Past Residents
Past Resident
2012: Kunststiftung des Landes Sachsen-Anhalt
Bettina John
Bettina John’s work explores her fascination with the ever-growing importance of the world’s largest cities and what they mean to the individual experience. She looks at how people manifest their identity in their appearance as well as what is behind that surface and investigates the insecurities a global life brings about, as well as displacement, isolation, anonymity and the construction of one’s image.
Bettina John (born 1981) lives and works between London and Halle, Germany. After graduating from Burg Giebichenstein, she expanded her practice into the field of performing arts. During her master studies at Goldsmiths University in 2009 she met two artists whom she continues to collaborate. Together they showed at live – and performance – art events such as the Stockholm Theatre Festival Stoff and the Accidental Festival in London and participated in several group exhibitions across the UK.

Bettina John, City-People-Media, 2007, Photo collage. Courtesy of the artist.

Bettina John, City-People-Media, 2007, Photo collage. Courtesy of the artist.

Bettina John, Shopping in Higienopolis, 2012, Pencil on paper, 111/2 × 81/4 in. (29.21 × 20.95 cm). Courtesy of the artist.

Bettina John, Play Fashion, 2010, Photo collage. Courtesy of the artist.

Bettina John, Virtual City, 2012, Aquarelle and pencil on paper, 40 × 28 in. (101.6 × 71.12 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Past Resident
2012: Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport of Austria
Nilbar Güreş
Nilbar Güreş builds her work on a performative approach and cultural observation. Her works are molded around gender, composition of conceptual space and narrative presentation. She works in photography, collage, drawing and video. When looking retrospectively at Güreş’s practice, it is clear that she is interested in developing a gender-specific critical perspective on the perception of identity and culture. Güreş deals with gender issues and narrative possibilities as well as marginalized communities and patriarchal systems. Her work has an autobiographical layer in terms of the materials, settings, casting and objects, which she reconstructs in her practice. She conceptualizes settings as forms of open scripts while bringing in real stories, and people she knows well.
Nilbar Güreş (born 1977, İstanbul, Turkey) holds a BA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Marmara University, İstanbul and a MA in Painting & Graphics from the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Güreş has participated in: What is Waiting Out There, 6th Berlin Biennial (2010); Where Do We Go From Here?, Secession Vienna (2010), What Keeps Human Kind Alive, 11th International İstanbul Biennial (2009) and the travelling exhibition, Tactics of Invisibility, which was previously exhibited at Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna (2010), Tanas, Berlin (2010-2011) and After, İstanbul (2011). She has had three solo shows; Nilbar Güreş at Rampa (2011), Nilbar Güreş: Window Commision 2010, Rivington Place, London (2010), Unknown Sports; Indoor Exercises, Salzbuger Kunstverein (2009) and Self-Defloration, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2011).

Nilbar Güreş, Junction (trabzone series), 2010, C-print color photograph, 27 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. Courtesy Nilbar Güreş and Gallery Rampa, Istanbul.

Nilbar Güreş, Living room (circir series), 2010, C-print color photograph, 47 1/4 x 71 in. Courtesy Nilbar Güreş and Gallery Rampa, Istanbul.

Nilbar Güreş, Oh my god, I got my period!, 2012, Mixed media on paper, 45 x 48 1/2 in.

Nilbar Güreş, River of the heaven, 2011, Mixed media on fabric, 321/4 x 35 1/4 in. Courtesy Nilbar Güreş and Gallery Rampa, Istanbul.

Nilbar Güreş, Telecommunication-1 (open phone booth), 2011, C-print color photograph, 47 1/4 x 71 in. Courtesy Nilbar Güreş and Gallery Rampa, Istanbul.
Residents from Austria
Past Resident
2012: SEAT Pagine Gialle S.p.A.
Simone Martinetto
Simone Martinetto’s practice consists of photography and installations. His work is an investigation on the importance of memory, freedom, coincidences and dreams. Martinetto has created a new form of narrative, using an original photographic language to tell small stories with symbolic meanings. He uses photography as a tool to examine the minds of others. Without Memory is a series of photographs and installations with the artist’s grandmother as the subject matter who lost her memory and subsequently fills her home with reminder notes. The series, Travellers, documents racing pigeons and the images they see during their return trips. Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On is made of “talking photos” where the viewer is able to relive the dreams of other people.
Simone Martinetto (born 1980, Turin, Italy) has a degree in philosophy. He has exhibited in over 40 exhibitions in Italy and around the world, including Claudio Bottello Contemporary Gallery, Torino and Frost Art Museum, Miami. He began to practice photography when his grandfather, shortly before his death, passed on to him the camera he bought on the occasion of his birth. Martinetto works as an artist, cinematic still photographer and teacher.

Simone Martinetto, Travelers (Viaggiatori), 2005-2007, Sequence of C-print photographs, feathers of pigeons, 193/4 × 291/2 in. (50.16 × 74.93 cm). Courtesy of the artist.

Simone Martinetto, Without the Memory (Senza la Memoria), 2004-2005, Sequence of C-print photographs, Objects and a plexiglas box where you enter a memory that you would never forget, 193/4 × 291/2 in. (50.16 × 74.93 cm). Courtesy of the artist.

Simone Martinetto, The Thread of Time (Il Filo del Tempo), 2008, Sequence of C-print photographs, 6 × 9 in. (15.24 × 22.86 cm). Courtesy of the artist.

Simone Martinetto, Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On, 2011. Courtesy of the artist.

Simone Martinetto, Such Dtuff as Dreams are Made On – Valeriu’s Dream, 2010-2011, Talking C-prints photograph, 193/4 × 291/2 × 2 in. (50.16 × 74.93 × 5.08 cm). Courtesy of the artist.
Residents from Italy
Raffaela Naldi Rossano

The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies, Columbia University, Italian Cultural Institute of New York, Directorate-General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture
2024