Extra Academy is a spontaneous alliance of Extra City, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Sint-Lucas Antwerpen.

The guest speakers on February 15 are Zak Kyes (ZAK Group) and Tim Reykaert and Amélie Laplanche (More Publishers).

Zak Kyes lives and works in London. In 2005 he founded ZAK Group, his own graphic design company, and became art director of the Architectural Association (AA) from London. Over there he co-founded Bedford Press In 2008. In 2010 he received the ‘INFORM Award for Conceptual Design’ given by the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, that initiated the travelling exposition ‘Zak Kyes Working With…’ (2011/12).

He designed among others the Cybermohalla Print Studio (Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen - with Nikolaus Hirsch and the Cybermohalla Ensemble, 2011); the Serpentine Gallery Manifesto Marathon, London (with Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2008); and since 2008 the Sternberg Press Solution series (with Ingo Niermann).

Kyes curated the travelling show ‘Forms of Inquiry: The Architecture of Critical Graphic Design’ (2007/09); ‘The Information Economy’ in MoMA PS1, New York (2010); and ‘Bridge The Gap?’ in the Center for Contemporary Art Kitakyusha (with Charles Arsine-Henry and Akiko Miyake, 2011).

He edited among others ‘laspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice: The Read’ (Sternberg Press, 2009), ‘Exhibition Prosthetics’ (Bedford Press, 2010), ‘COSEY COMPLEX Reader’ (ICA, 2010), and ‘Space Is the Time You Need to Go to Someone Else’ (CCA, 2012).

Kyes teached at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and at the Ecole kantonnale d’art de Lausanne. His current projects are among others the graphic design of the Architecture Triennale Lisbon and the development of a new graphic identity for Barkow Leibinger Architects, Berlin.

Amélie Laplanche and Tim Reykaert founded MOREpublishers in 2007. They played with the idea to organize expositions, but few was possible because of their small apartment. This got them thinking about alternative presentation methods, and in this way the idea to publish issues was born. Together they started the series ‘Sunday’. The name reflects the fact that both only had time to work on the project on Sundays, too occupied by their full time job. They set up several solo and group exhibitions and collaborated with among others Mark Luyten, François Curlet, Sophie Nys, Denicolai & Provoost, Willem Oorebeek, Dora Garcia, Inaki Bonillas, Maurizio Nannucci, Liam Gillick, Aglaia Konrad, Jonathan Monk, Lieven De Boeck, Marijke Van Warmerdam, Jochen Lempert, Pierre Bismuth, Robert Barry, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Sylvie Eyberg, Jacques André, Pernille Kapper Williams, Richard Venlet, Steve Van den Bosch, Allen Ruppersberg, Leonor Antunes, Anri Sala, Gabriel Kuri, Joe Scanlan, Leonor Antunes, Alexandra Leykauf, Manuel Burgener and Manfred Pernice.

Language English