Filip Jonker, Netherlands
Born in 1980 in Rotterdam, Jonker currently lives and works in Berlin.  He started the Industrial Design study in the Hague, but quit after two years because of the compromising environment. He bought a one-way ticket to Bombay to see the world, travelled by train and bus back to the Netherlands, crossing Srinagar, Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia and Russia. He found the ideal art school:  the AKI-academy in Enschede, and co-organized a number of expositions and made an exchange with the Mucha-academy in St. Petersburg.  Jonker won an "outstanding student in contemporary sculpture" award in the USA and a Stimulation award in the Netherlands.  He then went to Berlin for inspiration and co-organised a big open-air exposition on an abandoned piece of ground in the centre of Berlin last summer called "blind spots". Jonker is currently working on getting the City of Berlin to sell some weird city-objects to use them as bases for sculptures.