Meet the team
We may have great theories, but we are pragmatic dreamers. We are a small team with big ideas - and fortunate to have an excellent network of supporters and ambassadors to help us bring our vision to the world.
Who we are
Discover the people who run the re:future lab and learn more about their fields of expertise, experiences and passions.
Founder, director
Madeleine Schwinge
is a curator, futurologist, and facilitator with a degree in economics and a background in entrepreneurship, systemic consulting and contemporary art. Her artistic oeuvre was nominated for the Social Art Award 2019. For two decades, she has accompanied entrepreneurs, teams and individuals in realising their visions, supporting them in brand strategy, strategic processes and bringing to life their core identity and values. For her, the future is a multidimensional space full of possibilities that unfolds in the here and now. With a rare blend of undisciplined expertise, and in the course of many years, she developed the EMBARKING FUTURES® meta-method.
Co-director
Cécile Nebbot
is an economist and communication expert with a background in brand content and strategic consulting. Two decades she has worked for leading consulting firms based in London, New York and Paris. She has a deep expertise in econometrics, playing with the complexity of quantitative data, speculative models, multi-criteria analysis of endogenous and exogenous factors, and a systemic approach, to decipher and interpret—in a hermeneutic way—a wide range of socio-economic phenomena, with the ultimate scope of predicting structural or cyclical trends, and the outbreak of future crises.
Interns
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A team of interns supports our research, content communication and campaigns, the relationship management with our stakeholders and the organisation of the programme. They are systemic thinkers and engaged in the pressing issues of our time. They are interested in art and often have a background in design, architecture, media, art and cultural studies.
You want to join the team? Drop us an e-mail. We're happy to hear from you!
Board of advisors
Dedication. Expertise. Passion.
We thank our advisory board members, both the active ones and those from the very beginning, for their tireless commitment and belief in our vision.
Art journalist, curator
Gesine Borcherdt
is a Berlin-based curator and author for Die Welt, Welt am Sonntag, ART, BLAU International, Art Review, Aperture, AD Germany, Ursula, and other major art publications. In her writings, she focuses on contemporary art, women artists, architecture and design.
Gesine has curated a large number of exhibitions for private foundations, galleries, and non-profit spaces.
She has been teaching at art academies, like Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Universität der Künste, Berlin. She has contributed to major artist publications and exhibition catalogues, like for the 12th Berlin Biennale. Gesine moderates talks and panel discussions, like recently with Byung-Chul Han for Universität der Künste, and Karen and Christian Boros for Gucci.
Architect
Sigurd Larsen
The Berlin based Danish architect combines the aesthetics of high quality materials with concepts focusing on functionality in a complex context. He has a master degree from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen. His studio builds houses in Denmark, Germany, Austria, France and Greece, completed a series of loft rooms at Michelberger Hotel in Berlin as well as the treetop hotel Lovtag in Denmark and public schools in Germany. Sigurd Larsen is Professor at Berlin International University of Applied Sciences. He previously was employed at OMA Rem Koolhaas New York, MVRDV Rotterdam, COBE Copenhagen and Topotek1 in Berlin. He gained severals awards, honorable mentions and 2nd prizes in various competitions architecture competitions.
Visual artist
Chloe Piene
is a visual artist known for her unique and powerful draftsmanship and her ability to span an extremely broad spectrum, both in the play with her materials and as a certain philosophical position. All of Piene's media, including her sculpture and video, reflect a profound investigation of human existence, often fearless and up to this point directly questioning notions of fear, courage and fortitude. She holds a BA in Art History (Columbia University) and a MFA in Fine Art (Goldsmiths, University of London). Piene has exhibited at The Albertina Vienna, and the Whitney Biennial. Her work is part of collections such as MoMA New York, MoMa San Francisco, Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, Sammlung Hoffmann Berlin, Fondation Guerlain Paris, and Centre Pompidou Paris.
Designer
Jutta Werner
Jutta Werner is a German designer and architect, founder of NOMAD, a design and production agency for recycled and handcrafted rugs. NOMAD stands for sustainability and respect: it is a small, woman-owned company that produces in a close and honest partnership with Indian weavers. The brand has won the Green Product Award 2021, the German Design Award 2019, and has been listed in Dezeen Awards 2021. She studied architecture at HFBK in Hamburg. Prior to launching her own company, she had a successful career with internationally operating companies such as Dedon, Ligne Roset, JAB Anstoetz and Vorwerk. Respectively since 2016 and 2019, she is a Jury Member of If Award, and German Design Award.
Art historien, curator, writer
Jan-Philipp Frühsorge
Jan-Philipp Frühsorg is an art historian and critic. To him, drawing is not merely a performative practice, but rather a major and independent means of expression.
In 2003, he founded his gallery for contemporary drawings, a pioneer and one-off in Germany. For a decade he has been involved in academic research projects and with some of the most important graphic collections in Germany and Europe (Berlinische Galerie, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Fondation Guerlain Paris, Sammlung Akademie der Künste).
He is a well recognised expert, whether as a consultant to private collectors or as a guest lecturer—University of West England in Bristol and Paris College of Art.
He studied theatre, film and art history at the Free University of Berlin.
PhD Researcher in Anthropology, Artist
Jovana Popić
Jovana Popić (b. 1977, Zadar, Croatia) is a Berlin-based visual artist and PhD researcher in Anthropology. Profoundly imbued with the stigma of war in Croatia in the early 1990s, her work originate from the traces of place, memory, ideas and time. Her installations are heterotopias, grounded in navigation through a universe of signs and meanings, inhabiting the space in between. She obtained in 2006 a Master Degree—Universität der Künste Berlin—with President’s Prize in the class of Rebecca Horn. She received numerous awards and scholarships, such as Friedrich Naumann Foundation Scholarship, Sennheiser’s Future Audio Artist Award, grants of Karl Hofer Gesellschaft, IFA Institute, United Kingdom and Norway. Popić has exhibited in Europe, United States and Asia.
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