the best workshop owner and also a tattoo artist. More than 20 years dedicated to drawing and teaching endorse him as a drawing professional who has fought a thousand battles. And, even so, always in search of continuing to learn how to draw things on any surface, he ended up drawing ink with needles on the skin. Because drawing, drawing for real, from the guts, is a transforming rite of passage. There is no small tattoo and whoever passes and leaves my booth is no longer the same person who entered. The ink sorcerer, from the cubicle of the small hut-cabin, works rites
of passage and transforms people, I hope, into a better version of themselves.

Araiz Mesanza (b.1983) is a Basque illustrator, living and working in Oslo, Norway. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the Basque University (Bilbao, Spain) and specialisation in Illustration at Escola Massana (Barcelona, Spain). And recently she has completed an MA in Graphic Design and Illustration at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (Oslo, Norway). Mesanza works as a freelance illustrator, with children’s books, editorial illustration, comics, and she has a special interest on self-publication and printed matter. Last year she founded Toki press a space to experiment with self-publication, with the borders between books and prints, what defines what, and how far she can push these borders. A place to explore comics, narratives, design and formats, limited only by her own experience.

Bea Lema is an illustrator and comic book author who also uses embroidery and knitting as a medium to convey her images. Her work, generally autobiographical, deals with themes related to madness, trauma, family relationships, religion and popular rites. In 2018 she published “O Corpo de Cristo”, a work that won the 12th Castelao Prize from the Provincial Council of A Coruña and has also been published in France, Italy and Portugal this year. The project received a grant for a graphic novel residency at the Maison des Auteurs in 2022 thanks to Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l'image, with the collaboration of the French Embassy in Spain. In 2024, he received the ‘Prix du poubique - France TV’ for this work at the Angoulême comic festival, a world-renowned event.