Student Lab°

ALEXANDRA POPOVA

Set Design

Alexandra Popova is a second-year student in the Set Design department at the National Academy of Arts in Sofia. Born in Varna, she completed her secondary education at the National School of Arts “Dobri Hristov” with a major in Graphics. She also studied at the National School of Fine Arts “Ilia Petrov” in Sofia, where she focused on subjects such as painting, graphic design, sculpture, and printmaking.

Alexandra has participated in annual group exhibitions and has won scholarships for her work several times. She has been involved in art from a young age, attending drawing schools, and developed a strong interest in graphic art, mastering various printmaking techniques, including both intaglio and relief printing. She has taken part in the Varna Graphic Biennial.

In the final years of high school, Alexandra participated in animation workshops organized by the World Festival of Animated Film in Varna (WFAF). Additionally, she volunteered at various festivals, gaining valuable experience in teamwork.

JOLANDA PERNIOLA

Dance

Jolanda Perniola, (born in 2005, in Italy), is a student at Istituto Marcelline Lecce, specializing in languages. Alongside her academic pursuits, she has developed a strong passion for ballet and contemporary dance. She has trained in ballet with Toni Candeloro and contemporary dance with Giorgia Maddamma from Accademia Nazionale di Danza in Rome. Jolanda has performed in prestigious events, including the Sokolow Heritage project and UNITANZ workshops, working with renowned choreographers and performing at venues like Teatro Apollo in Lecce.

INGVILD NESS

Musician/Flutist

Ingvild Ness is a Norwegian flutist who began her classical music studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2018 before continuing at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover under Professor Anna Dina Schick Björn-Larsen in 2020. Previously, she was part of the prestigious talent program at Barratt Due Institute of Music and was accepted for Norway’s only primary school focused on music.

Ingvild is an experienced orchestral and chamber musician, performing with orchestras like the Norwegian National Radio Orchestra and the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie. She frequently collaborates with the Bundesjugendballett, performing in venues such as Konzerthaus Berlin and Prinzregententheater in Munich. Her festival appearances include Oslo’s leading contemporary music festival Ultima and Bayers Start Festival, and she won first prize at the 20th Friedrich Kuhlau International Flute Competition with Trio Bris in 2021.

MICHELA RONDINONE

Visual Arts

Michela Rondinone (born in 1999, Matera, Italy) has been living and working in Bari for the past five years. She holds a degree in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari. Throughout her career, she has frequently visited Romania, participating in artist residencies in Cluj-Napoca and Baia Mare, where she created large-scale installations using asphalt and iron. She collaborates with the Fondazione Gianfranco Dioguardi, with whom she realized the event (CANTIERE-EVENTO) “Cantiere a regola d’arte,” a videomapping project at the new headquarters of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari. Her work is also characterized by the use of materials such as clay and plasticine, often shaped into objects and figures inspired by playful and fantastical imagery.

SARAH MERVEILLE UWIMANA

Performing Arts/Theater

Sarah Merveille Uwimana (21) was born and raised in Cologne, Germany and comes from a Rwandan and Egyptian family. She began participating in artistic programs and projects early in school. At 16, she joined a local theatre youth group and then went on to perform at “Schauspiel Köln“, the state theatre of the city in the youth ensemble, which she is still a part of. Since October 2023, she’s in a bachelor program for “The Scenic Arts” at University Hildesheim, with a major in Theatre and minors in Film and Music.

STEFAN VASILEV

Visual Arts Researcher/Intermedia

Stefan Vasilev is 21 years old and hails from Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria. He is currently a second-year student at the University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. Cyril and Methodius”, in the Faculty of Fine Arts, specializing in Visual Studies. Stefan has a deep interest in interdisciplinary arts, focusing on metamodernism as a paradigm of contemporary culture in his creative work. He strives to integrate different art forms and explore new approaches to contemporary visual expression.

STUDENT LAB° EVENT

StudentLab°

19:30 | doors open at 19:00 | Swimming Pool

Art students from Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria will come together during the 180° Festival in Sofia to collaborate and create an artistic experiment at the Swimming Pool venue. They will present the results of their joint work, inspired by this year’s festival theme: tacet. The lab is mentored by director Ksenia Ravvina. The project is realized in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Bulgaria, the Italian Cultural Institute, and KoreoProject, Italy.

Free admission.

10/10

Thursday