Anne is a theatre and opera director and a Professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program. She is the author of six books: A Director Prepares; The Viewpoints Book; And Then, You Act; Conversations with Anne, What’s the Story and The Art of Resonance. Works with SITI include Radio Christmas Carol, Falling & Loving; The Bacchae, Chess Match No. 5; Lost in the Stars; The Theater is a Blank Page; Persians; Steel Hammer; A Rite; Café Variations; Trojan Women (After Euripides); American Document; Antigone; Under Construction; Freshwater; Who Do You Think You Are; Radio Macbeth; Hotel Cassiopeia; Death and the Ploughman; La Dispute; Score; bobrauschenbergamerica; Room; War of the Worlds–the Radio Play; Cabin Pressure; Alice’s Adventures; Culture of Desire; Bob; Going, Going, Gone; Small Lives/Big Dreams; The Medium; Hay Fever; Private Lives; Miss Julie; and Orestes. Recent operas include Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle, Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, Ruders’ The Handmaid’s Tale, Handel’s Alcina, Dvorak’s Dimitrij Verdi’s Macbeth, Bellini’s Norma and Bizet’s Carmen.

Anselm is a curator and author. From 2013 till 2022, he was head of the visual arts and film department at Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin (HKW). He is known for developing the format of the 'essay exhibition', which consist of extensive research-based forays into political and cultural histories and current artistic production. Among his collaborative projects are Ceremony. Burial of an Undead World (2022, with Elisa Giuliano, Claire Tancons, Denise Ryder and Zairong Xiang), Parapolitics: Cultural Freedom and the Cold War (2017/2018, with Nida Ghouse, Paz Guevara, Antonia Majaca), and the project Animism (2010-2014), which was presented in different chapters and collaborations in Antwerp, Bern, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Shenzhen, Seoul, and Beirut. He also curated the first exhibitions of Forensic Architecture (Forensic, 2014, HKW Berlin) and was Chief Curator of the Taipei Biennale 2012 and the Shanghai Biennale 2014. Since August 1, 2022, he is Professor of Cultural Critique and Curatorial Studies at the Zurich University of the Arts.

Bishal is a visual artist and a curator based out of Kathmandu. He is a part of Kalā Kulo, an arts initiative, where he works on a series of archives contextualising the contributions of artists who have been central to introducing novel artistic vocabularies to Nepal in the 20th century. Professionally, he has been involved in exhibition design, installation, and programming, including for Kathmandu Triennale 2077 and the recent retrospective of Ragini Upadhaya. His current interest includes exploring the regional histories of printed matter and book design in South Asia. He is also a member of Aṅkūra Atelier, a creative collective.

Gridthiya is an Artistic Director and curator of the Jim Thompson Art Center in Bangkok. Her curated projects within Asia, Europe and the Americas include Imagined Borders, the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018); Between Utopia and Dystopia, Mexico City (2011); Unreal Asia, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Oberhausen (2009); and Under Construction, Tokyo (2000–2002). She was a guest curator of an exhibition Apichatpong Weerasethakul: The Serenity in Madness that toured six cities (2016–2020), initiated by the Independent Curators International (ICI). A 2018 fellow at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, MoMA, New York, she is also a member of the acquisition committee for the Singapore Art Museum since 2020. She was awarded the French Ministry of Culture’s Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2023, and Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence from Bard College (CCS Bard) in 2025. Currently she serves as a member of the Finding Committee for Artistic Direction of Documenta 16.

Hit Man is an artist and curator based in Kathmandu. His diverse practices invoke indigenous methodologies and epistemologies to reconfigure contemporary artistic praxis and interrogate the fabric of human mobilities, frictions of history, and failures of revolutions. While rooted in the recent history of Nepal, his works unravel a complex web of kinships and extraction across geographies that underscore the exploitative nature of capitalism.

He was one of the curators for 17th Biennale Jogja 2023 and Colomboscope 2024. He was co-curator for the Kathmandu Triennale 2077 (2022), Nepal Pavilion at Venice Biennale (2022), ‘Garden of Ten Seasons’ at Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2022) and ’12 Baishakh,’Bhaktapur (2015) alongside Sheelasha Rajbhandari. He has also co-founded ArTree Nepal, an artist collective and Kalā Kulo, an arts initiative. He has participated in exhibitions at Asian Art Biennial,Taipei (2024), SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin (2020); Biennale of Sydney (2020); Artspace Sydney (2019); Weltmuseum Wien (2019); Kathmandu Triennale (2017); Yinchuan Biennale (2016); ParaSite, Hong Kong (2016); Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (2015-16); and Dhaka Art Summit (2014, 2016, 2018, 2020).

Indu is an artist, poet, and activist. As an indigenous Tharu woman, her writings, performances, and installations actively address the systematic erasure of her community’s voice. She explores themes of remembrance, loss, and violence and their impact on individual and societal consciousness. Her works are particularly informed by the recent People’s War in Nepal (1996–2006) and its effect on her family and community. Drawing from her family's archives, she investigates the role of underground publications in the struggle for Tharu identity recognition. Additionally, she has been documenting the contributions of Tharu women in various social movements across the Tarai. Her poems have been performed at numerous protests and are published in her book "Nilambit Nibandha."

Born to a Truku father and Han Chinese mother, Labay is a contemporary weaver and installation artist from Taiwan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Applied Arts from Fu Jen Catholic University, and a master’s degree in Temporary Space Design from the Faculty of Architecture of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. She traverses between the modern and the ancient, attempting to strike a balance between the two through artistic creation, and speaks of power through gentleness, while exploring self-development through traditional Truku weaving. Her practice engages in metal work, soft sculpture, installation, video, writing, public art, and curating, with which she endeavors in promoting contemporary indigenous weaving. One of her projects Bubu's Closet (2008), inspired by her grandmother's closet, won the top prize of the Hometown Entrepreneur Program. Other projects include Yaku Kuyuh (I’m a Woman), a visual series created in 2014; a 2015 documentary Nii Nami (We Are Here).

Lavkant is an artist from the Indigenous Tharu peoples of the Tarai, and his art directly addresses issues related to his community and their struggle for rights and recognition within the history of the Nepali nation-state. By embedding archival matter and Indigenous vocabularies in his art, he aims to unravel the multiple injustices of indentured servitude, extrajudicial killings, environmental degradation, and political disenfranchisement Tharu peoples have faced. Paramount to this practice are narratives of resistance and resilience that disrupt and challenge these longitudinal cycles of suffering.

Acclaimed international disabled artist Marc trained as a professional dancer at the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and The Australian Ballet School. He has been working in the UK and internationally for over 25 years as a director, choreographer, dancer, teacher and speaker; with the Australian Ballet Company, State Theatre Ballet Company of South Africa, Infinity Dance Theatre, Candoco Dance Company and AXIS Dance Company. He was Associate Director with Scottish Dance Theatre, Associate Artistic Director with Ballet Cymru in Wales and was Associate Artist at Tramway Theatre in Glasgow and Artistic Director of AXIS Dance Company from 2017-2021.

Mekh is a Kathmandu-based interdisciplinary artist originally from Dhankuta. Coming from the indigenous Limbu community, his work often addressed the systematic suppression of indigenous identity within contemporary politics. He also uses his art as a bridge to communicate between older and newer generations concerning language, ritual, and history. His practice draws from archival texts, images, videos, and audios in order to subvert conventional representations of indigenous peoples. His works also document the ramifications of Nepal’s labour migration industry on his family, underscoring the estrangement of relationships and the breakdown of indigenous societies that has unfortunately become common for many Nepali households.

Pooja is a founding member and Director of Khoj International Artists’ Association, a not-for-profit society committed to experimentation and exchange in the visual arts in India. Under her stewardship, Khoj has grown from an annual event in 1997 to a vibrant building-based institution which plays a central role in the development of experimental, interdisciplinary and critical contemporary art practice in India and South Asia. She is on the Advisory Board of the Prince Claus Foundation (2023-2026), a member of the International Programme Advisory Committee of IFACCA (2024-25) and on the Board of Public Arts Trust of India, Jaipur. She has served on several international juries, most recently being the Nordic Cultural Fund (2022-2024), the Omega Resilience Awards (2023), the Rockefeller - Care Fellowship for Bellagio (2022), and has been an advisor and mentor for the South-South Asia Fellowship (2022-2023).

Priyankar is a researcher incorporating archival and field-based methodologies in his works. His ongoing study includes assembling and contextualizing the archives of the SKIB-71 art collective, looking at the long history of disease and territory in the Tarai, recording body marking traditions along the Indo-Nepal borderland, and exploring the visual historiography of cultures across the Himalayas. He is also a co-founder of Kalā Kulo, a space working with experimental and speculative approaches in Kathmandu.

Sheelasha is an artist and curator based in Kathmandu. Her works draw upon an embodied and speculative lineage of femininities to question the positioning of women and fluid beings and decentre patriarchal structures that perpetuate cycles of industrial extraction and individual exhaustion. For her, art-making is about making space for collective action that recomposes notions of Indigeneity, gender, sexuality, worth, and productivity.

She was co-curator for Tamba project at 11th Asia Pacific Triennial 2024. She was one of the curators for 17th Biennale Jogja 2023 and Colomboscope 2024 and Kathmandu Triennale 2077, Nepal Pavilion at Venice Biennale (2022), ‘Garden of Ten Seasons’ at Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2022) and ’12 Baishakh,’ Bhaktapur (2015). Her textile installation was exhibited at Kunstinstituut Melly (2023), Museum of Art and Design; New York (2022), Footscray Art Center; Melbourne (2022). She crafted the Dankini initiative, which prioritises rest, play, and sensory pleasure while delving into the complex interplay between identity and structural forces. She is also the co-founder of ArTree Nepal, an artist collective and Kalā Kulo, an arts initiative.

Shermin, Artistic Director of Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin, is a trailblazer in German theatre. Born in Turkey and migrated to Germany as a child, she initiated and champions post-migrant theatre, reflecting Berlin's diverse reality. Long before leading the Gorki, she was an integral part of a movement that brought artists of colour and marginalized voices to the forefront. Under her direction, the Gorki has become a radical venue, critically engaging issues surrounding trans local identities, histories and narratives. Her impact is recognised internationally. She has received numerous awards, including the KAIROS European culture prize for her work as a cultural mentor, Helga and Edzard Reuter Foundation honors for fostering international understanding, and the Bundesverdienstkreuz from German President Joachim Gauck for her cultural contributions.

Subas is a descendant of traditional stone carvers from the Tamang Indigenous community of Nepal. His artistic practice seeks to reframe Tamang history by challenging the dominant narratives of the past. Bureaucratic, ethnographic, and colonial sources often marginalize the agency of Tamang people while perpetuating traumatic and dehumanizing accounts. His works deconstruct and repurpose archives concerning the state's exploitation of Tamang lives and labor within the context of the fraught relationship between his community and the evolving Nepali state since the 18th century. By drawing upon oral histories, vernacular materials, and traditional techniques such as slate carving, engraving, and printmaking, he presents an alternate historiography of his community that draws upon ancestral knowledge systems.

Vivian is Research and Programs Manager at Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam. She founded and directed Stichting Frontier Imaginaries (2016-2019), presenting exhibitions with the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane, the Al Ma’mal Foundation in Jerusalem, e-flux and Colombia University in New York, and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Her previous roles include Curator with “If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution” (2012-2014). As a freelance curator she co-initiated “Koloa: Women Art and Technology” with Tunakaimanu Fielakepa and Cosmin Costinas (2019-2021), and she co-curated the inaugural performance programmes of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam “Stage It!” together with Hendrik Folkerts (2011-12). Ziherl holds a PhD in Curatorial Studies with Monash University in Melbourne.

Xavier holds a PhD in molecular biology and has been working as an artist since 1991. He is also a professor at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Giessen, Germany. His early solo works were credited as ground-breaking, opening new perspectives in choreography. Motivated by the need for transformation, he creates with the desire to alter our understanding of dichotomies such as: Human/Non-Human, Subject/Object, Passive/Active, Norma/Anormal, and to multiply our perspectives.

His latest works, such as We Are Not Monsters (2020) in collaboration with Dalibor Šandor and Per.Art, Retrospective (2012-), For the Unfaithful Replica (2016), Still In Hong Kong (2021), investigate time, space as well as the relationship between the public and live artworks made possible by exhibitions, museums and other public spaces.

His works have been presented internationally, including at the Taipei Performing Arts Center, Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017, Tapiès Foundation (Barcelona), MoMA (New York), Kaldor Public Art Projects (Sydney), Centre Pompidou (Paris) and La Biennale di Venezia Danza among others.

Aziz is a Pakistani-born curator, writer and researcher whose work builds interdisciplinary connections between art, history, archives, literature, theory and biography and supports new cultural and pedagogical infrastructures. Their research and resultant projects honour and recognise the power of queer and feminist collectivity, sociability, joy and wayward encounter.

Chathuri was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She is a multidisciplinary visual artist working with performance, sculpture, painting, and graphics. Her works interrogates notions of gender, queer culture, justice and equity, tradition, and history in Sri Lanka. A recipient of the Commonwealth Scholarship, South East Asia by Indian Council for Cultural Relations, ICCR (2012), she acquired a Bachelor in Fine Arts (Painting) from Chitra Kala Parishath, Bengaluru (2017) and Master in Visual Arts (Painting) from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Vadodara (2019).

Diamantina is a fashion designer who uses her knowledge and skills to help those marginalised by society. In the challenging environment of one of Bogotá's barrios, she has set up Fundación Rediseñándonos (Redesign Ourselves Foundation), which offers a welcoming community and inspiring workshops. Drawing on the therapeutic aspects of creativity and creative production, she is empowering people to explore alternative possibilities and redesign their lives.

Endless Return (ER) is a small music platform from Singapore run by butoh dancer XUE and artist/producer Mervin Wong. ER rejects capitalist event structures, opting instead for gatherings that prioritise creative exploration over financial motives. ER happenings cannibalise and iterate on themselves in the form of eternal Returns — unique events that allow for exciting artistic intersections across art, music and performance. Initially conceived during the pandemic as a virtual rave, ER has evolved into a music label and experimental series dedicated to charting the sonic badlands of Singapore and Southeast Asia. ER is dedicated to unearthing and showcasing the most subversive of the Singapore underground and like-minded regional acts. ER recent releases include "Parodyse City" (2023) by Singaporean DJ and producer Vangoth666. ER has been featured on publications like Mixmag Asia, Female Magazine Singapore and Life in Arpeggio and was also the recipient of a Creative Grant by Refraction Festival in 2022. ER has also been a resident with Hong Kong Community Radio for the past two years and running.

Formed in 1997 in Buenos Aires, Etcétera is a multidisciplinary collective composed of visual artists, poets, and performers. Since 2007 it has been led by co-founders Loreto Garín Guzmán (Santiago) and Federico Zukerfeld (Buenos Aires). In 2005, they were part of the founding of the International Errorist movement, an international organization that proclaims error as a philosophy of life. In addition to participating in exhibitions in museums and biennials such as the biennials of Jakarta (2015), São Paulo (2014), Athens (2013), Istanbul (2009), and Taipei (2008), they often work with street-art, public interventions, actions, and performances that are necessarily contextual, ephemeral, and circumstantial. In 2015, they received the Prince Claus Award in the Netherlands.

Hira archives testimonials and witnessing through cinema, performance, and writing. Her practice explores plural temporalities, sites of collapsing ecologies and vulnerable landscapes, linking histories of colonial extraction with ongoing violence, networks and infrastructures of labour, and articulating gestures of care as a way to find justice and dignity, alongside survival. She lives and works between Amsterdam and Lahore.

Marianne is an artist living and working in Alexandria, whose works span film and installation. Through her video, photography, sculpture, and mixed media works, she takes on the role of a new historicist, using parafiction to deconstruct the social and political issues of the present. She is recipient of the 2024 Prince Claus Mentorship Award: Cultural & Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis. Her work has previously been shown at the Sharjah Biennale (2023), 7th Yokohama Triennial (2020), Manifesta 13 (2020), Towner International (2020), Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale (2020), Havana Biennale (2019), Dakar Biennale (2018), and Gherdeina Biennale, Italy, (2024)

Radhika is a public historian, researcher, and peacebuilding practitioner with nearly 20 years of experience. She works through art, oral history, and facilitates public discourse on issues of gender, security, history, justice and sustainable peace. She is the co-founder of the "Herstories project", "The Community Memorialisation Project", and is presently documenting women’s histories of sex work during conflict as an extension of the work on women, history and transitional justice. As a curator, she curated the first iteration of travelling history museum, "It’s About Time", as well as for Colomboscope (2014, 2015), the multi-country exhibition of marginalised histories "Shared Journeys" (2020) for International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and created exhibitions to share conflict histories through multiple perspectives. She holds a Masters in Development Management from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Saodat is an Uzbek filmmaker and artist graduated from Tashkent State Art Institute and Le Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Arts. Interweaving myths, rituality, and dreams within the tapestry of everyday life, her films investigate the historically complex and layered culture of Central Asia which stand at the crossroads of diverse material histories and migratory legacies. Departing from her personal history marked by growing up in the post-Soviet Uzbekistan, Saodat reaches out to the collective dimension of memory. Her research encompasses the region’s ancestral knowledge and traditional spiritual practices as well as modern history of Uzbekistan which manifests through the interlacing of archival footage from its cinematic history. She initiated Davra research group in Central Asia, 2021. In 2022 she participated in 59th Biennale of Venice and presented new work at documenta fifteen. In 2022, she received The Eye Art & Film Prize, Amsterdam. Her works are in the collection of Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Centre of Pompidou, Paris and others.

Selma and Sofiane conceived the 2019 edition of Dream City, as a civic and artistic parliament: a shared and protected space that offers a critical platform for rare forms of emancipation, and exchange between a diversity of African voices, who are key to developing new narratives and networks for the future of the continent. Selma and Sofiane Ouissi both attended the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Tunis before moving to Paris. The duo has performed with major Tunisian and international theatre directors and choreographers, at venues and performing-arts platforms around the world.

Sharareh is a Kathmandu-based arts educator who believes in the power of the arts to make the earth tremble, loosen up for change, change that begins with expressing and listening. She is one of the founders of Srijanalaya, a nonprofit organisation in Nepal, which creates safe spaces of learning through the arts. She was a CISA 2018 Fellow at KHOJ. Her curatorial endeavour is to open up questions that have been silenced and to unlearn different forms of indoctrination. She completed her BFA in Painting and Art Education from the Kathmandu University Centre for Art and Design, her Bachelor’s in Early Childhood Development from Tufts University, and her Master’s in Education, Culture, and Society from the University of Pennsylvania.

Valu is a dancer, activist and creative from Nigeria. He is the founder and artistic director of Ennovate Dance House, a collective of dancers and movement artists based in Lagos, that are addressing social issues. In 2017, he was selected for training in Artistic Activism at the Center for Artistic Activism, New York. Through his work he focuses on amalgamating performance with community development, bringing the style of dance activism to the fore.

Ujjwala is a poet, performer and educator. She is one of the co-founders of Word Warriors, a leading poetry group of the spoken word movement. Post her Masters in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, she has been exploring arts activism and community-based education programs focusing on storytelling through varied creative mediums. Inspired by her students and colleagues, she started experimenting with rap during the pandemic. Collaborating with other artists, she blends ethnic music into the soundscape of punk, hip-hop and musical monologues and tells stories of women's bodies, sexuality and liberation. Writing in English, Nepali and the ethnic minority language, Newari (Newah), she is interested in subverting the language and culture of misogyny.

Maria Medrano (poet, editor, and activist) and Alejandra Rodríguez (educator, researcher, and activist) are members of YoNoFui, a transfeminist, grassroots, and anti-prison collective made up of LGBTQNBA+ individuals and cis women, some of whom have been or are currently incarcerated. In their 22 years of activism, they established a School of Arts, Crafts, and Political Experimentation, both inside and outside prison facilities. Additionally, they formed a Workers' Cooperative with various productive units, including a beauty shop (body care), textile design, screen printing, and a collective publishing house: Tinta Revuelta. They’ve created “seconding spaces” to support each other in affective and material community networks of mutual aid, addressing everyday life management, mental health, and legal issues. They conduct workshops on Alternative Justice and Penal Abolition, write books, and initiate discussions to critically examine the role of prisons and punitive measures in our social structure. They've also established a collective house that hosts all these activities.

An artist collective based in Ho Chi Minh City, Art Labor works in between visual arts, social and life sciences in various public contexts and locales. The collective does not produce artwork but develop many-year-long journeys during which one inspiration is a seed to cultivate. The seed grows – the inspiration expands and bears into rhizome of projects and artworks.

A multidisciplinary researcher, artist and curator, Aouefa holds a PhD in Theoretical Molecular Biophysics from Humboldt University of Berlin and was co-director of The Institute for Endotic Research (TIER) in 2020-2022. Her work explores rituals, technologies, intersectional and decolonial feminist narratives in science, and aims to create practices for collective knowledge production outside European and academic contexts. She also investigates technologies for healing and maintenance of transgenerational memories. She is currently training in process-oriented psychology. She has worked with SAVVY Contemporary, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Maxim Gorki Theater, Royal Holloway University of London, Laboratoire Kontempo, Disruption Lab, among others. At TIER, she recently co-curated the seven-month long project (June – November 2022) “Aurora. A Platform on Ecology, Interdependence and Mutual Aid”.

A visual and experiential artist, and creative technologist, Uzoma is concerned with unpacking post-colonial crises of identity, fuelling imagination in service of progressive African futures, and exploring ancestral spirituality through a contemporary-day lens, all with a view to contributing to a liberated, free and healed African psyche. He has exhibited work at Here, There and Everywhere - Format Festival (2021), CultureHub – Re-Fest (2020) and LagosPhoto Festival (2019).

A poet, playwright, writer and artist, Giuliana’s methods explore relationships with language. She reflects within specific contexts, to create fantasies that move social and political horizons. Giuliana intervenes through literature, performance and visual arts, to expand the political dimension of words from a feminist and decolonial perspective. Her texts received several awards including first place in the X German Rozenmacher Prize, third prize in the Argentine National Theatre Institute’s Dramaturgy Competition, and the Maison Antoine Vitez translation award. Her work has been translated into English, German, French, Portuguese and Tsotsil and published by Rara Avis Editorial, Libros del Rojas, Fondo Editorial ENSAD, Editorial INTeatro, Espejo Somos, Solitude Editions/Archive Books and Editions Espaces 34.

An independent curator and writer, Helia is particularly interested in the intercultural field and collaborates with non-profit cultural associations. She has co-curated projects for inclusion and education through art for disadvantaged public schools in Rome. She is a PhD student of Art History at the Sapienza University of Rome and has held courses of contemporary art history in Tehran. Her doctoral research of the studies and visions of Ruyin Pakbaz, intends to shed light on the internationally overlooked research and accounts about the state of Iranian historiography of art. Hamedani writes for magazines on contemporary visual arts in Iran and abroad.

An artist, independent researcher and curator, Keren holds an MA in African Studies from SOAS University of London with a major in African Philosophy. Her interdisciplinary work is concerned with mythopoetic identity formation, knowledge activation and the use of fiction and imagination as spatio-temporal tools to conjure better presents and futures. Keren is interested in alternative spaces of (un)learning as dreamscapes and playgrounds to negotiate freedom, healing, revelation and reconfiguration of social imaginaries. Her curatorial and research practice engages with educational theory, the politics of care and pleasure, while using the collective memories and imagination archived in African literatures as praxis. “Kokoba: Meeting Our Griots”, a literary project for which she won the 2021 Prince Claus Seed Award, embodies this framework. In 2020, Keren co-edited SOMETHING WE AFRICANS GOT issue #12 on the cultural and intellectual movements of Mozambique in the 1950s.

Artist, dancer, choreographer, thinker and land-artist, Ladji began dancing as an autodidact in his neighborhood. In 2003, the discovery of hip-hop culture channeled his exuberant energy, and breakdance became his research laboratory of the possible. His open approach and emphasis on complicity, maintains dynamism and perpetual questioning without prejudice. Ladji brings people together within the JUMP collective, working with artists and thinkers from various contexts. With his company Ciel K, he merged his universe with the visual artist Soly Volná to develop actions rooted in dance and design, in encounter with other artistic and scientific disciplines, so as to question social and environmental balance.

A writer and performer who studied at the Universidad de las Artes, ISA, Martha’s practice is in a permanent research on transdisciplinary process, with emphasis in poetry, archives and micropolitic devices. She has published “Días de hormigas” (Ediciones Unión, 2018), “Los vegueros” (Colección Sureditores, 2019) and “La puta y el hurón” (Caballo de Troya, 2023). She has participated in Experimenta Sur (Colombia, 2019), Panorama Sur (Argentina, 2019), Festival Sâlmon (Barcelona, 2020), Festival Poesía en Voz Alta (Mexico, 2021), Santiago a Mil (Chile, 2021), LA SERRE – arts vivants (Montreal, 2018), Young Curators Academy (Berlin, 2019) and Watch & Talk (Zürcher Theater Spektakel, 2020), among others. She is founder of the independent publisher Ediciones Sinsentido and coordinated a scenic laboratory called Laboratorio Escénico de Experimentación Social (LEES) from 2016-2020.

A visual artist and filmmaker, Mona’s works explore intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma, and questions of identity, using humour and irony as resistance and reflection. Her recent works have been screened — among others — at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), REDCAT, Sheffield DocFest, and Columbia University.

A feminist, dance artist, teacher and curator, Nirlyn has a graduate degree in Contemporary Dance Studies, a Masters and PhD in Culture and Society from the Federal University of Bahia. Currently, she works at NAU Nascente de Artes e Utopia curating and guiding artistic residencies as well as community educational projects. She also directs, curates and teaches at OTRATIERRA – escola de artivismos, developing workshops, residencies, and the Cycle d'Artivismes pour Décoloniser.

Intrinsic to Rah’s practice is their queer identity. The materiality and techniques in their work are at play to create familiarity with the viewer. Through satire, whimsical props, and softness, one is made to believe something joyous awaits. Their most recent works feature tender and nurturing moments of queer intimacy and collective care. Furthermore, Rah questions the very nature of resistance for a queer person whose existence is a continuous act of defiance against normativity. This language of queer defiance extends to their practice of singing, alluding to the polyphonic nature of love and revolution while cautioning against the monotony of a choice-less future.

A researcher, curator and the artistic director of SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, Renan creates exhibitions, public, and research programs that study ‘insufficient’ and ‘subtracted’ images or subjects at the juncture of development and integration projects. Since 2017, Renan has been the Public Engagement and Artistic Formation Coordinator of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network (PCAN), a recently initiated public institution for contemporary art temporarily housed at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum. He has (co-)curated the 2nd Biennale Matter of Art, Prague (2022); the 6th Singapore Biennale, Singapore (2019); the 8th OK. Video – Indonesia Media Arts Festival, Jakarta (2017); and other exhibitions. Renan’s scholarship has been supported by the Foundation for Arts Initiatives, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and other fellowships. He was Curatorial Advisor to the 58th Carnegie International.

An interdisciplinary artist, educator and curator, Rola’s work explores new dimensions on the representation of war, memory, and identity. She has curated shows in Beirut, Thessaloniki, and New York City, such as the BEYroute for the third Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art, Lattice Work at the Black and White Gallery, Simmer at Kunstraum LLC and Light in Wartime at apexart. Her work has been exhibited at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, OKK/Raum29 (Berlin), Catalyst Arts and Belfast Photo Festival 2013, the 21st International Istanbul Art Fair and North of History (NYC). She received her B.A. in Historical Studies from the American University of Beirut (2003), a diploma in Intensive Drawing from the Florence Academy of Art (2005) and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University (2016). She has received Magnum Foundation and Civitella Ranieri fellowships. Currently, Rola is an Assistant Professor at VCUarts Qatar.

An independent curator and researcher, Soukaina is a member of Archive Sites, a platform for publishing and cultural research, where she co-curates the program “Publishing Practices”. She was awarded the COARC/Mellon Fellowship in Art History in 2021. Most recently, she co-curated with Yvon Langué as Untitled Duo, “If A Tree Falls In A Forest” at the Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles (2022), a collective exhibition exploring topics of perception, representation and knowledge within photography in Africa. Soukaina is currently pursuing a Master of Research (MRes) in Advanced Practices at Goldsmiths, University of London.

A performance maker, multidisciplinary artist, writer and performer, Tara’s works engage with ambiguity, playfulness, mistranslation, disjunction and unfinishedness. She has performed at the Royal Academy of Arts, Nuffield Theatre, Nottdance, Chapter, Julidans, and Montpellier Danse among others. Focusing on the interrelations of archives and performance, she has created the project and book “Mishandled Archive”, dispersing 365 fragments of family documents through performance and photography. She was the first ever resident artist at the United Nations Archives in Geneva (2021). With Pouya Ehsaei, she holds the regular experimental music and poetry night “From the Lips to the Moon” in London.