Merel Barends (1980) is a comic artist and illustrator. Her work has been published by several renowned publishing houses like De Bezige Bij, Uitgeverij Atlas/Contact and Uitgeverij Podium. She did commissions for a wide range of clients, such as IDFA, Vrij Nederland Magazine, Mindshakes (NRC Media), OneWorld, Amsterdam Young Academy, CPNB and Greenpeace.

Barends participates regularly in artistic group projects. Her work was exhibited both in the Netherlands and internationally, including in Burundi (1 Femme, 6 Humeurs), Tunisia  (correspondents.org) and the Czech Republic (De Inktpot). At an earlier edition of Cross Comix, she curated the exhibit-in-the-dark ‘Stripped! – A pretty dark room’, where she invited 20 female comic artists to create work inspired by Nietzsche (and his influence). 

Barends is an editor of graphic journalism platform Drawing the Times. As a graphic journalist, she found an international audience and her journalistic comics were published in Dutch, English and Arabic. She’s also part of the Medifoor team, an initiative by medical professionals to visualize complex diagnoses and treatments in a patient-friendly way.

Since 2017, together with writer/producer Jantiene de Kroon, Barends has been working on Oranova, a transmedial world building project. Within this arena, she examines new methods of storytelling, always with her own drawing style as a starting point. She developed motion comics (a mix between comic and animation) and directed an animated VR-experience, Oranova Night Market. The latter had its world premiere at Kaboom Festival, and won the second prize in the New Frontiers Competition at Future Film Fest in Bologna. 

In 2023 Barends developed a theatrical VR-performance with fusion band Zettai, Fight Your Inner Demons, which is still on tour.At the moment, she’s also working as an art director and designer on Lagos, Home For All, an XR-collab with Nigerian animators and comic artists.

Tânia A. Cardoso, illustrator and urbanist, has completed her doctoral research at the University of Amsterdam. Her research, a product of this distinct blend of fields, focuses on the potential of illustration as a form of urban communication.

This work is the culmination of her ground-based experience as an illustrator-researcher, exploring the poetics of everyday life and reportage art, and using illustration to co-produce and challenge the urban environment. The results of her research led her to open StudioTako, a studio for creating visual storytelling, urban chronicles, collective mapping and comics, and independent study.

Guido van Hengel is a historian and writer of narrative non-fiction. He has a PhD in Cultural History from the University of Groningen. In the field of comics, he co-initiated and coordinated a number of international artistic projects, most recently Remix Comix (2022-2024). He is interested in ecology and human-animal relations.

Mark Schalken is an artist-designer, as well as an organiser and writer. Through drawing he makes social issues tangible. His stories both provoke and aim to connect. Since 2025 his main project is the creation of a monument for slaughtered cows in Amsterdam, accompagnied by a graphic novel.