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Our Team
Our Team
Rahel Leupin
artlink Director
Focus: Theatre & Dance
Rahel Leupin is passionate about making arts and cultural policies more inclusive. For more than twenty years she has worked as a performing arts curator, arts funder and manager in Switzerland, the US and Denmark. She is a specialist in contemporary dance and theater and regularly consults for Swiss institutions, developing new funding and collaboration formats for artists, cultural workers and audiences. She holds a doctorate in Performance Design from Roskilde University.
Markus Baumann
Focus: Film and Literature
Programme Manager: Here ! Am, Weiter Schreiben Schweiz, You Do You: Transcultural Education
Markus Baumann has many years of experience in the promotion, production and implementation of projects in the fields of film, visual arts and music, as well as in cultural mediation. He is committed to the inclusion of immigrant artists and authors in the Swiss cultural landscape. Participation of artists and dialog at eye level are basic prerequisites for the successful and sustainable implementation of projects.
Roberto Haçaturyan
Focus: Music
Programme Manager: Global Sounds from Switzerland
Roberto Hacaturyan is an ethnomusicologist and musician. He studied and performed as a multi-percussionist in Ghana, Cuba, Brazil and several countries in the Middle East. His research focuses on transcultural musical developments. Hacaturyan has collaborated with a range of artists both on stage and in the studio.
Anastasia Alexandrova supports artlink as a programme manager and specialist in visual arts. She has more than fifteen years of experience as an art historian and cultural coordinator, collaborating with state and independent cultural institutions as well as publishing houses in Russia and Switzerland. In addition to her degree in art history from the Russian State University for the Humanities, Alexandrova holds a BA in Conservation of Modern Materials and Media from the Bern University of the Arts and has worked at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Nadina Bazzi
Responsible Communication & Outreach
Nadina Bazzi is responsible for communication and outreach at artlink. She majored in Anthropology and Media Studies at the University of Basel. Bazzi is interested in looking into how the dynamics of the Swiss cultural landscape can be made more inclusive. Particularly drawn to projects developed in a collaborative process she manages the initiative #seinodernichtsein, which seeks to provide social security for artists.
Matthias Dellsperger
Responsible for Finances & Administration
Matthias Dellsperger translates artlink's activities into financial figures. He gained his many years of experience at various NPOs, cantonal institutions and SMEs. His business education and further specialised trainings complete his portfolio of competences. In his spare time, Matthias is a passionate musician and producer, releasing creations that are at the intersection of electronica and guitar.
Malaya Del Rosario
Strategic Programme Consultant Turntables
Malaya del Rosario is passionate about helping creative ecosystems thrive. As an arts and culture specialist for the past 15 years, she has worked with galleries, governments and institutions like the British Council, growing their impact through strategy and partnerships. She has managed cultural programmes in Southeast Asia and the UK and writes about contemporary art, creative economy and cultural policy. She holds an MBA in Arts and Cultural Management from the Institut d’études supérieures des arts (IESA) and Paris School of Business.
Virginia Kargachin
Programme Assistant: Weiter Schreiben Schweiz, You Do You, Here ! Am
Virginia Kargachin grew up in northern Argentina. She assists artlink in different projects such as Weiter Schreiben Schweiz and You do You. She has worked promoting Latin American cultural productions in Switzerland as an associate member of the Latin American Center Zurich and is interested in fostering intercultural competences in group dynamics. She holds an MA in Literary Studies from the University of Zurich.
Extended team
Ana Sobral is the artistic director of Weiter Schreiben Schweiz. She teaches postcolonial literatures and cultures at different universities in English and German, while also working in collaboration with cultural institutions and schools to promote postcolonial works, performances, artists and activists.
Boris Siebs is a Swiss graphic designer. His practice includes art direction, visual concepts, editorial design, and custom typography for both print and digital projects, as well as animation and custom web development. Boris supports artlink with the maintenance of their website design and delivers visuals for social media.
Bubblegum Studio and its publishing division Bubblegum Club, is a team of cutting-edge thinkers and digital creatives based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Bubblegum Studio designed the artlink website and consults artlink on strategies of digital content creation and communication.
Daniela Marina Rossi is a freelance and literary translator, she lives between Tuscany and Switzerland where she is part of the staff of Babel - the international Festival of Literature and Translation held annually in Bellinzona - as their bookshop, InfoPoint and fundraising manager. She collaborates with various Italian and Swiss publishing houses and with the online magazine «Specimen. The Babel Review of Translations». Daniela is responsible for the programme Weiter Schreiben Schweiz in Ticino, Scrivere Ancora Svizzera.
Flurina Rothenberger is a Swiss artist raised in Côte d’Ivoire and based in Abidjan and Zurich. Her work draws on both photography and writing and brings a research-based approach to collaborative endeavours in the form of books, zines, installations and workshops. Rothenberger is a co-founder of Nice, a publication and knowledge hub that showcases the works, narratives and experiences of creative talents in various African cities. Flurina is responsible for the coordination and realisation of the open call Incubator: Call for workshop proposals.
Linda Malzacher works as a freelance editor and producer and has different mandates in the fields of communication, project management and administration. After graduating from high school and training as a bookseller, she studied German and educational sciences at the University of Bern. She has been responsible for media relations in German-speaking Switzerland for Weiter Schreiben Schweiz since spring 2023.
Omne is in charge of artlink's IT management. Their experience and troubleshooting skills are essential for the smooth daily working of artlink.
Rahel Arnold is a graphic designer and illustrator. Her work spans the fields of publications, corporate, exhibition design and illustration. Rahel is also a lecturer at F+F and ZHdK and the deputy art director at NZZ. She is the co-founder of Klaym, which publishes the magazine Nice in collaboration with African editorial collectives.
Raphaëlle Lacord is a literary translator. She has translated authors such as Julia Weber, Judith Keller, Martina Clavadetscher and Sarah Elena Müller from German into French. From 2018 to 2022, she edited the volume Traductions des Œuvres complètes de Gustave Roud, published by Zoé. Since 2023, Raphaëlle has been responsible for the programme Weiter Schreiben Schweiz in the Romandie, Écrire Encore Suisse.
Simone Häberli supports artlink as a freelancer specializing in digital marketing and social media. Formerly the head of digital marketing and fundraising at Helvetas, she now works for the digital startup Crowd Container.
Sturm und Bräm is a web development and design studio in Bern, Switzerland where it developed and built the artlink website. The Sturm und Bräm team creates future proofed web solutions for all artlink projects.
Our Board
Barbara Stocker is co-director and manager of Bühne Aarau. From 2008 to 2015, she directed the Biennale Bern, a transdisciplinary festival for contemporary art. From 2004 to 2016, she worked as a production manager for professional theatre productions and cultural projects in the independent scene in Switzerland and abroad under the label GO Theaterproduktionen. Before that, she worked as an assistant stage director at the Neumarkt Theatre in Zurich.
Heba Hage-Felder was born in Ghana, raised in West Africa and Lebanon, and currently moves between Beirut and Bern. She is currently independent, experimenting with her own visual storytelling and accompanying artists and cultural entities in developing their ideas and practices. She is the former director of the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut and was responsible for institutional programmes development at the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture. Between 2006 and 2016, she worked with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, initially in Switzerland and then as head of the Swiss Cooperation Office in Lebanon.
Jasper Walgrave began his career with the Lisbon-based performing arts platform Danças na Cidade/ Alkantara, and went on to work as project coordinator for the South African-Flemish project for Community Arts Centres. From 2007 to 2019 he worked for the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, first in Cape Town and Johannesburg heading its Southern African Liaison Office, then in Zurich managing the network of Liaison Offices, and later as head of the South America programme COINCIDENCIA. He is currently writing his PhD on Swiss-South African Cultural Relations 1948-94, hosted by the Bern University of the Arts and enrolled at the Université de Fribourg.
Sandro Lunin is the artistic co-director of the Performing Democracy Festival in Freiburg in Breisgau. He was the artistic director of the Kaserne Basel and the biennial international Theaterfestival Basel until 2023. With a special interest in the African continent and the Middle East, he has been active in theatre and dance for several decades. In the 1980s he was co-director of the theatre and dance department of the Rote Fabrik in Zurich and co-founder of the Blickfelder Festival, an international platform for experimental theatre for young audiences. From 1997 to 2007 he was artistic director of the Schlachthaus Theater in Bern, then artistic director of the Theaterspektakel Zurich until 2017.
Ursula Pfander works as a freelance publicist, author and concept developer with a focus on culture, film and cinema. Her extensive expertise in the field include among other recurring mandates for the Locarno Film Festival, Visions du Réel, Solothurner Filmtage, the Bildrausch Filmfest and the Swiss Film Awards. Before making a name for herself as a communications specialist in the Swiss film scene, she was head of communications at the Fribourg International Film Festival and responsible for film culture at the Swiss Federal Office of Culture.