Lab Members.

The Lab/

We proudly present the members in The Lab!

The members in the Lab are a diverse representation of the cultural and creative industries. Read more about our current members and how you can reach out. You can also find our alumni list below.

Samir Hajji

create to inspire

In my artist evolution, my motto is “create to inspire”. Everything that surrounds us is a source of inspiration, so in my creativity I want to give back what I receive. Right now I am in a position where I want to experiment with new styles and new craft techniques. So this opportunity to have mentors and meet new artists perfectly matches my desire to grow artistically.

Website: samirhajji

Anne Sofie Skjold Møller

Visual artist, ceramist and teacher oscillating between the stillness of objects and the chaos of lived life.

The practice of Anne Sofie Skjold Møller is closely related to tropes of everyday life and reflects daily needs, such as the need for restitution and need for being part of a social context.

With a inclination for making functional objects, and a love for materials and physical touch, she aims to bring aspects of our lives, which has been hidden away in the private sphere, to light.

In recent years, she has developed her skills and knowledge within ceramics and also cultivated an interest in containers as a concept and / or feminist idea. Besides being an artist and ceramicist, she is also a teacher, and conversation, discourse and language is an important pillar of her work.

Website: askjold

Kotte Aistre

I create things that make noise, bend rules, and makes you laugh (if you squint)

"My work tends to shapeshift, becoming whatever form my latest idea demands. I started out as a classical percussionist at nine years old, which was great until I realized I preferred bending rules over following them. This led me from composition and songwriting, to various forms of electronic music, sound design for stage arts, and eventually digital media. I’m also infinitely curious and love learning new things, so if it's creative, chances are I’ve dipped my toes in it.

I usually gravitate toward sound. There’s something direct and instinctual about it. It bypasses logic and speaks straight to emotion, in a way few other mediums do. I’ve also been doing it forever, so I guess those neural pathways are super jacked now.

But there’s one thread that runs through all my work: a deep appreciation for silliness. I’m genuinely fascinated by the dumb, the absurd, and the naive. Partly because it’s fun, partly because it’s disarming. Wrapping heavy ideas in ridiculousness lowers peoples defences, and suddenly, the message hits harder. It also happens to be a handy way of poking fun at art itself, which (let’s be honest) could use the occasional poke. Life’s too short not to be cheeky."

Website: korvstantin

Zahrah Isaacs

I’m a creative producer and presenter using storytelling to spark connection, clarity, and belonging.

I'm a South African-born creative producer, presenter, and founder based in Malmö. With over a decade of experience in TV, radio, and games, I've developed a knack for turning complex stories into engaging, human-centered experiences — both on screen and on stage.

As a host and moderator, I’ve led everything from national broadcast segments to startup pitch competitions. My presenting style is warm, clear, and culturally intuitive — shaped by years of work across creative industries in both South Africa and Sweden.

After facing the friction of immigration firsthand, I founded Foreign to Found (FTF) — a platform helping immigrants and returnees integrate more easily into Swedish society. Through digital tools, educational content, and in-person events, I aim to make systems more understandable and people feel less alone.

Whether I’m behind the mic, designing a workshop, or building a new onboarding flow, my work always starts with this: how do we help people feel seen and supported?

Website: foreigntofound

Maria Niwa

Live-looping musician exploring sustainability in both artistry, life and society.

Maria Niwa is a multi-instrumentalist, live-loop artist and singer-songwriter. In her music instruments and digital tools organically merge into a kaleidoscopic unity. Inspired by nature, she creates ethereal sonic landscapes as well as activist hymns for change and community, for visionary fantasy as well as rooting down into the present. 

She also writes in other formats, both fiction, poetry, and essays exploring strategies of resistance to hegemony, critique of neoliberal capitalism and dreams of a future post-capitalist world, and the conditions for artists in the anthropocene.

Website: marianiwa

Elizabeth Torres Hansen

I'm a Listener Poet, a worldthreader, and interested in conversation on diversity and identity, and the documentation of our communities.

Colombian-American poet, multimedia artist, translator and cultural organizer. Founder of Red Door Magazine, and the multimedia poetry archive The Poetic Phonotheque. 
www.madamneverstop.com

Website: madamneverstop

Anna Näsström

Choreographer and danceartist working at the intersection of dance and technology

Anna is a choreographer and dancer with a versatile background in different movement practices, contexts and cultures. She is part clubhead, part bookworm and is educated amongst things through dance and performance, social anthropology and subcultures that are dear to her. Often working at the intersection of dance and technology Anna is a co-artistic director of the choreographic duo Ongoing Realities (OR), who create at the intersection between dance, innovation and digital technology. Signs of the times interest her, futures thinking and political engagements through art and fantasy are some ingredients in her creations and/or everyday thoughts.

Her works have been shown at e.g. Dansens Hus Stockholm, Dansstationen Palladium Malmö, Sadlers Wells London, Detour Festival Copenhagen or other stages and site specifics as well as created for digital platforms, film or XR.

Website: annanasstrom

Susan Putnins

Softening polarization through music and creative discussions

A watershed is the line where rainwater divides into different waterways - just as information divides into fact or fiction, or actions divide into self-defense or genocide, even for those standing next to each other. What can we learn from these lines to heal our increasingly polarized society? Drawing on her experience as a Jewish American, granddaughter of Latvian refugees, and imperfect navigator of relationships, Susan’s project The View from the Watershed explores bridging intractable divides through music and restorative justice. 

Susan was a singer, songwriter, and pianist in the US before moving to Malmö in 2023. She helmed indie pop band The Sinister Turns before her most recent turn in the art rock trio Starlings. Alongside her music, Susan has worked as a facilitator and applied social impact researcher with a focus on trauma and restorative justice. Political events of 2023 coupled with her international move fomented an artistic exploration of divides that feel intractable - those caused by war, violence, and hatred. Building on artistic inquiry as a visiting artist at Sisters Hope Home in 2024, Susan is creating a series of concerts and workshops to explore how empathy, values, and music-making can soften the harshest borders.

Website: SusanPutnins

Ville Syri

Fiddling first, the FinnishSwedish Phenomena

I'm atm starting a new project, releasing my solo debut and applying money for courses/concerts.

Website villeandtommie

Elis Essinger

I’m a visual artist based in Malmö, with an MFA from Konstfack University in Stockholm.

My work centers on sampled material from public institutions and everyday environments – logos, icons, sounds, and objects. I’m especially interested in visual languages that instruct or regulate, and what happens when they’re removed from their context. A hospital hand-sanitizing guide might evoke religious icons, and a government logo can turn into an ornamental pattern. My process merges digital and traditional craft techniques. Using laser cutting, wood carving, metalwork, and carpentry, I translate digital samples into physical objects.

Website: e_essinger

Anton Filonov

I am a creative designer with an experience in identity, websites, illustrations, art and music.

Creative designer & visual artist working at the edge of design, music & emotion. Exploring new ways to mix bold visuals, sound & storytelling into meaningful, collaborative experiences.

Website: filonovstudio

Dante Rosberg

I develope websites focused on expressive visual identites

I am a webdesigner and programmer. I develop websites for everyone, but focus on creatives, visonaries and all that wish to showcase a unique expression.
I make the web accessible and easy to use for my clients while keeping their visual identity alive. In our modern time of autogenerated content and limiting boxes I aim to transform personal expression to: 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101

Website: malstrom

Edwina Nana Primananda

I want to be a mermaid.

I am interested in exploring vibrant + glitchy collages that blend colors, drips, and strips, exploring raw emotions and introspective themes.

Website: a.subtle.space

Robin Sandquist

Cross-medial artist

Artist based in Malmö who creates music, art and films.

Website: robinsandquist.art

Paul Graham Raven

My message to the world: "The Future" is dead, and we should dance on its grave.

Paul Graham Raven is a creative critical foresight practitioner, using narrative-driven art-forms as the means to depict, explore and critique the ways in which people might live in times yet to come. 

A published science fiction author, critic and essayist, much of Paul's work to date has relied on creative writing techniques and spoken performance, both inside and outside academia. He is currently working to integrate visual techniques, rooted in analog collage and text cut-up processes, into his creative practice.

Paul is also a third-rate post-rock guitarist, a book hoarder, and Most Tolerated Food-Bringer to an ageing, grumpy cat. Even after many years of being asked to do it for the purposes of self-promotion, he still finds writing about himself in the third person to be a deeply weird experience.

Website: paulgrahamraven

Myrto Noa Charalampous

I am a body psychotherapist and movement researcher from Greece based in Malmö.

I am a body psychotherapist and movement researcher from Greece, living in Malmö. With studies in journalism and a background in dance, I further trained in body psychotherapy and attended several workshops and intensives in somatic psychology and somatic practices. Alongside, I completed a PhD where I explored the relationship between the body and the environment through the lenses of psychoanalysis and architecture, applying movement methodologies in diverse contexts.

My work focuses on the connection between perception and movement—beyond its form. I work with the raw materials of body and space, attending to what is present in the moment to explore bodily states and allow movement narratives to emerge. Since 2018, I work as a freelancer offering therapy for individuals and couples, as well as group movement sessions that support reconnection with the body.

Website: myrtonoa

Frej Haar

Writer and cultural (heritage) worker

I am a Danish-Swedish poet and translator with a background in music, cultural heritage conservation, fanzines and the spoken word-scene. My work is based on an interest in language, (queer) history, textile crafts, community and intimacy. Through text and collective processes I explore connections between personal experiences, political and social structures, often aiming to activate and/or document traces of history. I also sometimes work with sound, video, and place-based installations. Recently started exploring interactive writing.

Website: frejhaar

Betty Norling

My work focuses on bodily presence in spatial environment.

Website: bettynorling

Siri Bengtén

Stageartist who creates, writes and plays

HI! I am a Stageartist - scenkonstnär - from Värmland with Malmö as base. My artistic work predominately consists of writing, directing and performing original works within the indy and institutional scene. Often I work within co-creating. devising and experimental practises. Recent collaborations I have created are with e.g: performer Emil Jensen, the Swedish nature conservation association, musicians Vera Vinter & Hanna Ekström, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, residency work at Baekkelund International Residency Center in Denmark, finishing my latest play at A Turma in Portugal.

For the 24/25 season I am directing and writing children's theater together with the Malmö Symphonic Orchestra, I also direct and run a project at Motettens Folkets hus in Lindängen creating theater with and for youths in the suburban areas of Malmö, a project with artistical and political intentions. 

My education have been done at Biskop Arnös dramatic writing school, Teater Tribunalens political performance school and courses at the Theater Universities of Stockholm and Malmö. 

Some themes that interest me through my artistic work are: women's lives and destinies, strength and weakness as a dynamic spectra, power structures between different groups of people and between individuals, the free and unfree availabilty and accessibility of arts for different groups in our society, myths, magic and tales, truth, lies, reality and hidden worlds.

Website: siribbengten

Mathieu Marissal

French graphic designer and illustrator based in Malmö, Sweden, whose creative journey has been shaped by living in different places in Europe the last 20 years.

With foundation in the studies of applied arts & landscape architecture, I navigated in visual communication through my 2 years in Gobelins Paris. There I learned Multimedia and digital creation. I lived in several cities as Paris, Madrid, Beijing, Berlin, Copenhagen and now in Malmö.
Having always been more or less in touch with the underground electro scene, I've been able to create numerous illustrations for flyers for parties in Paris and Berlin, music festivals and record covers.

Website: matlemalinard

Fanny Ljungberg

Never without a crochet hook in my hand.

Fanny Ljungberg is a fashion designer and artist specialised in crochet. Self taught with over fourteen years of experience in crochet. Her creations draw inspiration from the 1960s and 70s with a focus on colour and silhouette. The guiding principles of her designs are humor, flirtatiousness and sexiness. Fanny wants to elevate crochet as a technique with her garments and demonstrate the potential the technique has to offer. Her creative process often begins with the inspiration for the material. It is not uncommon to see a feather from the beach or something else unexpected appear in her garments. Weaving yarns from an estate sale or a doily that no one wants anymore have been given a new life as a dress. Not necessarily to be sustainable but because the material carries a history. Fanny has a bachelor's degree in fashion & design with knitwear from Central Saint Martins in London.

Website fannyannagreen

Carina Antonia Schlager

My art in all its various forms is inspired by human and non-human entanglements, and the body as a place of exploration.

In my creative process I am inspired by human and non-human entanglements and the body as a place of exploration. I work with printing techniques (etching, woodblock printing, screen print, lithography etc) tattooing, photography and writing.

Website: carinaschlager

Ellyne Phneah

Tech marketer and PostgreSQL community organizer exploring creative writing through database guides, dance-inspired romance, and literary arts workshops.

I'm a marketing strategist with 14 years in tech, currently specializing in database and AI marketing while building PostgreSQL communities. With a literature background from NTU and experience from cybersecurity journalism to startup marketing, I've always been drawn to making complex technical concepts accessible through storytelling. My creative writing projects reflect this intersection: Decode PostgreSQL transforms database concepts into plain English using relatable metaphors, while At The Heart of Rhythm is an ensemble romance novel inspired by my passion for salsa and bachata dancing. Both explore how we connect, whether through code or choreography.

As founder of Malmö's PostgreSQL user group and a speaker at international tech conferences, I bridge technical and creative communities daily. My marketing work funds my artistic pursuits, and my creative writing makes me a better marketer, it's all about understanding human motivation and crafting compelling narratives.

I'm passionate about promoting literary arts and developing creative writing workshops that help people find their authentic voice. At STPLN, I'm excited to connect with fellow creatives while exploring how my marketing expertise can support the cultural sector, and how storytelling can make technology more human.

Website: ellynephneah

Anna Nygård

I'm a multidisciplinary visual artist specializing in photography and graphic design

I'm a multidisciplinary visual artist with a main focus on photography and graphic design. My approach to image-making combines analogue techniques, soft tones and attention to detail through themes sensitive to sustainability and environmental awareness.

Website: annaanygard

Hanna Ågren

Musician, composer, and experience creator striving for as-good-as-possible futures. With a special interest in the roles creative practices can play in the context of World Making I investigate themes such as relations between the human and non-human. Currently I’m working on collaborative projects that explore the interconnectedness between human and trees, human and sea, and human and urban places through storytelling, cross-disciplinary compositions, and practical on-site experiments.

Always looking for ways to create a sense of belonging and awe.
Always with the gaze directed towards more interesting and diverse, deeper, thicker, wiser and more caring realities.

Annita Douka

Leading collaborative inclusive design processes to make societal institutions, spaces and technologies more socially and environmentally sustainable

I work with Participatory Design, Community Engagement and Workshop Creation and Facilitation, especially focusing on sustainable and democratic transitions. I especially care for gender equity, cultural diversity, and more-than-human perspectives. Participation, to me, is a way of designing by actively acknowledging that everyone has their unique perspective and that creating change requires deep respect and care for others' values. My background is in architecture and interaction design and my practice combines design thinking, interpersonal skills and creativity.

Website: annitadouka

Lab Alumni Members

```
Anders Blentare
```
```
Henrik Johansson
```
```
Jennifer McCormack
```
```
Katarzyna Paluch
```
```
Liana Paberza
```
```
Linnea Våglund
```
```
Maria Johansson & Eva Söderholm
```
```
Marika Hedemyr
```
```
Mathilda Bryngelsson
```

Niklas Gyberg Ivarsson / Plankton Film AB

```
Rumiko Otsuka
```
```
Simon Rydén
```
```
Vanessa Poole
```
```
Duncan Geere
```
```
Alexe Landgren
```
```
Karen Helene Haugaard 
```
```
Philip Evans
```
```
Paul Khadra
```
```
Theresa Gustavsson
```
```
Ellen Bjerborn
```
```
Anna Eileen Nguyen Jeppesen (Groovy)
```
```
Jon niCklas Lundberg
```
```
Marija Ziemyte
```
```
DUNG CHINH NGUYEN (Slowz)
```

```
Gianluca La Bruna
```
```
Maria Åberg
```
```
Anna Arvidsdotter
```
```
Camilla Howalt
```
```
Felicia Hansen
```
```
Nya Rörelsen
```
```
React Performances
```
```
Wild Cosmos
```
```
Christoph Mügge
```
```
Anabela Veloso
```
```
Nontokozo Tschabalala
```
```
Clara Dackenberg
```
```
Yénika Castillo Munoz
```
```
Gerardo Garcia AYMA
```
```
Hanna Blomberg
```
```
Maja Daniels
```
```
Stefan Andersson
```

```
Firas Mukarker
```
```
Nicole Hernandez
```
```
Elin Hedin
```
```
Arad Golan Coll
```
```
Anna Borràs
```
```
Matilda Bjärum
```
```
Jonathan Heinius
```
```
Tomas Auran/Frankenstein
```
```
Elina Masalin / Elee Loop
```
```
Lucy Cathcart Frödén
```
```
Yuvia Maini
```
```
John Kazior
```
```
Re:Cut
```
```
Caroline Cabot
```
```
Séverine Monsonégo
```
```
Kajsa/Jakub - WOUD
```
```
Mark Bond
```
```
Ali Jehad
```
```
Kroppsklubben
```
```
Cora Onori
```