Sonja Bäumel heads the Jewelry-Linking Bodies Department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She also lectures and gives workshops in several academies and universities. The critique of human exceptionalism is at the core of her work and its investigations of the curious relationship between humans and microbes. Sonja's work has been exhibited at international venues including the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Anthology Film Archives in New York, MAK Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, and Seoul Museum of Art. She studied fashion design at the Fashion Institute of Vienna and holds a B.A. from the University of Arts, Linz, as well as a master's degree in conceptual design in context from the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.