WFoS 2026 TEAM

Jacek Smolicki / Co-founder and main curator.

Based in Stockholm, Smolicki is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and 2026 Loeb/ArtLab Fellow at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He specializes in soundscapes, soundwalks, acoustic ecology, and site-responsive art. Using field recordings, critical and creative media practices and writing his works explore environmental, technological, and historical dimensions of local and global geographies. He holds a PhD in Media and Communication Studies.
Jacek Smolicki

Tim Shaw / Co-founder and co-curator.

Tim works with sound, light, and communication media to create performances, installations, and site-responsive interventions. His practice spans environmental sound art, digital media, media archaeology, walking, and installation making. He holds a PhD in Digital Media and is 2026 Forum Basiliense Fellow at the University of Basel in Switzerland.
Tim Shaw

Bree Edwards / Curatorial advisor and co-producer. Director at Harvard ArtLab

Bree is the founding Director of the Harvard ArtLab, an interdisciplinary laboratory for creative research at Harvard University established by the Office of the President and Provost. She leads programs that support artists, scholars, and students working across disciplines to explore new forms of artistic experimentation, collaboration, and public engagement.
Bree Edwards

John Pax / Co-producer and advisor. Managing director of the Shelemay Sound Lab at Harvard.

John is a musician originally from Kalamunda, Western Australia and the Managing Director of the Shelemay Sound Lab, a hub for sound exploration, collaboration, and creation at Harvard. As a musician, John is an active composer writing for acoustic instruments and/or electronics, a keyboard player performing on both piano and harpsichord, and an audio engineer specializing in both live and studio techniques for (often spatialized) experimental music and field-recording practices.
John Pax


Kat Nakaji Technical operations. Project manager at Harvard ArtLab

is the Technical Operations and Project Manager at the Harvard ArtLab. A maker with an extensive background in theater and the arts, Kat advocates for diversity and access, working to ensure that everyone feels welcome and able to participate. They earned a BFA in Theatre Design/Technology from Emerson College and an MLA from the Harvard Extension School.
Kat Nakaji

PARTNERS

Harvard ArtLab is a place for making, experimenting, and working across disciplines. We support artists, designers, and creative researchers as they develop new ideas—often in collaboration with scholars, students, and practitioners from across Harvard and beyond. Through artist residencies, student-driven projects, courses, workshops, and public programs, ArtLab offers time, space, and resources for artistic research to unfold. Our programs invite experimentation, risk-taking, and exchange, fostering new ways of thinking through art.
ArtLab

ArtsThursdays is a university-wide initiative sponsored by Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA). Every Thursday evening, a Harvard arts institution or organization will open its doors to the Harvard community and the wider public for free performances, exhibitions, lectures and other events as part of a presidential initiative that promotes access to the arts at Harvard.
ArtsThursdays

Loeb Fellowship, based at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), offers mid-career professionals a year of transformation and engagement at Harvard University, along with membership in a global network of over 450 alums. Loeb Fellows are experienced practitioners who are shaping the built and natural environment in the U.S. and around the world. Urban planners and designers, public artists, real estate developers, landscape architects, journalists, civic leaders, architects, policymakers, social entrepreneurs, and more, these proven leaders step away from their professional lives for one academic year to strengthen their knowledge and impact, to broaden or refocus their careers, and to encourage deeper social engagement with their work.
Loeb Fellowship

Shelemay Sound Lab, offers resources for editing, reviewing, and creating multimedia projects in stereo and multi-channel formats. Equipped with modern and legacy audio technology, we support interdisciplinary creativity and diverse engagement with sound. Through workshops, listening events, an artist-in-residence program, and personalized guidance, the lab hopes to enrich Harvard’s exploration of music, sound, production, and scholarship.
Shelemay Sound Lab

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University is North America’s oldest public arboretum and a premier, 281-acre "museum of trees". Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, this free, year-round landscape holds globally recognized, scientifically documented collections of temperate woody plants, serving as a vital hub for research, conservation, and public engagement.
Arnold Arboretum

Harvard Commons is a multi-level, open-plan, and flexible gathering space located on the first and second floors of the center in Cambridge. It serves as a central hub for the Harvard community to study, dine, and socialize, featuring varied seating, food vendors, and a "front door" to the university.
Harvard Common Spaces

Frances Loeb Library is a vibrant intellectual hub of the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Its expert staff supports the global design community’s diverse needs through many services. The library provides equitable access to a comprehensive collection of resources, including 16th century architectural treatises, the Le Corbusier Research Collection, the tactile Materials Collection, rich archival collections, and a vast general collection of design books and periodicals. The library provides support for research, teaching, writing, and GIS & geospatial needs.
Frances Loeb Library

Semantic Matter Lab/ Northeastern University is an interdisciplinary research lab that reimagines data practices through experiential engagement. Our core premise is that data are not merely passive records but active agents shaping our world—physical entities with tangible impacts rather than abstract representations. Semantic Matter Lab

Goethe Institut, Boston is the Federal Republic of Germany’s official cultural center in New England, located in Boston's Back Bay/Beacon Hill area. Founded in 1967 as the first in the US, it promotes German language, culture, and international exchange through language courses, exams, and cultural events. Goethe Institut

metaLab is a global knowledge-design lab engaged in critical and creative practice across the disciplinary grid. Rooted in the arts and humanities, our research unfolds at the crossroads between code and narrative, data and ethics, networks and archives.
metaLab

Ekoton is a Stockholm-based, sound-focused art and design studio founded by researcher and artist Jacek Smolicki. It specializes in developing soundwalks, offering consultancy within acoustic ecology, and designing site-specific, audio-visual services and experiences that explore the intersection of built and natural environments.
Ekoton