The project management team is a group of 5 people whose professional paths have crossed several times over the past two decades. They discovered that they enjoy working together on cultural projects in different constellations and environments. The predecessors of the Orlando project were fruits of this collaboration, but also many other projects in different European countries.
Ivana Meštrov is an art historian, critic and curator, one of the co-founders of Slobodne veze/Loose Associations contemporary art practices, NGO founded in 2009 in Zagreb, focused on contemporary art production, curatorial practice and education (Kustoska platforma programme), cultural policy, cultural
memory and social affirmation of yugoslav modernism (Motel Trogir project). She obtained her MA in art history from the
Paris 1-Pantheon Sorbonne University and a curatorial training certificate at Ecole du Magasin (Le Magasin), Grenoble.
From 2019 to 2020 she was appointed as a curator at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art – MMSU Rijeka in the frame of European Capital of Culture – Rijeka 2020 project where she curated exhibition With the Collection (Dora Budor, David Maljković, Niko Mihaljević, Nora Turato), public art programme and worked on Sanja Iveković‘s Monument to Revolution, after Mies. She has curated many small and big scale exhibition projects such as Mediterranea 16 Young Artists Biennial, Ancona in 2013, Galerija Škola, Split annual programme in 2015/16 (Calixto Ramirez, Mirjana Batinić, Ivana Pipal, Vlasta Žanić), etc. She is one of the curators of the future Ostrale 021 biennial in Dresden and Split Salon.
From 2009 to 2019 Meštrov lectured contemporary art and theory at the Art History Department of the Faculty of Philosophy in Split.
She edited and contributed to many exhibition catalogues & art magazines: Nicole Hewitt, This woman is called Jasna, 2021; David Maljković, With the Collection, 2020; Nora Turato at Villa Ružić, 2020; Ana Hušman, 6 by 7 meters, 2017; ERRORS ALLOWED-MEDITERRANEA 16, 2013; EDUZGRAF, 2012; Fragments of Curatorial Discourse, Život umjetnosti magazine, 2009; AIDS RIOT, Artist collectives Against Aids, New York, 1987-1994, 2003. She writes art reviews for Triptych radio show (Croatian Radio 3) since 2008 & Novosti independent newspaper since 2020. She’s a member of the AICA-International Association of Art Critics and professional associations ULUPUH Zagreb and HULU Split.
Animation artist Michaela Müller graduated with an MA in Animation and New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts, University Zagreb, Croatia and holds a diploma for teaching visual arts from the Lucerne University of Applied Arts, Switzerland. Before she dedicated herself to animation, she was a props master at Lucerne Theater.
Her paint on glass animated short films Miramare (2010) and Airport (2017) have been screened at major film festivals worldwide such as Cannes Film Festival (Cinéfondation), Toronto International Film Festival, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Annecy Animation Festival, Hiroshima International Animation Festival and won dozens of awards such as Best Animation at Chicago International Film Festival, Best Debut Film at Message to Men, St Petersburg (Russia), Grand Prix at Animateka Festival, Ljubljana (Slovenia) etc.
Together with Swiss-American sound Artist Fa Ventilato and Croatian dancer Zrinka Simičić Mihanović she created multimedia performance projects Trag Trace Spur, and Up the Stairs, Behind Doors, Out the Window.
Her recent commissioned work includes animations for global technology company Panasonic (2019) and Swiss department store Manor (2018/2019). She has created animated music videos for New York based musicians Kristin Mueller and Ryan Martin.
Together with Alvaro Schoeck she acted as a programme manager of the Camp for Cultural Exchange, Respect and Tolerance (2002-2009)
She is a member of the Swiss Film Academy.
Karin Maria Piening – German-Peruvian director, production and festival manager from Hamburg. Obtained a degree in business administration at the chamber of commerce Hamburg and worked for several years at a shipbroking company. Later, she sought further studies in History and Musicology at the University of Hamburg and in opera directing at the College of Music “Hanns Eisler” Berlin.
She worked as director, touring director and assistant director at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Oper Frankfurt, Oper Nürnberg, Bayreuther Festspiele, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro Real de Madrid, Opéra National de Lorraine, Vlaamse Opera, Opéra National de Montpellier, Theater Trier, Opéra-Théâtre de Metz, Grand Théâtre-Opéra de Tours and Musiktheater im Revier and worked as longtime collaborator with opera director David Hermann. In 2018 she was appointed as festival manager for the classical music festival “Internationale Musikfestspiele Saar” (IMFS) as part of a newly formed management team. Within just two years, she co-organized the two highly successful festivals “Classic for Neophytes” and “New Generation” in the Saarland region, Germany, and was involved in the organization of the subsequent festival. She is currently working as a freelance consultant and manager for classical music and theatre projects in Saarbrücken, Germany.
Before and during his directorial studies at the “Hanns Eisler” University of Music in Berlin, Alvaro Schoeck worked as an assistant director at various theaters such as the Staatsoper Stuttgart, the Staatstheater Mainz and the Lucerne Theater.
Since then he has worked as a freelance director for both spoken theater and musical theater in Germany and Switzerland, for example at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, the Theater Biel Solothurn, the Bayreuth Festival (‚The Flying Dutchman for Children‘ 2009) and the Naumburg Theater. He is one of the founders of the opera project ‚Catching Fire – Haendel on the Road‘ in Serbia. In his ancestor‘s house in Brunnen, Switzerland, he acts as artistic co-director of the Othmar Schoeck Festival. His productions include ‚The Land of Smiles‘ at the Biel Solothurn Theater (2012), ‚Il barbiere di Siviglia‘ at the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern (2015) and ‚Frau Luna‘ at the Ansbach Theater (2018).
At the Dortmund Opera, Alvaro Schoeck was responsible for the production of ‚Neverland‘ (2019) as well as for the concept and overall direction of the experimental music film ‚Sounds of Dortmund‘ in the 2020/21 season.
Zrinka Šimičić Mihanović, dance artist, certified SME (Somatic Movement Educator), IDME (Infant Developmental Movement Educator) and CMA – SP (Certified Movement Analyst – Somatic Practitioner)
She has been active as an author and choreographer since 2003, and has collaborated with a number of Croatian as well as foreign authors. Her choreographic work has been starkly marked with collaborations with artists from different media, particularly visual arts and it includes performances: Good Water (2020, Art Education Department of the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb), What Comes About? The Touching Performance (2019, Art Education Department of the Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb), cruel, cruel nature (2018), Disappearances (2016), a2 (2015, 28th Zagreb Music Biennale), Indigo (2014), Movement Thought Turn (2013), Up the Stairs, behind Doors, out the Window (2013), Trag / Trace / Spur (2012), Oscillations (2012), 7 Silences for 7 Days (2011), Movering (2009), Rooms. Memories. Shadows. Encounters. (2007, Lotrščak Tower Zagreb), In the aisle (2003, Gliptoteka HAZU) and young audience project Me and you and we: Strangers and Plant and Build (2016-2018). Since 2007 she has been artistic co-director of Improspekcije (Improspections), an international improvisation festival in Zagreb, in 2013 she co-founded Multimedijalna koliba (Multimedia Hut) art organisation in Zagreb and in 2020 she initiated SomaHut platform, targeted at connecting and exchanging information and benefits of somatic work. She is a faculty member of the Dance department of the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and she teaches in the Postgraduate Specialist Study of Creative Therapies programme of The Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek. She obtained her MA degree in History of Art and French Language and Literature at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.