Consultants: Elena Moran and Rui Parreira

Guest Artists: El Conguito (France), Kwame Sousa (S. Tome and Principe), Mikko Angesleva (Finland), Valdemar Doria (S. Tome and Principe), M-PeX (Portugal)

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El Conguito, born in Congo and raised in France, started with Salsa classes and then discovered flamenco at the age of 21. He took his first classes at “La Peña los Flamencos” in Lille (France) and then with Maria Pérez at the Center Solea in Marseille. He also followed workshops with famous artists such as La Lupi, Pilar Ortega, Patricia Guerrero and El Choro. In 2015, he won the Flamenco Contest of Valence(France) duet with Justine Chabot and the second prize of the Baile por Buleria Competition in Nîmes(France). His dance combines at the same time fire and energy but also sensibility and generosity. All those who have seen him dancing agree that El Conguito has a sense of compass that seems to be innate as well as a scenic presence and grace that leaves no one indifferent.

Kwame Sousa was born on the Agostinho Neto plantation, in Sao Tome and Principe, in April 1980. He discovered a taste for art at the end of his pre-university education under the influence of his colleagues and began to draw as a self-taught artist. In 2001 he was one of the winners of the experimental project 01, which initiated his presentation to the public in the gallery Teia de Arte. In 2002 he attended several workshops with artists from all over the world in the same gallery, which allowed him to connect and exchange experiences with different artistic languages. In the same year, together with the artist João Carlos Silva and others, he integrated the large II Art Biennial of São Tomé and Príncipe project. Also in 2002 he exhibited work at Porto Polytechnic Institute (Portugal) as well as participating in several solo and group exhibitions in São Tomé and many other countries. He began his academic career in Portugal in 2004, having attended EPAOE - School of Performing Arts and Crafts (CHAPITO) and then AR.CO - Independent Art School, where he studied painting and drawing. Recently, in 2014, he participated in the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Lisbon Film Festival, with the video MiongaHouse - a project in collaboration with the plastic artist Rene Tavares. Presently he is working with; the project CACAU - Arts House, Creation, Environment and Utopia in São Tomé and Príncipe, the ZERO POINT ART gallery (contemporary art space) in Mindelo, Cape Verde, the ROÇA MUNDO foundation, in São Tomé and with the portal BUALA - portal of contemporary culture. Kwame Sousa is part of the third generation of artist in his country and currently considered one of the most influential contemporary visual artists of São Tomé and Príncipe, with exhibitions in several galleries around the world and his countless participations in the Sao Tome and Principe Art Biennial.

Mikko Ängeslevä (b.1982, Finland) works with various techniques in the field of creativity. He is a painter and a sculptor, who has also worked several years with performative arts. In recent years his art work is based mainly on recycled materials, combining them with different techniques and where both figurative and non-figurative outcomes are presented. His works aim to reveal the complex matter of life behind the veil of colors and shapes. Ängeslevä graduated art based high school, Tammerkosken lukio, 2001. Studied dressmaking 2003-2006. Was a fire-eater and a fire juggler in fire group Flamma 2004-2008. Became yoga instructor 2011, after practicing for 10 years. In 2012 he continued fine art studies and graduated from Kankaanpää Art School year 2016 as a sculptor and a painter. Besides Finland, he has exhibited and been artistically active in Sweden, France, Estonia, Latvia, Ghana and India. Currently he lives and works in Kokemäki, Finland, in the old village school.

Valdemar Doria was born in Sao Tome and Principe, in 1974 and in 1981 moved to Portugal. In 1998 he finished the Pre-Printing Course, at the Val do Rio Vocational School in Oeiras, Portugal. In 2001/2003 he attended the Graphic Design Course at the Lusófona University. He counts more than 20 illustrated years in 30 collective exhibitions and 15 solo exhibitions. In his work he intends to value the African heritage. The faces, insistently represented, in an attempt to identify or express the compulsive feeling of their own behavior in their systematic pursuit of an identity unresolved by an urbanism that is lived with several questions of social affirmation. What kind of questions? The unconditional condition of being black in a European metropolis, with the social injustice and lack of opportunity to fight on an equal level. The expressive faces represented in his drawings question and manifest the daily life of European urbanity in symbiosis with the memory of a past in his homeland.

M-PeX is a musician, composer and producer from Portugal, who has in the portuguese guitar the hallmark of his musical identity, merging their sound with diverse soundscapes, including electronic music. His creations aim to modernize and globalize this traditional instrument from portuguese culture, culminating in a bold and innovative musical confluence.