Serkan Özkaya
Serkan Özkaya (born 1973) is a Turkish and American conceptual artist whose work deals with topics of appropriation and reproduction. He typically operates outside of traditional art spaces and often makes multiple versions of even his own work, including his most noted work David (inspired by Michelangelo). Özkaya's artworks are held in the permanent collections of the İstanbul Modern, Borusan Contemporary Art, and Arter in Istanbul, as well as three different 21c Museum Hotels locations.
Some of Özkaya’s recent projects include We Will Wait, a recreation of Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés, that was installed at Duchamp’s studio in New York and operated as a camera obscura; An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in New York, which dissolved the walls of Postmasters Gallery by covering them with projections of what’s going on just beyond them; Mirage, which consisted of a shadow of a passenger airplane crossing the room every four minutes; One and Three Pasta (with George L. Legendre), where the duo created 3D computer models for ninety-two types of pasta after Legendre’s mathematical equations and David (inspired by Michelangelo), a gold-plated replica two-times the size of the original.
Shahram Tabe-Mohammadi
Shahram is the founder and director of Diaspora Film Festival that runs in Toronto since 2001. He has published more than 200 articles on film and arts as well as on politics and social issues in Farsi and English. His writings have appeared in Shahrvand, BBC, Globe and Mail, Montreal Mirror, as well as in print media inside Iran. He is regularly interviewed by BBC Persian and Voice of America on the environment as well as on film and cinema.
As a scientist, Shahram holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and has completed his Post-Doctoral in the field of Membrane Separation. He has taught as a professor or worked as a research scientist at institutions such as University of Ottawa, National Research Council Canada, and University of Quebec in Montreal. He has published or presented more than thirty papers in scientific journals and international conferences.