Jonas Voegeli

Jonas Voegeli is a Swiss graphic designer whose work is dedicated to editorial design, art direction and brand development. Since 2008, he is a co-founder and president of the Hubertus-Design-Group. From 2003–2013 he was a professor for editorial design at Ecole cantonale d‘art Lausanne (ECAL). Since 2013 Voegeli has been Head of Visual Communication at the University of Art Zurich. Voegeli is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale.

His work was awarded several times with the Swiss Federal Prize for Design, Golden Letter, Gold-, Silver- and Broncemedal at the international competition Most Beautiful Books of the World, etc.

At the Book Arsenal, Jonas Voegeli will be giving an opening lecture as a head of the jury of the Best Book Design contest. Also, as a part of the book design program “Interfaces of Optimism” he will be participating in expert discussion.

Lavon Volski is a Belarusian musician, writer, painter, and founder of the Belarusian rock groups Mroja, N.R.M., VOLSKI and Krambambula. Winner of numerous music awards and prizes.

At the Book Arsenal, Lavon Volski will be taking part in the poetic performance “Verses of Freedom from Belarus” and, as a part of Serhiy Zhadan curator’s program “Out loud. About oneself”, will be performing on “Three Turtles”.

Verena Nolte is a writer, translator and editor. Her short stories and essays were published in newspapers, magazines, anthologies, catalogs, and have been played on the radio. From 1992 to 2003, she worked in the Munich Culture Department in the international cultural exchange office. In 1997–2003, she headed the Munich House of Artists of “Villa Waldberta” on Lake Starnberg. From 2006 to 2010 she managed a network of German language literary houses literaturhaus.net. In 2011, Verena Nolte founded the non-profit organization Kulturallmende, where she implemented many artistic and literary projects in Germany and abroad.

At the Book Arsenal, Verena Nolte will be presenting her project “A Paper Bridge: German-Ukrainian writers meetings”.

Solomiya Moroz is a Canadian-Ukrainian composer-performer. She has a PhD in music composition from the University of Huddersfield. Her music compositions have been presented as part of Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music, Contrasts International Contemporary Music Festival in Lviv and other festivals. As a flautist, she has performed at numerous festivals in a duo Electric Noise and with Thin Edge New Music Collective. Recent premiers of her compositions have been performed by Ensemble Apparat, accordionist Teodoro Anzellotti, Quasar saxophone quartet, Bozzini string quartet and accordion duo XAMP. She is a recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Société et Culture.​

At the Book Arsenal, as a part of Lyuba Moroz’s musical program “Seven Strings for Uncle Mykhailo” Solomiya Moroz will perform at the “Synthesis of Aero Strings” (SAS) concert.

Dalia Grybauskaitė is a Lithuanian politician who served as the eighth President of Lithuania from 2009 until 2019. She is the first woman to hold the position and became in 2014 the first President of Lithuania to be reelected for a second consecutive term. Dalia Grybauskaitė has served as Minister of Finance, as well as European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget from 2004 to 2009.

She is the winner of numerous awards, including Charlemagne Prize (2013), Order of Liberty (Ukraine) etc. 

At the Book Arsenal, Dalia Grybauskaitė will be taking part in presentation of a book by Daiva Ulbinaitė “Nustokim krūpčiot. Prezidentė Dalia Grybauskaitė” translated into Ukrainian (published by Nash Format, translated by Beatrice Beliavtsiv).

Tomasz Grzywaczewski is a journalist, writer, filmmaker, and expert in Central and Eastern Europe studies. Author of the non-fiction books. Originator and co-screenwriter of a documentary feature “Shadows of the Empire” inspired by his book “Granice marzeń. O państwach nieuznawanych”. Former editor-in-chief of the Koncept magazine. 

Winner of numerous prizes: Kryształowa Karta Polskiego Reportażu 2019 and Magellan prize for the best reportage book 2019 for “Granice marzeń. O państwach nieuznawanych”.

At the Book Arsenal, Tomasz Grzywaczewski will be presenting his book “Granice marzeń. O państwach nieuznawanych” translated into Ukrainian (published by Knyhy–XXI, translated by Natalia Tkachyk).

German writer, DJ, journalist and filmmaker — that’s how Wladimir Kaminer describes himself. His first book, “Russendisko”, was published in 2000. Now he is an author of more than 25 books. Recently, together with the group Die Antikörpers he published a pandemic diary “Bleib Zu Hause, Mama” (“Stay at home, Mama”).

At the Book Arsenal, Wladimir Kaminer will be presenting his book “Lost Summer. Germany’s smoking on the balcony” translated into Ukrainian (published by Komora Publishing House, translated by Serhiy Zhadan and Oksana Schur) and, as a part of Serhiy Zhadan curator’s program “Out loud. About oneself”, will be performing at the “Singing Bats: a concert of Ukrainian-German friendship”.

Yulia Tsimafeyeva is a Belarusian poetess, translator, co-founder and editor of the online literary journal “PrajdziSvet”. She is a member of the Belarusian PEN and the Belarusian Writers’ Union.

She has won the Debut Award in Translation as a co-translator of Charles Bukowski’s collection of poems “air and light and time and space” (2017). Collections of poems by Walt Whitman and Stephen Crane in her translation from the English have also been published. Besides, she translates children’s books from Norwegian. She has participated in the international literary festivals in Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Finland, Switzerland and others.

A book of Iya Kiva’s interviews “We will wake up different: conversations with contemporary Belarusian writers about the past, present and future of Belarus” (2021, Knyhy–XXI) will be presented at the Book Arsenal; Yulia Tsimafeyeva is one of the book’s heroes.

Yuriy Gurzhy is a musician, songwriter, DJ, and storyteller. Founder of the Russendisko, Shtetl Superstars, RotFront and The Disorientalists projects.

Yuriy released 10 compilations on different European record labels, including the bestselling “Russendisko Hits” (2003) and “Shtetl Superstars — Funky Jewish sounds from around the world” (2006), recorded three albums and toured extensively with RotFront. His latest productions are “Who Was Essad Bey?” (2017, with The Disorientalists) and “Bandera. Songs from the HipHopera” (2018).

At the Book Arsenal, as a part of Serhiy Zhadan curator’s program “Out loud. About oneself” Yuriy Gurzhy will be performing at the “Singing Bats: a concert of Ukrainian-German friendship”.

Tom Hillenbrand is a German writer and journalist. He volunteered at the Holtzbrinck journalism school and was department head at SPIEGEL ONLINE, worked for the Financial Times and WIRED. His non-fiction books and novels have sold a million copies, have been translated into several languages, and have received numerous awards (including the Kurd Lasswitz Prize, the German Science Fiction Award and so on), and are regularly on the SPIEGEL bestseller list. Most recently, he published the sci-fi thrillers Hologrammatica, Qube and the bestseller Montecrypto.

At the Book Arsenal, Tom Hillenbrand will be taking part in the discussion “Data Ctrl Centre: optimists and sceptics about the cyfral future” organized by Goethe-Institut Ukraine.