Fine Acts Labs are unique events exploring the intersection of social/environmental issues, art, and technology.
The format matches artists with technologists to work on small-scale, high-impact interdisciplinary collaborative projects.
The two-person teams work together over a weekend, to prototype ideas that raise awareness or provide solutions to a specific issue.
Teams are supported by a pool of mentors and experts in the respective field. A jury then awards one idea with a grant for further development.
Labs is a format by Fine Acts, a global nonprofit creative studio for social impact.
The latest edition of Labs (Sofia, June 16-18, 2023) was dedicated to climate change.
For it, we partnered with Resonator – a unique creative tech hub that provides access to various labs – e.g. electronics, fab lab, XR (AR/VR/MR), sound lab, meeting spaces, and more.
Labs participants are carefully selected prominent creatives and experts in their fields, with an interest in creating work for social impact. We picked 14 awesome artists and technologists from Austria, Bulgaria, France, Romania, Slovenia, and Spain amongst a wide pool of applications to participate in the 2023 edition of Fine Acts Labs.
Read more details about the developed ideas on our Instagram.
And, see the parallel online edition of Labs that we are running, this time dedicated specifically to climate equity and justice.
TEAMS & IDEAS
PARTICIPANTS
Daniel Haas
Austrian artist Daniel Haas studies time-based and interactive media arts at the University of Arts Linz. His main project „Sturmherta“ emerged from the modular-synth community in 2017 as a synthesizer-performance-project. As he found interest in other related areas, like programming and visualization, his works gained more variety. They now reach from pure sound performances over audio-visual compositions to immersive installations using big projections or physical objects.
Aglika Spassova
Aglika Spassova is an illustrator and designer. Since 2017 she’s been the Head of Art at guts&brainsDDB, Sofia. She is a MA graduate from the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and the National Academy of Art, Sofia. Lots of her work has been awarded within the advertising guild. Currently, she is a professor of Design at the American University in Bulgaria.
Katerina Vaseva
Katerina Vaseva is a software engineer with a background in art and architecture and a love for graphic novels, illustration, guitars, poetry, and a few other impractical things. She lives in Berlin and occasionally does stand-up comedy, because life is easier to process as a joke.
Javideas
Javier Moreno Gaona (aka Javideas) is a Spanish developer and artist, currently living in Sofia, Bulgaria. He has a strong background in Fine Arts, Contemporary Art, 3D, Ai, VR, and programming.
Gabriela Luhova
Gabriela Luhova holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. Currently, she works as a Senior Ruby on Rails developer at Tutuf, where she has been a dedicated team member since 2015. Alongside her professional work, she has been deeply committed to Rails Girls Sofia since 2015, supporting women making their first steps into programming.
Mitch Brezounek
Born in France, Mitch Brezounek is based in Plovdiv, Bulgaria since 2016. He graduated from the Beaux Art Academy of Lorient, France, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in plastic arts. He was a member of the art collective Ouest Fisting from Lorient (2013 - 2017) part of the underground graphic culture. Among his solo shows are: “Venus Ritual”, Gallery L’Union, Plovdiv, (2018); and “How to become the best artist in the world”, Institute of contemporary art Bulgaria, Sofia, (2021).
Mihai Gui
Mihai Gui, born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, graduated in 2016 with an MA from AKV St. Joost in Breda, The Netherlands. Within his artistic practice, he focuses on questioning the established value of the creative field in contemporary society. Mihai is a recipient of the Mondriaan Fonds Jong Talent stipend in 2017, presented work at Ars Electronica '22, and is a member of the TimeWindow artists' and makers' biotope in Rotterdam. He has a commercial practice as a performance photographer for the theater and dance world.
Zhelez Atanasov
Zhelez Atanasov is a strategic planning director at Noble Graphics - an advertising agency based in Sofia. In 2014, Zhelez went on stage at the biggest advertising festival in the world - Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity - to take the first and only gold medal for Bulgaria in the Young Lions Film competition. Since 2015, he has been teaching "Advertising Strategies" at the New Bulgarian University. Since 2020, he has had a calico cat named Gnocchi.
Barbara Jazbec
Barbara Jazbec is an intermedia artist from Trbovlje, Slovenia. She has a BA in Media and Arts (TAMK, Finland), and MA in Interface Cultures (Linz, Austria). Her background is mainly working with 360-degree video and video installations. Her latest research interests are mostly focused on interactive installations. In her work, she merges odd personal experiences with sci-fi futurism and a tinge of humor. Barbara is the curator of the international video festival DigitalBigScreen 360° in Trbovlje, Slovenia.
Boril Obreshkov
Boril Obreshkov has been passionate about physics and engineering for a long time, and for the past couple of years he’s had the opportunity to develop his interests into a career. He is currently working in Sofia Tech Park where he founded the makerspace Sofia Creation Station. His job is to develop the maker movement in Bulgaria, and to help people with ideas turn them into reality.
Peter Valkanoff
Peter Valkanoff is an eclectic 3D artist with experience in a multitude of disciplines - fashion, music videos, video mapping, and games. He often works with other artists to bring their digital creations in the physical form employing methods like 3D printing and 3D scanning. He enjoys breaking the boundaries of 3D and adding chaos to this otherwise very technical medium.
Teodora Petkova
Teodora Petkova is a machine learning and software developer. She is currently working at Imagga - a company providing API and services in the field of computer vision and image recognition. She has worked for several years in the electrical CAD industry as a C# developer. Teodora has a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Sofia University. She is also volunteering for different projects, such as the Bulgarian Food Bank, CVS/SCI workcamps, and others.
Lucian E. Matei
Lucian E. Matei is a socially-engaged director and creative multimedia designer, specializing in digital interactive arts and video mapping performances. In the past 10 years, he has collaborated extensively with various national theaters and cultural centers from Romania, developing video projection concepts, design, animations, and surrealistic cinematography. He is the founder and the head of Noiseloop Studio, a team motivated by new challenges of creative representations.
Plamen Pekov
Plamen Pekov is an electrical engineer by education and a maker by heart. When he graduated, he started his journey in the field of industrial electronics. In 10 years’ time, he gained deep understanding on custom-built machines, working with both electronics and mechanics. In 2019, he started his own company – Izobretilnitsa, which focuses on designing and manufacturing small batches and prototypes of devices and electronics. Plamen is one of the founding members of BETMA - The Balkan Engineering, Tech & Makers Association.
MENTORS & JURY
Meglena Antonova / Activism
Meglena Antonova leads the office of Greenpeace – Bulgaria. She has a master's degree in international law in the field of environment and energy. Since her late university years, she has been an activist for human rights and nature protection, calling for a change in the energy system so that all people can produce their own energy from renewable sources.
Violeta Keremidchieva / Activism
Violeta Keremidchieva is a communication specialist who works in the field of environmental and human rights. The conservation cause introduced her to Za Zemiata - FoE Bulgaria as a teenager, and years later she had the opportunity to return to the organization with the knowledge and experience she has gained in advertising and communications.
Thomas Coombes / Comms+Jury
Thomas Coombes is the founder of hope-based comms – a new philosophy for social impact communications. Once the Head of Brand and Deputy Communications Director at Amnesty International, now Thomas is a human rights strategist and communications trainer who helps civil society groups develop practical narrative change strategies.
Mihajlo Nikolic / Tech+Jury
Polymath and interdisciplinary professional, Mihajlo Nikolic is the Co-founder of Athlon, an international design and technology company; founder of Resonator, a creative tech hub; and co-founder of Technokrati, a company operating at the intersection of education and technology for kids and youth.
Peio Popov / Tech
Peio Popov is Director Financial Services for Ontotext - a global developer of a unique portfolio of core semantic technologies. Peio helps apply Ontotext technology to real world problems. Loves the spark of playful cleverness when technology is applied to a human frustration.
Venelin Shurelov / Art
PhD Venelin Shurelov is an Associate Professor, a co-founder of MFA program “Digital Arts”, and full-time lecturer at the National Academy of Art in Bulgaria. He is co-founder, part of the curatorial team and technical organizer of DA Fest, International Digital Art Festival, Sofia. Venelin has had a number of stage design projects, individual exhibitions and participations in general exhibitions and festivals in Bulgaria, Europe and the USA. Awarded many times for his work in theater and contemporary art.
Maksim Stoimenov / Art
Maksim Stoimenov has worked in advertising since 2011 (Ogilvy Sofia, Noble Graphics, NEXT-DC). He won the first edition of Fine Acts Labs and later joined the team of the studio as a creative consultant. Currently he is the Creative Director of B+RED, and continues his work as an independent artist with 20+ years of experience in music composition, performance and production.
Yana Buhrer Tavanier / Campaigns+Jury
Yana Buhrer Tavanier is the co-founder and Executive Director of Fine Acts. Before, she co-founded TimeHeroes.org; and was an award-winning investigative journalist. Yana has BA in communications and MA in political science from Sofia University, along with executive education at Harvard, Yale, and Oxford Universities, and NTU-Singapore. She is a TED Senior Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, a WEF Young Global Leader, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Svetla Baeva / Campaigns
Svetla Baeva is Fine Acts’ Campaigns Director. She is a human rights activist with an academic background in communications and political science, who has devoted the last 10+ years to championing issues concerning women's, LGBTI, refugee, minority and children's rights. Svetla is also co-founder and CEO of Power Pops, a company dedicated to supporting social change through popsicles. WEF Global Shaper. Fulbright Scholar at Change.org.
Pavel Kounchev / Pitching
Pavel Kounchev is Fine Acts’ co-founder, Chair of the Board, and special projects advisor. He is a social entrepreneur with a strong background in advertising and marketing. He is also the co-founder and Board Member of TimeHeroes.org, the largest volunteering platform in Bulgaria. Pavel is one of the 12 inaugural Obama Foundation Scholars at Columbia University. He is a Forbes Bulgaria 30 Under 30 all-time ‘Hall of Fame’ member, a WEF Global Shaper, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Ana Alexieva / Pitching
Ana Alexieva is Fine Acts’ Programs Director. She is a cultural and art manager with a background in international documentary film production. A graduate in media and gender studies from Ruhr University Bochum and Utrecht University, Ana is Fellow of Friedrich Ebert Foundation, YTILI and Mercator Stiftung, a WEF Global Shaper, and a G-20 Young Global Changer. Selected for Forbes Bulgaria 30 under 30, and Emerging Producers IDFF Jihlava.
Shoham Arad / Jury
Shoham Arad is a designer and until 2023 – the Director of the TED Fellows Program, one of the most dynamic and prestigious fellowships in the world. Through her work, she helps thought leaders formulate, grow and communicate their groundbreaking ideas through multiple platforms that impact all sectors of society, from art to healthcare. She also teaches design at Parsons and RISD, and serves as a collaborator and board member at international arts and social impact organizations (one example: Fine Acts).
Lauren Agosta / Jury
Lauren Agosta is an independent cultural manager, facilitator, performer and artist, dedicated to supporting socially engaged art and creating dynamic spaces for collaboration and global exchange. Lauren was the Senior Culture and Collaborations Lead for Culture and Art at the Open Society Foundations. She organized the Arts Forum: Art, Public Space, and Closing Societies and helped to design and launch the Soros Arts Fellowship.
