NICO MESTERHARM
The META HOUSE - founder was born 1967 in Hamburg (Germany) and moved to Berlin in 1968. Early he started writing for newspapers. Besides that he played theatre, made music with different new wave and pre-electro bands and acted in tv series, sitcoms and movies. While doing so Nico Mesterharm made up his mind what he wanted to in the future: Work behind the camera as a director.

Mesterharm studied German Language, Economy and Musical Sciences in Heidelberg and Berlin. 1991 he co-founded the German electronic multi media label and production company D'VISION NETCOM, before becoming CEO and editor-in-chief of the publishing company A-VERBAL. Until 1998 he edited more than 20 books about underground and overground culture: Including the biography of German movie diva Hildegard Knef and the highly acclaimed anthology "Berlin Technology", which deals with the roots of the Berlin "techno music" boom in the beginning of the 1990s. Another key issue of Mesterharm´s journalistic work was the German reunification and the social, economic and psychological problems which are related to that historic event.

KROSSOVER MEDIA (www.krossover.de) was established in 1998 by German journalist and author Inge Daehne and Nico Mesterharm to bundle the activities of more than 20 international media activists within one network: writers, foto journalists, filmmakers, music producers and art directors. KROSSOVER MEDIA - member of the International Academy (INA) at the Free University of Berlin - organized the public debate forum “Dahlemer Foyer” with well-known panelists like Johannes Rau, Richard von Weizsaecker, Gesine Schwan, Gregor Gysi, Heiner Geissler, Wolfgang Thierse, Wolfgang Huber and many more.

While working with different non-governmental organisations in the territory of the former "Eastern Block" Nico Mesterharm was hired by public and private TV broadcasters as researcher, author and director.In 1999 the Studio Babelsberg-linked production company EIKON produced his first documentary THE TRIP about 35 teenager visiting the Terezin concentration camp (Czech Republic). THE TRIP was part of a special screening during "Berlinale" Film Festival in the year 2001. Mesterharm's next film played in Moldova – Europe`s poorest country (SUGAR, BREAD AND GERMANS/2000).

The three films JOY`S HOUSE ( “Toura D`Or” festival, ITB 2002), BATTLE FOR LIFE (ARTE, 2003) and BUILDING A DREAM (work-in-progress) focus on social problems and AIDS in South-East-Asia, where Mesterharm lives since 2002. At the 15th International AIDS Conference (Bangkok, 2004) Mesterharm inauguarated the COM.PASSION initiative (www.com-passion.tv) together with the German Cultural Foundation Goethe Institute.

LYDIA PARUSOL
Lydia Parusol was born in 1977 in East Germany, the daughter of Polish immigrants. She studied ballet, played classical music, and at an early age she started to draw and sculpt. In her teenage years, she started to perform in theatre productions and tour through the former GDR with a theatre group.

With a deep interest in social development and culture, Lydia Parusol has extensive experience in culture and arts management as well as democratization projects. While her academic background is in social work, Lydia also has a strong artistic calling. She studied Social Work, worked in the Student Senate of her University, but also was a member, from 1999 onward, of Caleidospheres a loose association of artists. This led her to her first group exhibition of installations and performances about female sexual identity during a festival she produced together with these members in the decaying industrial area of Weimar, Germany. After graduating in 2004, she worked at the Kleine Synagoge Erfurt, a small synagogue. There she helped organized a festival about Jewish-Isrealean women. Besides this work, she was, for two years, an Argentinian tango dance instructor and performer in Germany.

Growing up in the former East Germany as a Polish immigrant, her youth was constantly in a state of flux as a result of the political changes in the region. This only further spurred her interest in exploring new regions and places. An internship at a youth welfare centre in India also increased her desire to explore Asia. Later, she decided to apply for the German Development Service and received a posting at a Cambodian youth NGO. While in Cambodia, she also worked in an administrative capacity at a German governmental institution specializing in democracy and decentralization.

At Sovanna Phum Khmer Art Association, she was project manager and the Interim Director. This preceded her current position at Meta House where she has been the Art Manager since September 2007. Her move from NGOs to the arts world was not about abandoning her social pursuits, but about expressing another side of it.