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BIOGRAPHIES

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Ryan Gander gained a degree in Interactive art at MMU in the city of Manchester. After having completed a research residency at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, followed by participating in the artists' residency program of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. His first solo exhibition was held in March 2002 at the 'International 3' Gallery in Manchester, accompanied by a monograph entitled 'In a language you don't understand'. In 2003, Gander published the artists' book 'Appendix', produced a solo exhibition for the 'Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam' and won the 'Prix de Rome' for sculpture (the national Dutch art prize). In September 2004 a children's storybook 'The Boy Who Always Looked Up' to be published to accompany a solo exhibition at the Cornerhouse in Manchester was written by the artist.
Characterised by conceptual rigor, visual simplicity and allusive text, the work of Gander assembles seemingly disparate objects, actions and texts to develop his own narrative systems.
Alongside his artistic production, he is also a visiting lecturer at a selection of art and design schools within Europe and writes regularly for art and design periodicals. Gander now lives and works in London and is represented by Store Gallery, London and Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam.

Francesco Manacorda is a writer and a freelance curator based in London. He contributes regularly to Flash Art, Metropolis M and Domus. He curated in 2004 the exhibition The Mythological Machine (Mead Gallery, Warwick University) on the impact of mass-media images, and in 2005 A Certain Tendency in Representation - Cineclub at Thomas Dane (Thomas Dane Gallery, London) and From Futurism to Arte Povera (Estorick Collection, London). In 2005 he organised the symposium Ecology and Artistic Practice in the context of the programme Arts&Ecology at the Royal Society of Arts in London and will organise Adaptable Ecosystems at the London School of Economics in December 2006. He is now working on Sub-Contingent an exhibition around the Indian Subcontinent for the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin (co-curated with Ilaria Bonacossa in June 2006). He is a tutor in the Curating Contemporary Art department at the Royal College of Art, London.