Aliona Šalaj

Aliona Šalaj is a psychologist, researcher, and writer. She earned her PhD in psychology from Vilnius University. After working in the field for several years, she turned to cultural research. She has written art criticism, collaborated with the media education and research centre Meno avilys, taught, and completed a research placement at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University. Since 2023, she has been a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). She is a recipient of the Visual Art Criticism Award and the Skirmantas Valiulis Prize for photography criticism. Across all of her work, her focus centres on art, feminism, and motherhood.  

Šalaj’s essays are distinguished by their unique combination of personal reflection and academic inquiry. Raising four children permeates her scholarly writing, while a broader theoretical context serves as a tool for reflecting on her own experience of motherhood. 

At April,  she will be completing the final edits to her forthcoming book, With a Harsh Gaze, due to be published in autumn 2026. This autoethnographic work raises uncomfortable questions about phenomena traditionally considered unproblematic: family photographs, personal memory, and the balance between family and career. 

Ben Eastham

Ben Eastham is the editor-in-chief of e-flux Criticism, as well as an art critic and novelist. His second book of non-fiction, The Imaginary Museum, was published in 2020; his debut novel, The Floating World, will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions (Commonwealth) and Astra House (US) in October 2026.

A regular contributor to the Guardian, his writing has also appeared in ArtReview, e-flux, frieze, the London Review of Books, the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Fantastic Man, Acne Paper and the Financial Times, among other publications. He is the editor of books on Luis Camnitzer, Arshile Gorky, Fabio Mauri and Stephen Spender, and has written monographic essays for artists including Ed Ruscha, Camille Henrot, Kati Heck and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian.

Cofounder of literary magazine The White Review, with Jacques Testard, he was previously editor at ArtReview, a co-curator of the 14th Shanghai Biennale, publications editor of the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, and an associate editor at documenta 14. He is on the International Advisory Panel of EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art, and began his career as an editor at the BBC reporting on mass media and propaganda. Now based in London, he lived for a number of years in Athens and Rome.

This residency is funded by

Jantine Wijnja

Jantine Wijnja made her literary debut at the age of seventeen. She then immersed herself in nonfiction, contemporary art, and collective decision-making. She is co-founder of Stichting Grondwerk, a foundation dedicated to making grassroots collective decision-making as widespread as possible, as quickly as possible. In recent years, she has published essays and articles. Her current project marks a return to her love of speculative fiction.

Yevgenia Belorusets

Yevgenia Belorusets is an artist and writer living and working between Kyiv and Berlin. Her work operates at the intersection of literature, visual art, and documentary practice, often drawing attention to vulnerable and marginalised communities in Ukraine, including queer families, Roma communities, miners, and people living in war-affected regions.

Her work has been exhibited at, among other venues, the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 56th and 59th editions of the Venice Biennale. She has received numerous awards, including the International Literature Award of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in 2020, the Schering Stiftung Special Prize for Artistic Research in 2022, and the Alice Salomon Poetics Prize in 2025.

Since 24 February 2022, she has been documenting russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

This residency is kindly supported by

Jurga Tumasonytė

Jurga Tumasonytė is a prose writer, literary critic, and creative writing lecturer. She holds a BA in Lithuanian philology from Vilnius University (VU) and an MA in literary studies from Vytautas Magnus University (VMU). Since 2007, she has contributed extensively to the cultural press, conducting interviews with Lithuanian and international artists, publishing reviews and essays, and organising cultural events. 

Her literary work has been translated into French, Estonian, Latvian, German, Russian, Croatian, and English. She is the author of the short story collections Dirbtinė muselė and Undinės (Mermaids), and the novels Remontas (The Renovation) and Naujagimiai (The Newborns).

Tumasonytė has received numerous literary awards. Her debut collection Dirbtinė muselė was awarded the Kazimieras Barėnas Prize. Undinės (Mermaids) was selected among the five best books at the Book of the Year awards and included in the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore’s (LLTI) list of the twelve most creative books, and received the Jurga Ivanauskaitė and Antanas Vaičiulaitis prizes. Her novel Naujagimiai (The Newborns) was named Best Lithuanian Fiction Book of 2023 in the 15min.lt Book of the Year awards, also shortlisted among the five and included in the LLTI’s list of the twelve most creative books; in 2024, it was awarded the Žemaitė and Lazdynų Pelėda prizes. 

Tumasonytė explores themes of identity, memory, and everyday life, combining realistic narrative with elements of the surreal.