ADINA ORBOI grew up in Timișoara, Romania in a courtyard surrounded by all kinds of beautiful animals. She also had a vegetable garden where her grand- parents taught her how to recognise and take care of different plants. After finishing her Bachelor and Master in fashion design she realized this industry doesn’t need more disposable fashion collections but innovative and unique ways of dealing with the customer’s needs. Her brand MUSE UM represents the endless search of the artistic perspective, through the experimental forms created in the material. MUSE UM tries to create timeless, sustainable and ethical objects that are not under the fashion or trends influence, an integral piece that can be worn, respected and repaired.

MIRIAM DEL SEPPIA is a visual and textile artist working across botanical dyeing, textiles, painting, drawing, ceramics and gardening. Her process-driven practice focuses on plants, fibers and colors as a way of exploring connections with specific living worlds and their embedded knowledge. Colors and textiles are not only carrying fundamental expressive qualities, but are also a medium of relation, rooted in the surrounding ecosystem. Through slow processes of self-teaching, learning from intimacy, affection and from other-than-humans, she circles around matters of care, ecology and de-growth. She is currently exploring geographical specificities and land-based knowledge connected to areas of Italy and The Netherlands. She is originally from Tuscany and currently based in Rotterdam, where she graduated in Visual Arts from the Piet Zwart Institute.

LENN COX is a community organizer, artist, educator and programme maker. Lenn explores solidarity economies by immersing herself in self-organised learning-working-living environments. Many with an ecofeminist and queer heart. She notes from her Collective Wandering field research that we can learn a lot from and with communities and collectives that develop and maintain alternative welfare and mutual care and support systems. In this, Lenn uses clothes as correspondence, to carry the exchanges and stories she collects as a topic of conversation. During her ecosystemic research Lenn also developed navigation cards. These cards inform and give context to her practice and help share observations and inspirational excerpts she has collected. Lenn is a member of Collectief Z o m e r e n, in which she explores with fellow cultural workers what it means to have a collective practice at this moment in time. As linen steward, she learned how to grow, process and craft with a group our everyday textiles and garments by hand, with commoning as a guiding principle. Lenn coaches participants of the ArtEZ master Critical Fashion Practices with their research. She also works as a programme maker for kunstpodium Plaatsmaken and Ruimtekoers, a cultural organization for socially engaged art and participatory practices. Lenn lives in Arnhem (the Netherlands) and works wandering.

Local resident WIEDJAI DIHAL also contributed to Cox’s navigation cards. On his card he wrote about Informal Care for Mothership Earth. With this text, he responds to our behavior towards nature, in which we often ‘parasitize natural resources instead of collaborating with the abundance that Mother Nature offers us in symbiosis.’ Wiedjai Dihal has lived in Spangen since 1974 when he moved to the Netherlands from Suriname with his parents, sisters and little brother. After studying at Marnixcollege in Rotterdam he went into military service. Thereafter, he started the Tropical Agricultural School in Deventer. Where his fascination for how we interact with Mother Earth - and Mother Earth with us - was further activated; ‘I would like to pass on my knowledge and experience to future generations, and also learn with them as well. After all, we need each other!’

LUCIO NERY DACOSTA was born in Praia, Cape Verde. At the age of 8, he emigrated to Portugal with his mother. From a very young age he showed interest in music, dance and drawing. At the age of 14, after seeing the film Beat Street, a film about hip hop and graffiti, he started making graffiti. Inspired by hip hop culture, he started designing and customizing clothes for friends and classmates. After finishing his studies he launched his clothing brand, specialized in streetwear and hip hop fashion. As a colleague and friend of many hip hop artists in Portugal, he was the exclusive designer and stylist for many. In 2007 he moved to Rotterdam, where he invested in his first printing machines. Nowadays Lucio Nery works part-time in his company designing, personalizing and selling clothing and part-time as a caretaker of the housing complex of Justus van Effen in Rotterdam.