SPEAKERS 2025

Alberto García-Alix, photographer, audiovisual creator, writer and editor. He has exhibited at the Reina Sofía National Art Museum, Les Rencontres Internationales d'Arlès, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, the Moscow House of Photography Museum and the Prado National Museum, among others. His works can be found in art collections around the world, such as the German Deutshe Börse and the French National Contemporary Art Fund. He has won the National Photography Award, the Community of Madrid Photography Award and the PHotoEspaña Award. The most recent award for his career was granted by the Enaire Foundation (2022). In 2012, he was named “Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France” and received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts from Spain in 2019. He is the director and founder of the cult magazine El Canto de la Tripulación and co-founder of the publishing house Cabeza de Chorlito (2011-2023), where he has published some of his works: El paraíso de los Creyentes (The Believers' Paradise), 2011; Diaporamas, 2012; MOTO, 2015; the Motorcycle Family Circus magazine trilogy (2016-2021) and Archivo Nómada I and II (Nomadic Archive I and II) (2023, 2024), and La ausencia como estímulo (Absence as Stimulus) (2024).

Alexandre Chaize graduate of the École supérieure des arts décoratifs de Strasbourg, he is an independent publisher. Since 2013, with Éditions du livre, he has been publishing children’s artist books with a geometric, minimalist, and colorful aesthetic. Whether game books or wordless picture books, each work explores a specific material aspect of the book: printing, handling, etc. In keeping with Bruno Munari’s publishing experiments, Éditions du livre upholds a clear principle: the form of the book is its content.

Casper Clausen, is a danish musician, front man of illustrious band Efterklang and adjacent project Liima unveils his debut solo album “Better Way”. On this first sole venture he exhibits a new sense of ingenuity and musical exploration, unrestricted by formats, genres and collective goals. He presents a kaleidoscopic album journeying new terrain, twisting dense textures and swirls of sound into tales of the two alpha and omegas: Alienation and Love.

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 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.

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.