Human Identity

Architect Arna Mačkić (Amsterdam) builds from an ideal: an inclusive society. Arna is born in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1988. When she was five, her family fled to the Netherlands where the family found shelter in an asylum seekers’ center in Putten. After high school, she studied at the Architectural Design department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, after which she continued her education at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. She graduated in 2017 with a Master in Architecture with a design for a fictional Institute for Human Rights: an inclusive and democratic place on the main square in The Hague. Together with architect and fellow student Lorien Beijaert, she founded architecture studio Studio L A. For L A, the practice of architecture is a device through which to investigate societal issues, phenomena, and narratives, and to place them in renewed perspectives. Their projects often relate to inclusion and exclusion mechanisms, refugees, collective identity, and the public domain.

Arna Mačkić from Stimuleringsfonds on Vimeo.

Ali Mangera (London/Barcelona) is an architect and engineer with a Master’s Degree in Structural and Environmental Engineering from Penn State University and studied Architecture at the Architecture Association London. In 2001, he established architectural design studio Mangera Yvars Architects (MYAA) together with Ada Yvars Bravo. Ali since then worked on major projects in a.o. Qatar, United Kingdom, Algeria, Turkey, Indonesia, and China, with a special emphasis on sustainable and culturally aware architecture and urban planning. The approach of MYAA stems from the idea of ‘architecture as landscape’, where they address the key issues of the day such as the changing way we live and work, our basic requirements for shelter, our desire for better urban space, and our absolute need for sustainable cities.

Edison Award-winning singer Izaline Calister (Groningen) has built an impressive track record in the past 20 years, performing at venues and festivals in Europe, Asia, the USA, and South-America with her self-written songs. Born in Curaçao, she moved to the Netherlands when she was 18 to study at the Prince Claus Conservatoire and decided to stay. Izaline possesses the exceptional gift that makes all the difference for a soloist, as she sings in her mother tongue Papiamentu, with feeling and grace. Her music is a fusion between the typical traditional rhythms of her motherland and jazzy harmonies and melodies, seamlessly melding with influences like pop, fado, jazz, and Brazilian music.