Christian Jankowski was born in 1968 in Göttingen. His works are in the field of conceptual and performance art, for which he uses a variety of media and genres such as film, video, photography, painting, sculpture, and installation. Jankowski initiates collaborations between the visual arts and other professional worlds such as religion, politics, and entertainment. His work has been shown at numerous national and international exhibitions and biennials and is part of various collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Tate, London, MOCA, Los Angeles, and Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. He has been a professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart since 2005. Jankowski works internationally and lives in Berlin.

“Horst” and “Maria” are fictional characters that Jankowski developed together with 23 other artists. They wear the same clothes and blonde wigs; only their names indicate a gender difference. During their six-month stay in Tarabya, Horst & Maria were alternately animated by two artists  each, who created new art works, kept a diary and recorded their impressions photographically.

Horst & Maria are: Horst & Maria: Jan-Nicola Angermann / Ferhat Ayne / Min Bark / Sophia Bergemann / Natalija Borovec / Ezgi Böttger / Nora Dennenberg / Theo Dietz / Anna Gohmert / Lucia Gödicke / Andrea Éva Gyori / Anette C. Halm / Shaotong He / Gabriel Hensche / Sören Hiob / Benjamin Hönsch / Christian Jankowski / Bangjoo Kim / Jen Kratochvil / Kasper Leisner / Nick Liebig / Tünde Mezses / Kyunhye Min / Blerta Osmani / Jan-Hendrik Pelz / Charlie Stein / Johannes Hugo Stoll /  Tzusoo / Angela Vanini / Alicia Hernández Westpfahl

Christian Jankowski was a resident at Tarabya Cultural Academy from December 2015 to the end of May 2016.