Nathalie Herschdorfer, Director, Photo Elysée, Lausanne (president) – (b.1972, Switzerland) is a curator and art historian specializing in the history of photography. In 2022, she was appointed Director of Photo Elysée, the cantonal photography museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Before that, as Director of the Museum of Fine Arts Le Locle, she organized important shows featuring the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Stanley Kubrick, Vik Muniz, Alex Prager, Viviane Sassen, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Andy Warhol, amongst others. She is an active voice in contemporary photography and has been invited to organize nnumerous exhibitions outside Switzerland. She teaches the history of photography at the Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL) and is the author of several books, including: Body: The Photography Book (Thames & Hudson, 2019); Mountains by Magnum Photographers (Prestel, 2019); The Thames& Hudson Dictionary of Photography (Thames & Hudson, 2018); Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast (Thames & Hudson, 2012); and Afterwards: Contemporary Photography Confronting the Past (Thames & Hudson, 2011).

Cécile Feilchenfeldt, Textile Designer, Paris (FR) – (b. 1973 in Frankfurt am Main, DE) lives and works in Paris (FR). Swiss by nationality, she grew up in Munich and studied textile design at the Academy of Art and Design in Zurich before founding her own knitwear design studio in Zurich. Her final-year project won the prestigious Micheline and Jean-Jacques Brunschwig Prize for Applied Arts in 1999. Always keenly self-reliant while at the same time curious about unfamiliar if related disciplines, Cécile Feilchenfeldt initially worked as a costume designer, later becoming a set designer at various major national theatres in Paris. Since her work was discovered by the designers at the haute couture fashion houses of Paris and Milan (IT) in 2012, she has worked with labels such as Armani Privé, Maison Schiapparelli and Christian Dior as well as cult Belgian designer Walter van Beirendonck. She has also developed knitted fabrics for concept car interiors for the automotive manufacturer Citroën. Cécile Feilchenfeldt won the Swiss Grand Award for Design in 2018 and both the Innovation Award Bavaria and the Grand Prix de la Création de la Ville de Paris in 2019. Her own one-off knitwear designs can be found in the fashion collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg (DE).

Davide Fornari, Professor R&D, ECAL, Renens – (b. 1979 in Mantua, IT) is associate professor at The Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL), where he leads the applied Research and Development department. After studying architecture at IUAV in Venice and the Barcelona School of Architecture, he earned a Ph.D. in design sciences from IUAV in 2010. Together with Silvia Sfligiotti, he co-edited the magazine Progetto grafico (2015–2017). With Robert Lzicar, he co-edited the book Mapping Graphic Design History in Switzerland (Triest Verlag, Zurich 2016). He co-coordinated the research project Swiss Graphic Design and Typography Revisited (2016–2019) and co-edited Swiss Graphic Design Histories (Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2021). Davide Fornari joined the Federal Design Commission in 2018.

Andreas Gysin, Graphic Designer, Coder and Artist, Lugano/Paris (FR) – (b. 1975, Switzerland) is a graphic designer and programmer, living and working in Lugano. He studied visual communication in Lugano under Bruno Monguzzi and graduated in 2000. Andreas Gysin is part of a duo with Sidi Vanetti: they work together on design and research projects without a particular purpose. They combine disciplines from the field of visual communication, architecture and technology. Recent work explores images and patterns using the geometries of multipurpose displays, urban signage and found or forgotten objects. Andreas holds lectures and gives workshops in different schools in Switzerland and abroad.

Vera Sacchetti, Design Critic and Curator, Basel – (b. 1983 in Lisbon, PT) is a Basel-based design critic and curator. She serves in a variety of curatorial, research and editorial roles, most recently as programme coordinator for the multidisciplinary research initiative Driving the Human (2020-2023) and curator of the initial edition of architecture festival Archipelago: Architectures for the Multiverse (2021). She is co-curator of The Edge of Knowledge (TEOK) in Basel and one half of the curatorial initiative Foreign Legion. Vera Sacchetti was associate curator of the fourth Istanbul Design Biennial, A School of Schools, curatorial advisor for the BIO 50 Biennial of Design in Ljubljana (SI), and, as part of editorial consultancy Superscript, headed the Towards a New Avant-Garde event series at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. She has recently edited Design as a Tool for Transition: The Atelier Luma Approach and Design As Learning: A School of Schools Reader. Her writing has appeared in Disegno, Metropolis, and The Avery Review, among others. Vera Sacchetti teaches at ETH Zurich and the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) and joined the Federal Design Commission in 2020.

Ivan Sterzinger, Graphic Designer and Editor, Zurich – (b. 1977, Switzerland) lives and works in Zurich. He studied psychology, media science and art history at the University of Zurich. In 2005, he launched the event and mediation series “Rap History” together with Klemens Wempe. With events held in a number of European cities, the series won a Swiss Design Award in 2008. From 2009 to 2022, Ivan Sterzinger was editor and designer of Fabrikzeitung, the monthly magazine of the Rote Fabrik cultural centre in Zurich. He has run the graphic design studio Huber/Sterzinger together with Gregor Huber since 2012, bridging the gap between design, art and cultural science and winning multiple awards. He has specialised in editorial design for many years, working on a number of publications for institutions such as Migros Culture Percentage, ETH Zurich, the Federal Office of Culture and the Fotomuseum Winterthur. He became a member of the Federal Design Commission in 2023.

Gabriela Chicherio (b. 1980 in Lucerne, Switzerland) is a product designer with a focus on concepts, curation, exhibitions and mediation. After graduating from the Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL), she spent several years working on Beat Karrer’s design team and was involved in material development and communication in the early days of the innovative materials venture FluidSolids. 

At the same time, she worked as an assistant in the Industrial Design subject area of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). She has also designed products for the French manufacturer Ligne Roset, produced limited series of her own designs, worked in a furniture store and managed the office of the Made in Zurich initiative, and she provides guided tours of Zurich with a focus on design for Design Promenade. 

She is currently Festival Director of the Zurich Design Weeks and Co-Curator of the Design Biennale Zurich, both of which she co-founded.

Elisa Medde (b. 1981 in Nuoro, Italy) is an art historian specialising in photography and visual culture. With a background in iconology and photographic studies, her research reflects on the relationship between image, communication and power structures. She has been a nominator for a number of prizes and chaired various juries, including the Luma Rencontres Book Award and MAST Foundation for Photography Grant. 

She currently lectures for various universities in Europe, including ECAL in Lausanne, HSLU in Lucerne and UWE in Bristol. She has curated many photobooks and exhibitions for various institutions, and her writings have appeared in FlashArt, PhotoEye, Time magazine, Foam Magazine, Something We Africans Got, Vogue Italia / L’Uomo Vogue, YET magazine, The Aperture PhotoBook Review and many artists’ books. She was Editor-in-Chief of Foam Magazine from 2012 to 2023, winning two Lucie Awards for Best Photography Magazine. She also won the 2023 Royal Photographic Society Award for Photography Publishing.

Daniel Freitag (b. 1971 in Zurich, Switzerland) is an employer, ideas man, bag manufacturer, truck tarpaulin repurposer, designer, company founder, developer, spokesman, occasional dilettante, cyclist, father and climber. After training as a graphic designer for four years from 1988 to 1992, he worked as a freelancer for various advertising agencies in Zurich.

Since there were no bicycle courier bags on sale in Switzerland back in 1993, Daniel and his brother decided to create their own. Their F13 TOP CAT model was added to the design collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 2003. FREITAG lab. ag, which has its headquarters in Zurich-Oerlikon, is still owned by the Freitag brothers and employs some 250 people. It operates 27 FREITAG stores around the world.

Daniel no longer spends as much time in the FREITAG factory as he used to, instead sharing his experience from 30 years as an entrepreneur – either in his role as co-founder of Transformation Architects or directly in his new cargo bike startup Toolbike.

Bardhi Haliti (b. 1985 in Kosovo) is a graphic designer and researcher living and working in Amsterdam. He worked as a freelance designer in New York and Pristina before obtaining a Master’s degree from the Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem in 2014. He was a designer in residence at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht from 2015 to 2016. 

Bardhi co-founded REDO, an annual international graphic design and visual arts festival in Pristina, in 2011 and has since served as its programme director. He was a tutor at the temporary Master’s programme The Commoners’ Society at Sandberg Instituut (2018–2020) in Amsterdam, an Interim Professor at HfG Karlsruhe (2024), and is currently an external critic at the Estonian Academy of Arts, MA in Graphic Design. He has held lectures and workshops in various institutions, including Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, HfK Bremen, the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Rhode Island School of Design, and Kunsthalle Wien, among others.

In 2019, his book May 25 is now October 1 was published by cpress, Zurich. The book is a result of seven years of research dealing with the multifunctional nature of community spaces in which larger socio-political and cultural cycles are reflected.

Vytas Jankauskas (b. 1990 in Kaunas, Lithuania) is an artist and media designer who lives and works in Geneva. In his work, he investigates how technology shapes everyday spaces and rituals. 

He is currently a study director and Head of Digital Pool at the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) and runs interdisciplinary programmes at the Innovation Lab, part of La Plateforme in Marseille.

His work has been presented at various venues and events, notably Medialab Matadero, the Victoria and Albert Museum (Digital Design Weekend), Tate Modern (Late Exchange), CCCB (with Superflux Studio), Chroniques Biennale, Chronus Art Center, Salone Internazionale del Mobile, ISEA Gwangju and Cité du Design in Saint-Étienne.

Ulrike Hug-Stüwe (b. 1976 in Berlin, Germany) is Head of Photo Lifestyle for Neue Zürcher Zeitung’s Z Magazin, NZZ am Sonntag Magazin and online platform bellevue.nzz.com and jointly responsible for visual content in the areas of fashion, design and lifestyle. Her main interest as a (picture) editor lies in who does what and how, what has been and what is yet to come. She favours diversity nationally and internationally, refusing to impose values or succumb to tunnel vision. Fashion design is her main focus.

Ulrike views fashion design as socially progressive, direct and accessible. It affects everyone to some extent – as a phenomenon, an economic force, a means of expression, a reflection of the zeitgeist or a driver of technical and craft innovation with regard to materials, processing and manufacturing. Ulrike does not see fashion and textile design as separate fields but as a sum of design, artistic and social phenomena.

She has previously worked for Annabelle magazine and the now defunct Friday. Prior to that, she was a producer of photographic works around the world for a photography agency. As a guest lecturer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, the Bern University of the Arts and the Bern School of Design, she teaches visual dramaturgy in journalism, particularly in fashion and lifestyle photography, as well as semiotics and regularly provides photography students with expert input in portfolio discussions. She began her studies in Berlin before moving to Switzerland in 1999 and graduating as a designer in visual communication, specialising in art and design theory.