Sonic Acts – Melted for Love

Eglė Budvytytė is an artist working at the intersection between visual and performing arts. She approaches movement and gesture as technologies for subverting norms of gender, social roles, and the narratives that shape public space. Her practice, spanning songs, poetry, video and performance, explores the persuasive power of collectivity, vulnerability and permeable relationships between bodies, audiences, and the environments.

Budvytytė’s work has been shown at the 59th Venice Biennale, Frac Île-de-France, Nam June Paik Art Center, Vleeshal, Canal Projects, the Renaissance Society, the Stedelijk Museum, De Appel, and the 19th Biennale of Sydney, among many others. She was a resident at Le Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo, and at Wiels Contemporary Art Centre. In 2026, she will represent Lithuania at the 60th Venice Biennale.

Eliana Otta explores collective mourning as a decolonial and regenerative practice. Through a process she describes as ‘fertilising mourning’, she examines how shared grief can dismantle hierarchical binaries, such as the opposition between life and death. Opening up spaces for intimacy, trust, and curiosity, her practice often merges pedagogical, curatorial, and editorial approaches.

Otta holds a master’s degree in Cultural Studies and completed a PhD at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She is the co-founder of the artist collective Bisagra in Lima and the ecofeminist group Mouries in Athens, and was part of the curatorial team for the permanent exhibition at Lugar de la Memoria, la Tolerancia y la Inclusión Social in Lima. She has been an artist-in-residence at Gapado AiR, Capacete, and the Sommerakademie im Zentrum Paul Klee, among others.

Christian Nyampeta is an artist, filmmaker, and organiser of exhibitions, screenings, gatherings, and publications conceived as hosting structures for collective feeling, cooperative thinking, and mutual action. A central thread in his practice is the question – and affirmation – of ‘how to live together’, a phrase drawn from Roland Barthes.

As a filmmaker, he takes a poetic and relational approach, treating moving image as a site for shared learning and social encounter. His video installation When Rain Clouds Gather was commissioned by Fondazione In Between Art Film on the occasion of the Venice Biennale 2024; the film follows three artist friends debating art, activism, and everyday life. Other works include Sometimes It Was Beautiful (2018), which reflects on colonial imagery and memory; and The Landing Between Us (2020), a filmic assemblage of drawings, photographs, and sound sketches. From 2022 to 2024, Nyampeta convened Boda Boda Lounge, a trans-African film and video art festival. He has contributed to the 14th Shanghai Biennale, the 58th Carnegie International, Manifesta 14, and the 17th Istanbul Biennial. In 2019, he received the European Union Prize at the 12th Bamako Encounters. In New York, he facilitates the African Film Institute at e-flux and serves on the boards of Storefront for Art and Architecture, Blank Forms, and November Magazine.

Kivu Ruhorahoza is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer who has emerged as a distinctive voice in contemporary African cinema. His debut feature Grey Matter (2011) – which explores societal rupture and trauma in post-genocide Rwanda – premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it received a Jury Special Mention for Best Emerging Filmmaker and won the festival’s Best Actor award. The film later received further recognition, including Best Director and the SIGNIS Award at the Córdoba African Film Festival, the Jury Prize at the Khouribga African Film Festival, and the Grand Prize at the Tübingen French Film Festival.

Other standout work includes Things of the Aimless Wanderer(2015), which premiered at Sundance and interrogates the fraught dynamics between ‘locals’ and Westerners in East Africa; and Father’s Day (2022), which debuted in the Encounters section of the Berlin International Film Festival and interweaves three narratives on fatherhood, grief, and the intimate consequences of historical violence.

Ruhorahoza has been exhibited internationally, including at Tate Modern, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). His short films have won several honours, such as the City of Venice Prize at the Milan African, Asian and Latin American Film Festival, Best African Short, as well as awards at the Montréal Vues d’Afrique Festival.