SPEAKERS 2025

Elena Aitzkoa is a sculptor and poet born in Apodaka in 1984. Her artistic practice includes sculpture, drawing, poetry, performance and film. Her creations are a heterogeneous ecosystem that draws on physical and emotional elements from her surroundings and life experience, focusing her energy on the poetic configuration of matter and beauty as a connecting element between beings. Notable among her projects are Ur Aitzak (2022-2024) as an associate artist at Azkuna Zentroa; Headscarfs Close to the Ground, as part of Oslo Pilot (2016); the film Nuestro amor nació en la Edad Media (Our Love Was Born in the Middle Ages, 2018); and the vinyl record of poems and whistles Paraíso terrenal (Earthly Paradise, 2019). Her solo exhibitions include Brote de Peral (La Panera Art Centre, Lleida, 2022), Zarza Corazón (Patio Herreriano Museum, Valladolid, 2019), and Lendia Song (Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, 2021). In the field of performance, he has shown his work in multiple venues, including the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), the Museum of Fine Arts (Bilbao), Ftarri (Tokyo), the Sonic Circuits Festival (Washington), Audible Area (Chengdu), etc. In 2015, he won the Gure Artea Award for creative activity.

ELENA PATAKI is the children’s and young adult publisher at Patakis Publishers. She joined the publishing house in 1992 after completing my MSc in software engineering. At first, her focus was on multimedia works. The world of children's books gradually began to enthrall her. The bookfairs had a part in it: she went to Frankfurt in 1986 and frequented Frankfurt and Bologna bookfairs from that time onward. Over the years, she has seen amazing books and met. A lo largo de los años, ha visto libros increíbles y ha conocido a personas, editoras/es, escritoras/es y artistas extraordinary people, publishers, writers, artists. She feels devoted to this wonderful world, as long as it keeps surprising her.

FAY KOLOKYTHA is an Athenian designer, always interested in the forms that stories and storytelling can take. After obtaining a master’s degree from the Werkplaats Typografie in 2015, she worked in the New York City art industry till 2019. She collaborated with art institutions and established and emerging artists on the production of a variety of formats, including bookmaking, exhibition design, and archival organization. Since 2020, she has been working as an editorial manager at Patakis Publishers, overseeing the production of children's books and youth literature, and collaborating with a diverse team of talents.

Elizabeth Casillas is a scriptwriter and editor. With a degree in Journalism from the University of the Basque Country, she founded Cactus magazine, where she worked as both an editor and writer focusing on literature, art, comics and feminism. She has contributed to various media outlets, speaking and writing about comics, and coordinating graphic novel reading clubs. As a scriptwriter, she has published the comics Todas nosotras and La palabra que empieza por A, both with illustrations by Higinia Garay. In addition to continuing to write, she works as an editor for the Astiberri publishing house.

Elizabeth Haidle lives in Portland, Oregon and specializes in nonfiction comics.
She is the art & editorial director at Illustoria magazine, published by McSweeney’s. Her illustrations have appeared in graphic novels, picture books, and a tarot deck. She publishes short-form comics online and in print, exploring poetry, book reviews, and memoirs. A lifelong art educator, she also teaches workshops about experimental comics and personal art practice, and recently published a book exploring both these topics, titled Drawing Is....

Illustoria Magazine is a high-quality print publication for curious-minded humans: young readers, grownups, and all the in-between ages. Especially with 8 - 12-year-olds in mind, this art and storytelling publication inspires readers to slow down and take the time to be curious, try something new, and make things with friends. Illustoria celebrates visual storytelling, makers, and DIY culture through print and beyond—with interviews, recipe comics, interactive games, book reviews, and contests for young writers and artists.

Emmi Valve is a comic artist and illustrator, she loves eating and cooking, and her favorite food is Eastern European dumplings, pelmenis (she even got the tattoo of one). She is also into taxidermy and likes to make wearable items from dead animals. She wore a headpiece made out of a dead parrot for her wedding and has jars full of animal parts everywhere in her kitchen. She has a great sense of humor, born out of growing up in her massive, multi-problematic family, and likes to present characters in her comics she would like to read about but are sadly absent from most of published comics.

Graduated in printmaking, Fátima Moreno (Granada, 1980) currently lives in Lisbon. She works as an illustrator and more recently has been exploring painting along with drawing in her most personal expression. Her artistic practice is naturally integrated into different fields, and she frequently collaborates with fashion, object design or scenography. As an illustrator she has worked for different clients and as an artist her work has been shown in several exhibitions mostly in Portugal.

Swiss artist Frédérique Bangerter is co-founder of Editorial CABEZA DE CHORLITO, created in 2011 together with Alberto García-Alix. It does not adhere to any defined editorial line. They have forged ahead, against all odds, and continue with the desire to incubate eggs of creation, bringing future plovers to light. SER UN CABEZA DE CHORLITO (to be a plover's head) is an expression used to refer to someone who is not very bright or who is particularly absent-minded. Plovers are those birds we often see running along beaches chasing crabs. They are small, with long legs and necks so sturdy that it is difficult to tell where the neck ends and the head begins. The idea that plovers are foolish comes from their habit of digging their nests on beaches, leaving them completely unprotected. They are also extremely absent-minded; they do not recognise their own nests, so they end up incubating or feeding the wrong nest. How has a bird that leaves its young exposed to so many dangers managed to survive? Very simple: because pragmatism is not always right.

Germán di Pierro is an illustrator and writer, author of books such as Aparato Reproductor (2010), Pólvora (2017) and Trabajo para alquilar (2025), a compilation of his illustrations together with Microutopías. He is the founder of Casa de Balneario, an illustration and graphic activism project that produces urban interventions and publications of graphic storytelling and illustrated narrative. By means of stickers in public spaces, they disseminate posters and illustrated stories that deal with the issues of work, money and the price of rent.