Bridges 2025 Invited Speakers

Edmund Harriss
Department of Mathematical Sciences and School of Art
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

Edmund Harriss is a Mathematician, Artist, Teacher and Maker at the University of Arkansas. He holds a joint position between Mathematics and Art. His work looks at the fascinating spaces between these two subjects and the valuable ideas that can be transmitted between them. Whether that is in the use of Illustration (read broadly) to push forward mathematical research, or how the tools of mathematical thinking can be used in the service of Art, in its conception and creation. His work to bring mathematical ideas into physical space includes the non-euclidean geometry toy curvhedra, which also inspired a 12’ spherical sculpture outside the University of Arkansas Honors College. He has also created two colouring books revealing the visual structure of deep mathematical ideas and a counting book encouraging everyone to play with their mathematics from the moment they start learning it.

Brigitte Kock (instagram)
London, United Kingdom

Brigitte Kock (@variableseams) is a London-based modular fashion designer and educator, teaching you how to create 3D-printed wearables at home. From concept to finished product, she demonstrates how to 3D print TPU fabric, design modular pieces, and combine 3D printing techniques for unique results—all using accessible and affordable methods.

Alison Martin
Livorno, Italy

Alison Martin studied Graphic Design and Visual Communication at Exeter College of Art and St. Martin’s College of Art and Design. Her work involves the analysis of geometry and topology in traditional weaving patterns leading to lighter, more flexible designs at diverse scales. She designs weaving strategies that deal with complexity and unorganized components and aims to introduce geometric characteristics and physical properties such as efficiency and elegance into an orderly entanglement. The versatility of weaving patterns means that these techniques can be pushed beyond conventional craft-based limits towards novel applications across disciplines.

Winner of the IASS 2015 Expo on Future visions in structural engineering. 

Featured in New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/29/science/math-weaving-bamboo.html

She has worked with AA Architectural Visiting School, Cambridge University, Royal Danish Academy (KADK) Centre for Information and Technology (CITA), EPFL Flexible Structures Laboratory and Geometric Computing Lab EPFL.

Micky Piller and Kristoffel Lieten
The Netherlands

Micky Piller (former curator at Escher in Het Paleis, The Hague) and Kristoffel Lieten (ret. prof. University of Amsterdam), both running the website opwegnaardekunst.nl focussing (mainly) on the collections of Dutch and Belgian art museums and churches.

Micky Piller (1950), Knight of the Order of Orange Nassau, studied art history at the University of Gent, was a long-time journalist and art critic for several Dutch news magazines and radio programmes, as well as international art magazines like Art Forum. She also did the art acquisition for the Dutch estate developer Bouwfonds and was the first curator at Escher in Het Paleis in The Hague, from 2002 until her retirement in 2015. During this time she made important exhibitions like Eternity and Infinity in the work of M.C. Escher (2009) and A Sense of Wonder (2014). She contributed to several catalogues on life and works of M.C. Escher. After retirement she has focussed, with her husband Kristoffel Lieten, on a new educational mission, the website opwegnaardekunst.nl, which documents the wide range of art in museums and churches of The Netherlands and Belgium. They recently co-authored Gids naar Nederlandse Musea (Waanders, 2019) and Escher Anders Bekeken (Spectrum, 2025).

Kristoffel Lieten (1946) studied linguistics and history in Antwerp, Reading and New Delhi and was a professor in social anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, focussing on social changes in South Asia and on child labour. He has numerous books on these subjects to his credit. After retirement he co-operated with Micky Piller in the making of opwegnaardekunst.nl.

Jürgen Richter-Gebert (personal site)
Technical University of Munich
Munich, Germany

I am a professor for “Geometry and Visualization” at the Technical University of Munich. Besides doing research on topics on the borderline of geometry, computers and combinatorics I have a passion for math outreach activities, building models, writing apps or other visualization software. Despite the fact that I myself would not call me an artist, several of my activities reach out to artists using my software to create some of their work. Over the years I have been collaborating with various institutions like IMAGINARY, the German Museum, the MoMath in New York and several others. My personal quest is to create math software that at the same time is aesthetic, mathematically interesting, inspiring and uses contemporary hardware in a smooth and performant and interactive way.  For my teaching and outreach activities I received two national Awards: The Ars Legendi in 2011 and the Communicator award in 2021. Three of my bigger projects are the visualization platform Cinderella/CindyJS (since 1992) the pattern drawing App iOrnament (since 2012) and the Math exhibition ix-quadrat at our University campus (since 2002).

Rinus Roelofs
The Netherlands

After studying mathematics for a couple of years, I decided to switch to the school of arts to become a sculptor. As a sculptor I started my career in 1983. My interest in mathematics became the main subject of my art.  In 1998 I attended the Escher Centennial Conference in Rome which was the first one in a long row of conferences and presentations. My discovery of a new series of uniform polyhedra led to my PhD in 2020.