Artists in residence

Samaneh Atef, an Iranian visual artist born in 1989 in Bandar Abbas, lives and works in France. A self-taught artist, she initially studied computer engineering in Iran before devoting herself fully to her artistic practice from 2014 onwards.

Since then, she has developed a practice centred on drawing, painting and sculpture. Drawing has emerged as her primary medium, at the heart of a process rooted in observation and a constant dialogue with the living world. Her work explores the body as a space of resonance between memory and the unconscious, at the intersection of intimate experience and collective dimensions. Through repetition and a focus on states of suspension, she develops a visual language centred on forms in transformation. She exhibited for the first time in 2016 at the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art in Belgrade.

Upon her arrival in France, she was awarded a residency at the URDLA (Villeurbanne) in 2021, where she developed a body of work centred on printmaking.
From 2021 to 2024, she was supported by the association ‘Le Grand Large’, dedicated to supporting emerging artists. Her work has been shown internationally, notably at the Haus der Kunst (Munich) and the MUCEM (Marseille), as well as in several solo and group exhibitions across Europe and the United States.

In 2024, she was awarded first prize at EUWARD 9.

Preethi Athreya is an Indian performing artist. She trained in classical Indian dance and went on to do a Masters degree in Dance Studies in 2001 at the Laban Centre, London. Committed to the constant redefinition of the Indian body, Preethi Athreya lives and works in Chennai, India.

Working within the Indian contemporary dance scene as a performer, choreographer and facilitator, Preethi has been engaged in creating a personal movement language that reflects her relationship with her context, being at the same time open to new ways in how we may relate to the body.

She has choreographed, performed and produced thirteen collaborative works since 2003, the latest being And Indeed There Will be Time (film, 2020), BIRD (2021) and SALT (film, 2021). Preethi is the founder of CHARCOAL – a platform for artistic collaboration as well as one of the co-founders of Basement 21, a practice-based performance collective in Chennai. 

The Phrygian Goddess Cybele, among other things, is believed to be the goddess of cavities, voids, and hollow spaces. This makes Özgür wonder what hollow spaces may summon, hold, and signify. It resonates with how Ariana Reines describes poetry, making something out of nothing. These animate Özgür’s practice. He works with installation, performance, writing and image to meditate on notions of power – captivity, servitude, torture, play, eroticism. His work takes different forms from audio albums to spatial settings.

Özgür is a 2019-2021 alum of Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten. He regularly collaborates with friends, and is a member of the study group JamOnJamOnJamOnJam and the artists collectives (in hibernation) KABA HAT and BAÇOY KOOP (Printing, Distributing, Duplication Cooperative). He was conceived in İzmir and now lives in Amsterdam.

Amen Allah Atrous (b. 1996, Tunisia), known as Mamou, is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice centers on performance, writing, and directing, and spans video, costume, music, and food. He treats the body as a living archive, exploring marginalized identities, cultural heritage, and the shifting dynamics of belonging in public space, often using humour to create intimate and reflective moments within complex social and political realities. His work is a part of the permanent collections of Kamel Lazaar Foundation and the Finnish National Gallery Kiasma.