Jochen Sandig was born in Esslingen, Germany. In 1990 he moved to Berlin to study psychology and philosophy. Following the founding of the Tacheles Art Centre in 1990, in 1993, together with Sasha Waltz, he founded Sasha Waltz & Guests. In 1996 he cofounded Sophiensæle, an independent venue for dance and theatre productions in Berlin Mitte, which he directed until 1999. From 2000 to 2004 Jochen Sandig was a member of the artistic direction at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz. Since 2004 he is the director of the independent Sasha Waltz & Guests GmbH. In 2006, together with Folkert Uhde, Jochen Sandig founded the Radialsystem in Berlin. In 2010 he was awarded the French cultural order “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”. In February 2012, he debuted as director with “human requiem”, a staging of Johannes Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” in cooperation with the Rundfunkchor in Berlin and Simon Halsey. Since its premiere the production travelled to Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, Granada, Rotterdam, Athens, Hong-Kong, Adelaide and New York. The production was awarded with the “Classical Next Innovation Award 2016”. As a social and political activist he became one of the three co-founders of the World Human Forum in Delphi, Greece. From 2019 to 2024, Jochen Sandig was artistic and executive director of the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele / Internationale Festspiele Baden-Württemberg. In the year 2022 Jochen Sandig was awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Jochen Sandig
George Nounesis
Demetris Athanasoulis
Zozi Papadopoulou
Bettany Hughes
Marshall Marcus
Sneska
Yannis Sotirakos
Dr Athena Coustenis
Athena Coustenis is Director of Research with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) of France, based at Paris Observatory in Meudon. She is an astrophysicist with a specialty in space exploration and planetary sciences. Her research is devoted to the investigation of planetary atmospheres and surfaces, their origins and evolution, with emphasis on the habitable conditions in the Solar System and exoplanets. She is involved in the definition, development and exploitation of space missions to solar system bodies with high astrobiological potential, in particular Mars, icy moons like Titan and Enceladus, Saturn’s satellites, and Jupiter’s Ganymede and Europa, and exoplanets. She is currently co-investigator of the ESA JUICE and ARIEL missions to the Jupiter system and to study the exoplanets, and of JAXA’s MMX mission to Mars’ satellite Phobos.
Beyond her scientific work, A. Coustenis is currently involved or has in the past participated or led several advisory groups within ESA and NASA and other international bodies, helping establish space programs and optimize their scientific return. She is currently Chair of the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection and a member of the Space Programme Committee of CNES. She is also the Past Chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, and the President of the IAU Division F.
Costas Synolakis
