Global Cultural Assembly 2025

Achiles Bufure serves as the director of the National Museum and House of Culture in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Together with other curators and scholars, he co-curated the exhibition “Geschichte(n) Tansanias” at the Humboldt Forum.

Feride Funda Gökçimen-Gençaslan studied German Studies, Linguistics, and Art History at Freie Universität Berlin and teaches literature and German as a foreign language in Zurich. She is chairperson and speaker of the Sufi Center Rabbaniyya, European Center for Sufism and Interreligious Encounter, based in Eigeltingen. Since 1995, she has been in training with the Naqshbandiyya Aliyyah Order (Istanbul-Turkey, Northern Cyprus), and as the Order’s representative, she gives lectures and leads events and workshops on Islam, peacebuilding, climate awareness, sustainability, and the prevention of violence and extremism. As an active member of various international and interreligious organizations, she participates in projects across Germany focused on intercultural understanding and awareness-raising with (inter-)religious content. Since 2019, she has curated an exhibition on the Naqshbandiyya Order for the Ethnological Museum at the Humboldt Forum Berlin and leads the monthly lecture series “The Treasury of Love – Mystical Dimensions in the Humboldt Forum” (since February 2023). She is also chair of the preparatory group of the Global Cultural Assembly, which has been in formation since 2022.

Fabiano Kueva, born in Quito in 1972, is a member of the collectives Películas La Divina (1992–1997), Centro Experimental Oído Salvaje (1996–2016), Laboratorio Solanda (2016–), and Global Community Assembly (2023–). His projects span museums, public spaces, and community contexts, including radio, satellite, and web broadcasts. He has published several albums, books, and articles, and has participated in and organized academic events and international exhibitions across the Americas and Europe. His recognitions include the Radio Drama Award at the 3rd Latin American Radio Biennial (Mexico, 2000), the Paris Award at the 9th International Biennial of Cuenca (Ecuador, 2007), the New Mariano Aguilera Award (Ecuador, 2015), Best International Feature Film at the Chiloé International Film Festival (Chile, 2021), and an Acquisition Award at the 15th International Biennial of Cuenca (Ecuador, 2021). He has participated in the 10th Havana Biennial (Cuba, 2009), the 2nd Montevideo Biennial (Uruguay, 2014), and the 56th Venice Biennial (Italy, 2015). Kueva has undertaken artist residencies at Apexart (New York), Villa Waldberta (Munich), Lugar a Dudas (Cali), and OBORO (Montréal). He was awarded a Prince Claus Fund Grant in 2010 and a Cisneros Institute – MOMA Artist Research Fellowship in 2024. He lives and works in Ecuador.

Laibor Kalanga Moko is an anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg. He was born and grew up in Oltukai, a Maasai pastoralist village in northern Tanzania. Laibor Kalanga Moko works on topics such as decolonization of museums, provenance research, restitution of cultural belongings and repatriation of human remains. He works with different communities in Tanzania, including his own, the Maasai, the Meru, the Chagga, the Hehe, and the Ngoni.

Augustine Moukodi is a Cameroonian writer-producer and independent researcher in colonial and post-colonial history. After studying management and administration, Augustine entered the world of audiovisual production with the aim of tackling sensitive social issues and promoting her research. She is president of the production companies Zili Jungle Studios and Racines Mboa, where she has been producing and directing historical and cultural film projects since 2012.

Her career includes the production of a children’s TV series, “Game Over Show”, broadcast in the Central African sub-region from 2012 to 2014. In 2016, her collaborative research on the German-Cameroon treaty led to the production of the Cameroonian historical TV series “Our Wishes”, directed by Jean Pierre Bekolo. In 2017, she exhibited this series at the Leopold Museum during the Vienna International Festival.

Deepak Tolange is a filmmaker, photographer and researcher from Nepal who is interested in innovation, history, culture, the environment, and social justice. Deepak Tolange completed his MA in Visual and Media Anthropology in Berlin thanks to a DAAD Masters scholarship (2014–2016). After graduation, Deepak worked in Germany and Tanzania as a freelance filmmaker and photographer for two years. Since 2018, Deepak has been working as a visiting faculty member at Kathmandu University, teaching Photojournalism and Film Production. His paintings, photography, and documentary films SHELTER (2013) and DUST (2016) received multiple awards.

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is a visual artist, author, and public speaker whose work has been exhibited in public spaces, museums, galleries, and private collections around the world. His art is held in major institutional collections such as the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Humboldt Forum.

Müjgan S. Arpat is a German-Turkish journalist and political photo reporter. She specializes in confronting history and documenting social and political tensions. From the late 2000s, she lived in Turkey for two decades, working as a producer and reporter for the German TV channel ZDF. During times of war and crisis, she repeatedly travelled to neighboring regions such as Northern Syria, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Armenia. Her photographs have appeared in newspapers and magazines including the Armenian Agos, the pro-Kurdish Gündem, BirGün, Postexpress, the feminist journal Amargi, as well as online platforms such as ZDF, Der Spiegel, and the Turkish site Bianet. The cover photographs of three books bear her signature, and in September 2009 she won third prize in the Musa Anter journalism competition, held in memory of the murdered Kurdish journalist. Müjgan Arpat is one of the photographers featured in the photo book We Are All Hrant Dink, published after the assassination of the prominent Armenian journalist. Her photographic work on the Armenian Genocide and the Kurdish Question has been exhibited in Istanbul, Diyarbakir, and Canakkale. Each of these exhibitions was accompanied by a photo publication.

Snezhanna Atanova is an ethnologist, Associate Researcher at Constructor University in Bremen and Assistant Professor at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Her focus lies on the study of material culture of Central Asia in bazaars, craft workshops, private and museum collections. While tracing Central Asian collections in European museums, her current project is centered on representation of cultural tangible and intangible heritage of Central Asia, exploring how objects, exhibitions, and curatorial practices reflect and shape the region´s diverse historical narratives and identities.

Eliaou is a clinical psychologist and PhD Student in Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck University. His research engages with Jewish-Muslim histories of minoritization in northern Africa and in the European urban diaspora outside and beyond the question of Israel-Palestine. It provides important scholarship by engaging with long indigenous history and its rupture in modernity. It highlights the legacy of little-known histories of judeo-muslim symbiosis and minority diversity in Algeria and gives voice to populations whose histories have not been heard. After studying for three years at a Talmudic school in al-Quds/Jerusalem, Eliaou obtained a master’s degree in clinical psychology, psychopathology and psychoanalysis at the University of Strasbourg, France and did a clinical specialisation in peer-support at Université Paris 5. Eliaou worked as a clinical psychologist for five years, drawing on his profession to develop a research project at the articulation of psychosocial aspects at stake in traditionalist religious communities and transgenerational effects of exile/migration.

Priya Basil is an author, and curator of the Humboldt Forum project Objects Talk Back. In her book Be My Guest/Gastfreundschaft (2019), she combines memoir, philosophy, food and politics in a reflection on hospitality in the broadest sense. Her most recent book Im Wir und Jetzt: Feministin Werden (2021) combines politics with the personal, as does her film essay on memory-culture and belonging, Locked In and Out (2020), which can be seen online. She is co-founder and board member of WIR MACHEN DAS, an NGO that works with refugees and migrants for a more inclusive society. Priya is also a member of the advisory board of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. She has conceptualized and curated projects for various institutions including the Goethe Institut and International Literature Festival Berlin. From 2021 to 2023 Priya was International Writer in Residence for Mindscapes, a project of the Wellcome Trust UK, devoted to transforming how we understand, talk about and treat mental health. As part of this Priya undertook a research journey which spanned six continents to learn about different understandings of well being and practices of healing. In 2024, Priya is Writer in Residence with Wellcome’s new Climate and Health project. She is working on a new book which draws on her research and travels.

Marie Laurentine Bayala is in charge of the culture program at the Opera Village funded by Christoph Schlingensief, the German film, theatre and opera director. She regularly organizes cultural events for communities near the Opera Village and beyond. Laurentine is also the curator of KIFIFE, the Kids Film Festival. She studied communication and journalism at the University of Ouagadougou and earned her master’s degree in documentary filmmaking from Gaston Berger University in Senegal. In 2016, Laurentine was selected as a Hubert Humphrey Fellow, part of the Fulbright scholarship program, which offers mid-career professionals the opportunity to study and receive work training in the United States. During that time, she enhanced her skills in filmmaking, film production, journalism, and entrepreneurship. In 2017, Laurentine Bayala was selected to participate in Berlinale Talents in Germany and Durban Talents in South Africa.

Dr. Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Sioux Dakota and Muscogee Creek) holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is the Executive Director of the Minnesota Museum of American Art. She serves on several boards in her community and in 2020 was appointed by Governor Walz to serve on the Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB) in downtown St. Paul. Previously, Kate served as Director of Native American Initiatives on the leadership team at the Minnesota Historical Society. In 2018 Kate, and her father Syd Beane, completed a documentary film, Ohiyesa: The Soul of an Indian, which shares the story of their grandfather, writer, reformer, and physician Charles A. Eastman. In 2019 she presented a Minneapolis TEDX talk titled “The Lasting Legacy of Place Names,” speaking to her family’s work restoring the Dakota name Bde Maka Ska at their ancestral village site in south Minneapolis (Bdeota). 

Born in 1975 in the Porto Lindo Indigenous Territory in Japorã, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, Sandra Benites is a Guarani activist, anthropologist, curator, and educator. She is known for her work defending Indigenous rights, particularly in territorial demarcation and Guarani education. Drawing from the knowledge of Guarani women (kunhangue arandu), her research challenges colonial knowledge systems and highlights the neglect of Indigenous women in South American academic discourse. She has curated exhibitions such as Dja Guata Porã: Rio de Janeiro Indígena (2017) at the Rio Art Museum and collaborated on education projects with institutions like the Maricá Municipal Education Secretariat. Her Portuguese-language publications appear in Descolonizando a museologia and Ações e saberes Guarani, Kaingang e Laklãnõ-Xokleng em foco, both from 2020.

Jayne Curnow is a Non-Executive Director and Social Scientist. She has 25 years of international experience in strategic governance, action research and development, partnerships, and stakeholder engagement in the public, not-for-profit and commercial sectors. Throughout her career she has maintained her association with academia through publications, conferences and post-graduate student supervision. She bridges disciplinary boundaries and applied knowledge to innovate with creative, pragmatic approaches that address real world challenges. Jayne is an ethical leader, trusted advisor, and is skilled at addressing diversity and inclusion particularly gender equity. She is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Australian National University. Fluent in Indonesian and Malay, she is now studying Spanish.

Bayarmaa Dariimaa is a Mongolian architect with over 20 years of experience, she focuses on local government decision-making processes and institutional reforms in the field of architecture and urban planning in her native city of Ulaanbaatar, spanning the post-socialist transition period.

She also teaches at the School of Architecture at Huree University and is working to engage local NGOs and community organizations in strategic planning for the restoration of Mongolia’s architectural heritage, identifying opportunities for the restoration and reuse of underused, inefficient, and dilapidated architectural heritage buildings, thereby improving the lives of local communities.

David Dibiah is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist whose work spans performance, graphic design, music, and education. A graduate in Graphic Design and a member of the Verein Berliner Künstler since 2010, Dibiah is a key figure in Berlin’s cultural scene. His notable work It Lies in Public Spaces at the Humboldt Forum critically explores colonial legacies through rap, prayer, and poetry. Currently, he is developing Berlin Reconference, a performance addressing 140 years of colonialism through storytelling, music, and philosophy. As an educator, Dibiah teaches art in Berlin’s Jugendkunstschulen and works as a guide since 2001 for the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, fostering deeper engagement with art and culture. His work challenges narratives and inspires future generations.

Rodrigo Duarte is a visual artist and independent curator whose work focuses on the investigation of contemporary visual narratives, particularly at the intersection of art, memory, and territory.

He holds a degree in Cinema and Documentary from the International Film Academy (AIC) and is the founder of ODARA Audiovisual.

Since 2016, he has been active in the art field, with a focus on image-based processes in photography and videography, as well as digital editing in short documentary and fiction films such as André Hullk: Art and Ancestrality (2024), Brasil Vermelho Amarelo (2022) by Júlia Aguirre, Novembros (2022) by Dheik Praia, Contando Histórias: CAMYLLA BRUNO (2020) by Henrique Michiles, and Ciências Sociais: Experiências e Reflexões (2018).

His artistic practice moves between photography, video, installation, and documentary methods, exploring social, political, and affective issues.

In 2024, he served as a jury member for the Marc Ferrez Photography Award, promoted by the National Arts Foundation (FUNARTE).

He participated in the exhibition NHE’Ē Se: Desire for Speech (2025) at Caixa Cultural São Paulo and is part of Technocosmologies of Water, a project by the Goethe-Institut in partnership with the Humboldt Forum, aimed at fostering cultural and artistic exchanges between Brazil and Germany. He also worked as an assistant curator for the project Indigenous Insurgencies: Art, Memory, and Resistance, curated by Sandra Benites and Marcelo Campos, produced by SESC/RJ to highlight the artistic practices of Indigenous artists from across Brazil.

In addition to his own artistic production, he engages in curatorial projects that aim to broaden access to art and strengthen networks of collective creation, with a focus on emerging artists and productions rooted in dialogic and insurgent contexts.

He also carries out educational and popular communication projects in partnership with collectives, associations, social movements, and third-sector organizations, in the fight to strengthen civil society and safeguard social rights in the Amazon.

His approach combines creation and cultural mediation, proposing artistic experiences as tools for dialogue and social transformation.

Osaisonor Godfrey Ekhator-Obogie is the Executive Secretary and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Benin Studies. He is a DAAD MuseumLab Fellow (2021), a Fellow of the French Institute for Research in Africa, Nigeria (IFRA-NIGERIA) and a member of the Lagos Studies Association (LSA). He is a freelance tour guide for visitors to the historical/heritage sites and monuments of the Ancient Benin Kingdom in and around Benin City. He has developed a flair for the promotion of the history, cultural tradition and language of Benin/Edo-speaking people. His area of specialisation is the cultural history of the Benin people/kingdom. His research interests are Ethnicity and Nationalism, Migration and Citizenship, Cultural History in general and Benin Studies in particular. Ekhator-Obogie graduated from Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo with a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts and Education (History). He holds an M.A. in History from the Ibadan School of History in Nigeria’s premier University of Ibadan. In addition, Ekhator-Obogie is a registered member of the Nigeria Teachers Registration Council; he has authored articles/papers in local and international journals including the popular ‘Benin RedBook’. He has also attended and read papers at academic conferences and workshops. He is one of the co-curators of the Exhibition, ‘Benin, A Looted History’ with Prof. Barbara Plankensteiner at the MARKK Hamburg.

Henrique Entratice is a cultural worker and researcher with experience in both academic research and executive roles in museums, bridging critical inquiry and institutional practice. He is a PhD candidate in Anthropology, with a background in Law and a master’s in Management. In Brazil, he served as Assistant Director at the São Paulo City Museums and the Pavilion of Brazilian Cultures in São Paulo. In Portugal, he worked as a communication assistant at the Alkantara Festival for performing arts and dance. His research focuses on heritage processes, cultural rights, and the displacement of Indigenous material culture. He combines institutional experience with collaborative work involving museum collections and Indigenous communities. Since 2021, he has been a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History at Nova University of Lisbon in Portugal and the Anthropological Museum at UFG in Brazil. He is currently based in Berlin.

Andrei Fernández (1983) is an independent curator and researcher from northern Argentina. Her projects explore intersections between ethnographic literature, social economy, and contemporary art, in collaboration with artists, activists, and researchers from different cultures. Since 2017, she has been working closely with weavers from Wichí communities in the Gran Chaco region. As a result of this collaboration, the Silät collective emerged, questioning colonialist mandates and categories. She has curated group and solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in Argentina, Paraguay, Guatemala, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and the United Kingdom. She is currently supporting the creation of a union of weavers, artists and activists in northern Argentina through the Textiles Semillas project. The Union Textiles Semillas brings together almost 300 women organised into 13 groups and is being supported by the 99 Questions Programme of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.

Dr. Halim Gençoğlu is a Turkish-South African historian and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand. With a multidisciplinary background in history, religious studies, and musicology, his research focuses on the Ottoman Empire, colonialism, African history, and Muslim communities in South Africa. Fluent in five languages and experienced in archival work, he has contributed significantly to understanding Ottoman-South African relations. His academic work earned him South African permanent residency under the exceptional skills category.

My name is Jaanawaat. My English name is John Gladstone. I am of the Yagulaanaas raven clan. I grew in Skidegate, Haida Gwaii in an artistic household. My father, a multi medium Haida master artist. And my late mother, a master seamstress, modern Haida clothing designer and button blanket maker. She worked closely with my father who would create designs to be integrated in her clothing she would craft. Both of their work can be found throughout the population of the Haida Nation and beyond. Being immersed in my parents art throughout my life, I had the privilege to learn not only the beauty and story telling of Haida art. But its history through the influences of my fathers design work. This has given me much knowledge of both ancestral, and modern masters. One of my first jobs out of high school was at our beautiful Saalhinda Naay/Haida Gwaii Museum. Here I would continue my education of the art form and the culture that laid its foundation. I had the honor of being elected by the
people of Skidegate to the Band council in March of 2023. From there I was appointed to the Haida Gwaii Museum Society Board of Directors. I am here now attending the GCA as the President of the Haida Gwaii Museum Society Board. I very much look forward to this assembly and what it can bring. Haawa for having me!

Anna Sara Dias (she/her) is a Latin American interdisciplinary researcher from Brazil based in Berlin. She is trained as a historian (Rio de Janeiro) and as a social cultural anthropologist (Berlin). Currently, she is developing a PhD research project on museum education as decolonial practice. Recently, Anna Sara Dias completed her research on collaborative work between the Humboldt Forum and the Global Cultural Assembly (2022-2024). Her interests include community museums, decolonial pedagogies, migration, and critical approaches to postcolonial museum practices. During GCA25, she is particularly interested in collective decision-making and how GCA can effectively help shape a new museum grammar that responds to 21st-century social demands, respects the societies of origin of cultural belongings, and actively engages with Berlin’s local communities in their everyday challenges.

Peter Herbert OBE is a British barrister and political activist, described as one of Britain’s only non-white judges. He served as an independent member and vice-chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority from 2000 to 2008, held part-time roles as a recorder in the crown court and as a judge in immigration and employment tribunals, and chaired the Society of Black Lawyers. In 2010, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire. He retired from the judiciary in 2020 and moved to Kenya.

Whiti Hereaka is a novelist and playwright of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Tuhourangi, Ngāti Tumatawera, Tainui and Pākehā descent, based in Wellington. She teaches Creative Writing at Massey University and is currently working towards her PhD. She is the author of four novels: The Graphologist’s Apprentice, Bugs, Legacy and Kurangaituku. Legacy won the New Zealand Children’s and Young Adult Book Award for YA fiction in 2019 and Kurangaituku was awarded the 2022 Jann Medlicott Acorn Award for fiction in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and was long listed for the Dublin Literary Award, 2023. Her latest book, You Are Here, is a collaboration with artist Peata Larkin as part of the Kōrero series from Massey University Press.

Lisa Hilli is a contemporary artist, creative scholar, and curator who carries the matrilineal legacy of the Makuratagete clan of the Tolai people in Papua New Guinea. Based in Naarm (Melbourne), her multidisciplinary work explores intersections of gender, race, body politics, and colonial histories. Through deeply personal and research-driven projects, she examines cultural memory and visual representation. Bridging art, curation, and activism, Hilli invites audiences to question dominant historical narratives through Indigenous storytelling.

Francisco Huichaqueo (Mapuche) studied documentary filmmaking at the Escuela de Cine de Chile and teaches animation and experimental video at the Universidad de Chile. As a filmmaker, video artist, and painter, his work bridges Mapuche knowledge, spirituality, and contemporary art forms like video art, installation, and performance.
Using the camera as both a recording and expressive tool, Huichaqueo creates immersive experiences where moving images evoke states of trance, rooted in oral traditions and sacred practices. His art explores Mapuche ceremonial practices, memory as a living force, and visions of the future, offering audiences a space to engage with indigenous worldviews.
Motivated by the misrepresentation of indigenous cultures in institutional contexts, Huichaqueo rethinks cultural asymmetries and seeks to revitalize Mapuche memory through innovative multimedia.

Gwyneira Isaac is curator of North American Ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History. Her research explores Indigenous knowledge systems, cultural intersections, and the diversity of epistemologies. Through fieldwork at a tribal museum in Zuni, New Mexico, she examined how Zuni communities navigate between Indigenous and Euro-American approaches to knowledge transmission. At the Smithsonian, she has contributed to the Recovering Voices initiative, developing collaborative methods to support interdisciplinary research on endangered languages, including public programming such as the 2014 AAA session on museums and language revitalization. In 2012, she launched a working group on Native American health and culture, fostering exchange between researchers and communities. The project’s next phase will focus on plant- and food-related collections to support culturally informed health initiatives.

Dr. Maria Cristina Juan is a scholar and curator specializing in transnational Philippine cultural studies, with a focus on digital and material repatriation. As head of Philippine Studies at SOAS, she leads projects reuniting displaced heritage with communities, including two AHRC-funded initiatives: one on decolonizing Southeast Asian sound archives (BBC broadcasts), and another on digitally reconstructing the Lost Library of San Pablo (1762 British invasion). She directs Mapping Philippine Material Culture (philippinestudies.uk/mapping), a global visual inventory of Philippine heritage overseas. Her curatorial work includes BUGKÓS, a repatriation-focused exhibit shaped by community co-curation. Dr. Juan has authored white papers on heritage restitution and edited five volumes on Philippine Studies. Her latest, The 1762 British Invasion of Spanish-Ruled Philippines (2024), contextualizes the San Pablo project. She has an MA in Museum, Heritage and Material Culture Studies from SOAS, University of London and a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

I serve as the Head of Intergenerational Trauma and Recovery of the Global Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, and as a descendant of the Ovaherero Genocide survivors, my work focuses on the transformation and healing of the intergenerational trauma caused by colonialism. I conduct free workshops in rural areas on generational trauma, parenting skills, addictions, goal setting, and various mental health issues. The aim is to impact society at the roots and provide understanding on why we react to certain situations the way we do and to create a safe space for healing, thus breaking the stigma on mental health. I also do radio interviews pertaining to understanding mental health challenges caused by trauma, for example rape, self-harm, workplace or religious trauma, and the effects of divorce, to mention but a few. My focus areas include group sessions, online conversations, seminars and presentations, and one-on-one sessions. I co-researched a systematic review: “Duty-related Stressors, Adjustment, and the Role of Coping Processes in First Responders: A Systematic Review” in the Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy Journal.

Born in the Indigenous community of Cherán, Mexicokate, to a German mother and a Purépecha father. She holds a degree in sociocultural anthropology from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, a master’s in interdisciplinary Latin American studies from the Free University of Berlin, and a specialization in cultural policy and cultural management from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Professionally, she has worked as a research assistant at El Colegio de México and at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Since 2023, she has been a board member of the sociocultural association Calaca e.V. in Berlin, Germany. Her research interests include power relations within the Movement for the Defense of the Forest and Territory in Cherán (2011), Mexico’s agrarian history, and institutional approaches to environmental problems.

My name is Alima Khusravova. I was born in 1989 in the mountainous Rushan district of GBAO, Tajikistan. After finishing school in Vamar village, I moved to the capital Dushanbe and earned a BA in Journalism from the Russian-Tajik Slavonic University. In 2014, I launched my first business — renting traditional Pamiri wedding dresses in Khorog. In 2015, I co-founded the brand Simoi Kuhiston to preserve and promote Pamiri cultural heritage through handicrafts. In 2023, I earned a Master’s degree in English from Khorog State University and opened my first shop in the capital city, Dushanbe. My work is inspired by the ancient traditions of my homeland, where every ornament tells a story. I believe that culture lives through people and traditions and heritage are preserved through shared experiences.

Hans-Werner Klohe is an art historian, art mediator and cultural educator. He studied art history in a global context with a focus on South Asia and East Asia at Freie Universität Berlin. He obtained his Ph.D. in Central Asian Studies with a focus on Tibetan Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His research focuses on Buddhist art of India, Tibet and the Himalayas.

Karufe Kotile is from the comunity of Katagu in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, a neighbouring village of Napamogona. Karufe has been cooperating with Regina Knapp in her researches on language documentation and was part of the organising team of the film „A Slice of Life“. She is married, has three children and lives as subsitence farmer.

Yana Lucila Lema, Ecuador, is a writer by profession. She is the author and compiler of the bilingual poetry anthologies Hatun Taki, Poems to Mother Earth and the Ancestors (2013); Chawpi Pachapi Arawikuna, Our Own Word (2015); Ñawpa Pachamanta Purik Rimaykuna, Ancient Wandering Words (2016). She organized five editions of the Abya Yala Literatures Festival “The Corn Festival” (2012–2016) and the first Micro Book and Orality Fair Bibliopawkar, Peguche (2017). She received the National Darío Guevara Mayorga Award for Children’s Literature (2016) and the Jorge Carrera Andrade National Poetry Prize (2021), both awarded by the Municipality of Quito. She has published her personal bilingual poetry books Tamyawan Shamukupani, Tujaal Ediciones (Guatemala, 2018) and Kanpa Shimita Yarkachini, Kintirikra Editorial (Otavalo, 2021). Several of her poems have been translated into English, Italian, French, and Korean, and have appeared in various Abya Yala journals. She is a cultural promoter and has ventured into contemporary art. She is a guest lecturer at the Graduate School of the University of the Arts of Ecuador, and currently coordinates the Biblioraloteca Muyu project in Peguche.

Zubeni Lotha is a photographer from Nagaland. Her work is centred around the Naga and its relationship with its colonial history and the nationalist movement. She is the co-founder of (PINE) Peace Initiative in Northeast, an organisation for promoting a culture of peace in the Northeastern region of India at the community level and promoting cross border relations. The region with its long history of conflict rooted in years of tension between the military and nationalist groups have enabled the media to focus on narratives that does not tell the whole story. The minority groups fight for their rights is seen as a violent act. In the midst of this PINE through its media lab is trying to give back the right to the people to tell their story in their own words.  Currently she has received a grant to work on archiving old photographs of the Nagas to create small and local histories of the Naga people.

Prince Kamaazengi Marenga I is a Namibian poet and multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the history and present of the Herero people. Born in 1982, known in OvaHerero culture as “the year of the drought” (ombura yotungava), his art addresses colonial legacies and community resilience. In 2019, he published P.O.E.M.S – Pieces Of Enlightenment Moulding Society, inspired by thinkers like Frantz Fanon, as a poetic form of African psychotherapy. His practice spans poetry, film, theatre, and interdisciplinary projects, including Ovizire-Somgu, From Where Do We Speak?, which promotes critical dialogue on historical narratives. He has performed internationally at venues like Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, presenting works such as Voices – Inside The Haunted House. Since 2015, he has collaborated with German institutions from Namibia, led workshops with the University of Hamburg, and participated in the University of Berlin’s 2017 exhibition Literature as Loot. In 2023, he moved to Germany, continuing to amplify African voices through art and literature.

Yuko Matsuyama is a voice and movement artist. She was introduced to dance at the age of two by her mother and Nihon Buyoh (Japanese classical dance) master, Fujima Kankyohmi. She later joined the renowned all-female musical and revue company Takarazuka Revue in Japan, performing in original productions as well as well-known musicals such as Me & My Girl, Tommy Tune’s Grand Hotel, and Elisabeth by Michael Kunze. Her international performances included overseas tours to London at the Coliseum Theatre, Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, and Berlin at the Friedrichstadtpalast. Since 2010, she has been a resident artist at Haus Schwarzenberg in Berlin-Mitte. In 2017, she earned her MA in Choreography from the Inter-University Center for Dance Berlin, a joint program of HfS Ernst Busch and UdK Berlin. Viewing live performance as an experimental platform for intercultural dialogue, Yuko explores the interface between dance and music, creating interdisciplinary works where voice and movement intersect as equal modes of expression.

Silvina Der Meguerditchian is an artist born in Buenos Aires and based in Berlin since 1988. Her interdisciplinary work blends textile, performative, and audiovisual media, focusing on memory, migration, and cultural heritage. Since 2010, she has directed Houshamadyan, a project reconstructing Ottoman Armenian life. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale (Armenity, Golden Lion), DEPO Istanbul, n.b.k. and Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, ARCO Madrid, Larnaca Biennale, Galerie Nord, Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien, and Frieze London with Kalfayan Galleries. Her film Thresholds won awards in Toronto and New York, and her monograph Fruitful Threads was published in 2021. She has received grants from the Berlin Senate, Tarabya Cultural Academy, and the Gulbenkian Foundation.

Arazu Hassan Mohammed, born in Iran in 1984 and originally from Sulaymaniyah, is a cultural project manager, environmentalist, and advocate for Kurdish art and women’s empowerment. Based in Kurdistan, she founded Kurdistan Outdoor, the region’s first ecotourism agency, promoting sustainable tourism that connects people to nature and Kurdish culture. Her work combines hiking, heritage, and community development, especially with rural women. A visible female leader in a male-dominated field, she inspires women to reclaim public space and leadership. As a calligrapher and cultural ambassador, she promotes Kurdish art locally and internationally. Her new NGO Eco Kurdistan aims to foster environmental awareness, eco-business, and artistic sustainability. Rooted in deep love for her homeland, her mission is to revive and evolve Kurdish identity through creativity, nature, and collective resilience.

Marie Nadège Tsogo is a Junior Fellow at BIGSAS (Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies). After completing her master’s degree focused on cinema and colonization, she joined BIGSAS to pursue a PhD on German colonial cinema in Cameroon. A historian with a passion for cinema, she is the author of several scholarly articles addressing issues of representation, colonial cinema, and cinematographic aesthetics. Marie Nadège Tsogo is also an amateur documentary filmmaker and producer. Through her films, she explores themes of heritage, identity, and memory, offering a personal and committed perspective on these historical and cultural issues.

Marianne Ballé Moudoumbou, conference interpreter, studied Applied Linguistics at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. She currently teaches in collaboration with curators from the Ethnological Museum Berlin community-based research approaches at the Berlin University of the Arts (Atlas of Absence) and at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences (Ubuntu. In Potsdam, she heads the Brandenburg sub-project VIW-Vitamin P. She is spokesperson for the organization Pan-African Women’s Empowerment & Liberation (PAWLO)-Masoso e.V., co-founder of the Central Council of the African Community in Germany e.V., and a member of the Representative Council of the Federal Conference of Migrant Women’s Organizations (BKMO). Here she is committed to empowerment, official recognition of the genocides and crimes committed during the “Maafa”, the great disaster, for appropriate restitution and reparations (keyword DDPA 2001), as well as a reorganization of international relations. She writes, produces and presents in public and private media, radio programs and publications.

Patrick Mudekereza is a writer and cultural practitioner, born in 1983 in Lubumbashi. While studying industrial chemistry at the Lubumbashi Polytechnic, he initiated various artistic projects, including collaborations with the Vicanos Club. He also holds a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Patrick has worked as administrator and curator for visual arts at the French Cultural Centre in Lubumbashi, as editor of the cultural magazine Nzenze, and as a co-founder of Rencontres Picha, the Lubumbashi Biennale. From 2009 to 2014, he served on the steering committee of the Arterial Network, and from 2014 to 2017, he was a member of the International Biennial Association. In 2015, he received the Congolese National Prize for Arts, Literature and Science. He is currently the director of the Waza Art Centre in Lubumbashi.

Assumpta Mugiraneza is a French-Rwandan academic with degrees in education, social psychology and political science. Since 1994, her research has focused on genocides and extreme violence, in particular through intensive discourse analyses. Since 2010, she has been co-founder and director of the IRIBA Centre for Multimedia Heritage, an independent archive on the history of Rwanda based in Kigali, which is also a socio-cultural centre that supports young people, organises events and develops socio-educational programmes. This centre for audiovisual archives from Rwanda works at the interface between academic research and practice. It comprises materials from over a century and is freely accessible. She is the author and co-author of a number of articles on hate speech, propaganda, the transmission of history and the role of archives in state building and the deconstruction of hate ideologies.

Dr Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu studied at the University of the Witwatersrand and earned a PhD in Archaeology from Newcastle University, UK. Since 2013, he has been conducting research at the University of Pretoria, supported through funding and postgraduate supervision. His work focuses on Southern African rock art, heritage management, and the political history of archaeology. He is finalising two books—one on rock art, the other on decolonising heritage management in South Africa—and contributes to the international SORAT project on rock art tourism in South Africa and Namibia. Dr Ndlovu believes that understanding our human roots helps us shape a more harmonious future. His research not only expands archaeological knowledge but also brings in African perspectives. Inspired by his late father, he aims to become the first African of South African descent to achieve full professorship in his field. His advice to young scholars is to stay focused, work hard, and love what they do. Outside academia, he enjoys football, other sports, and travelling.

Phil Omodamwen is a 6th generation Benin bronze caster in Nigeria. Born in 1971 into the Omodamwen”s family which belongs to the guild. My family came into the bronze guild in 1504 AD and we proudly keep alive over 500 years heritage of bronze casting and brought a lot of innovation to the bronze industry in Benin. The father to son syndrome goes from one generation to another.

I am a creative fellow of the Making of the Museum Project at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. I have had so many exhibitions locally and internationally, and my works are on display in various museums in Europe and America. I am also an advocate for the reparations and restitution of the Benin bronzes that were forcefully taken away by the British in 1897.

Born and raised in Argentina, in a Peruvian-German family, she has been living in Berlin since 2002.

She completed a degree in Fine Arts at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (Argentina). Following her graduation, she worked as an art teacher and lecturer at various cultural institutions as well as at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.

After relocating to Germany, she pursued further studies in Art History and Latin American Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. During this time, she contributed to several exhibition projects, including Ungleichzeitigkeiten der Moderne at the Ethnological Museum Berlin and ¡Al Pueblo Argentino 2010! at the Ibero-American Institute Berlin.

Since 2015, she has been working independently in the field of art education. In addition, since 2022, she has been a freelance educator in the Education and Outreach department of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin.

Amparo (“Ampis”) Leyman Pino is a Fulbright Specialist and a learning expert specializing in leadership, education, and inclusion. After a number of years in the education field she co-founded a school in Mexico City using the hippest educational philosophies to create an inclusive model for all children. In 2007 she moved to California and strategically applied her pedagogical experience in the educational field creating high impact in schools, community colleges, universities, museums, and other cultural institutions. There she developed content and programs and moved into institutional leadership and administration roles managing staff and overseeing budgets. Ampis is an active alumnus of the prestigious Noyce Leadership Institute program where she has honed her leadership style and engaged with leaders from around the world. Early this year she became the Director of Interpretive Programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. She enjoys traveling, dancing, music, and is an amateur standup comedian.

Lori Lea Pourier (Oglala Lakota) is a leader, advocate, and champion for Indigenous artists and culture bearers. For over 27 years, she has advanced Indigenous arts, entrepreneurship, and cultural sovereignty. As longtime President & CEO and now Senior Fellow of First Peoples Fund, she helped build it into a nationally recognized organization supporting Native artists through mentorship, funding, and community development. She has shaped national policies and partnerships that center Indigenous voices and traditions. In 2024, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her honors include the 2023 Guardians of Culture and Lifeways Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2022 Sidney Yates Advocacy Award, and being named a Kennedy Center Next 50 Trailblazer. Earlier awards include the 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellowship and the 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation Prize. Now as Founder and Senior Fellow, she leads a storytelling initiative documenting the lives of 115 Culture Bearers honored by First Peoples Fund. Through films, publications, and a podcast, she preserves Indigenous wisdom and cultural continuity across Turtle Island, continuing to amplify Native voices and place-based leadership through the arts.

Tara Devi Rai is a PhD candidate from Nepal at Freie Universität Berlin. Rai has a Master’s degree in South Asian studies from Pondicherry University, India. She was a lecturer in International Relations at National Law College, Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a journalist for Nepal Republic Media associated with the International Herald Tribune.

She is one of the founding members of the Human Rights Film Center in Kathmandu, and served as vice-president until 2020. Born into an Indigenous family, she has been actively engaged in Indigenous Peoples rights and human rights advocacy. Rai is the recipient of academic grants from the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence 2019, Young Journalists fellowship in South Asia 2012, and South Asia Foundation Madanjeet Singh Scholarship 2012.

Dr. Rohit Ranjitkar is an architect and preservation consultant, serving as Nepal Program Director of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust (KVPT). He earned his PhD in historic preservation from the Byelorussian State Polytechnic Academy in 1997. He has worked with KVPT since its founding in 1991, overseeing restoration projects, fundraising, training craftsmen, and working with officials and communities. He also designs adaptive reuse projects that convert old houses into luxury spaces in traditional styles. He has consulted for UNESCO and German Technical Cooperation and authored The Heritage Homeowner’s Manual for the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage Sites, along with many technical publications. He regularly teaches, speaks at seminars, and is a visiting professor at Purbanchal University. Since 2007, he has led restoration efforts at Patan Darbar Square, which intensified after the 2015 earthquake. His recent book Monuments of the Kathmandu Valley, Before and After the 2015 Earthquake documents this rebuilding process.

Walmeri Ribeiro is an artist-researcher, curator, director of the Sensitive Territories Platform, and associate professor in the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at Federal Fluminense University (Brazil). Interested in research that focuses on dialogues between the arts and environmental issues, she searches for ethical-political and participatory forms of making art in collaboration with other artists, scientists, and especially with traditional communities (fishing, Indigenous, and quilombolas). A recipient of a FAPERJ Research Fellowship, her artistic work is developed in the fields of performance studies, moving images, visual arts, and media art. She is also a professor in the Graduate Program in Contemporary Arts at Federal Fluminense University, where she coordinates the Laboratory Research of Performance, Media Arts and Environmental Issues – BrisaLAB (CNPQ).

Dr Sophia Olivia Sanan holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cape Town (2024) and a master’s from the Universities of Freiburg, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Cape Town (2014). Her doctoral work focused on identity, loss, and heritage through the African art collection at the Iziko South African National Gallery. She is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the AVReQ Centre, Stellenbosch University, researching the intersections of art, power, and social life in global inequality. She has published on cultural policy in Africa, museology in the Global South, race, and visual culture. Sophia has taught and designed courses in visual culture, globalization, and arts education. Over 14 years, she has worked on cultural policy, training, and research projects across Africa with organizations such as UNESCO, HIVOS, Arterial Network, and SACO. Since 2020, she has collaborated with museums and heritage projects in Africa, South America, and South Asia to co-create publications, research, mobile schools, and public dialogues from majority world perspectives.

Marta Oliveira Sonius holds a Master’s Degree in History of Art and in Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Ancient Americas from the Freie Universität Berlin. Currently, she works as a freelance museum educator at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin and as a research assistant at the Catholic University Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Alex Stolze is a Jewish-German violinist, composer, and producer known for fusing modern classical music with electronic elements. Using a custom five-string electro-acoustic violin, he creates soundscapes that combine Middle Eastern scales, polyrhythms, and odd time signatures into danceable grooves. He has collaborated with Bodi Bill, Dictaphone, and Unmap, and founded Nonostar Records, releasing music by Anne Müller, Ben Osborn, Qrauer, and Field Kit. In October 2024, he released his third album, Raash ve Ruach (Noise and Wind), with Neue Meister, exploring classical-electronic hybrids and themes of transformation. He develops programs for Dagesh – Jewish Art in Context and runs DELTAHAUS, a cultural center in Brandenburg hosting global artists for workshops, festivals, and retreats.

Imani Tafari-Ama spent the 2023–24 academic year as a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence (SIR) in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. This was her second SIR award, having previously served in the Department of Anthropology at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts during the 2017–18 academic year. From 2018 to 2023, Dr Tafari-Ama was a Research Fellow at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies. She curated the exhibition Rum, Sweat and Tears (RST) at the Flensburg Maritime Museum in Germany (2016–17) and has published several articles and books, including Blood, Bullets and Bodies: Sexual Politics Below Jamaica’s Poverty Line, Lead in the Veins (poetry), and the award-winning novel Up for Air: This Half has never been Told!

Born in Lima, Peru, in 1971, he studied Linguistics and Literature at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and Art History at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. A Rockefeller Foundation fellow, he researched the internal armed conflict and wrote the script for the graphic novel Rupay, translated into French, Portuguese, English, and German. He has published several books and participated in Amazonian art exhibitions such as El Milagro verde (with Christian Bendayán) and Usko Ayar: The School of Visions. He curated exhibitions on Peruvian urban popular art like A mí qué chicha, Neón Chicha, Chicha Land (Berlin), and El pueblo es una nostalgia que un día vencerá, featuring vernacular photographer Nicolás Torres. His curatorial projects also include comic and drawing exhibitions such as Bumm! and La niña no mirada (with Jorge Villacorta), dedicated to feminist art pioneer Marisa Godínez. In 2022, he curated Yuyay Lima, a show uniting Amazonian, Andean, urban, and Indigenous artists, and collaborated again in 2024 with Olinda Silvano for Koshi Kené, created with 18 Shipibo artists. He is also a music researcher, DJ, and writer. His 2022 book Yawar chicha is the most comprehensive study of Peruvian cumbia, followed in 2024 by Papá huayco, a novel on the genre’s icon Chacalón.

Tarisi Vunidilo, born in Suva, Fiji, with family roots in Kadavu, is an Indigenous Fijian archaeologist, curator, and educator. She studied Pacific Geography and Sociology at the University of the South Pacific, followed by a postgraduate diploma in archaeology from the Australian National University. She later earned a master’s in anthropology from the University of Waikato and a PhD in Pacific Studies from the University of Auckland, focusing on Fijian cultural rights and museum repatriation. Formerly Head of Archaeology at the Fiji Museum, she has excavated sites across the islands and served as Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Museums Association. Now assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, she researches Fijian artefacts at the Bishop Museum and encourages Indigenous students to engage with their cultural collections. In 2016, she co-curated The Veiqia Project, highlighting Fijian women’s tattoo traditions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she launched Talanoa with Dr T, a platform connecting Fijian children with their heritage. She is recognised as a leading expert on Fijian archaeology, pottery, and language.

Wang Yanan is a dancer and choreographer. She graduated from Beijing Dance Academy in classical dance and worked in the ensemble of National Oriental Sing and Dance Company in Beijing. Since 1999, she worked for 10 years at Living Dance Studio – China’s first independent critical dance theater – and participated in productions such as “Report on Giving Birth”, “Report on Body” and “Report on 37,8°”, with which she participated in festivals all over the world and won the ZKB Award at the Festival Zürcher Theater Spektakel. She founded Le Se Dance Studio in 2004, and received support from the Doen Foundation and the China-A-Moves project for young choreographers from China and Europe. In 2010 and 2011, she and Tian Gebing traveled to Antwerp and Brussels for study residencies on invitation of the Europalia Festival, developing productions such as “Missreading”. Since 2001 she has been part of Paper Tiger Theater Studio as a performer, choreographer and manager.

Anthony Alan Shelton is a professor of Art History, Visual Art and Theory at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He has held curatorial positions at the British Museum, Horniman Museum and Royal Pavilion, Brighton and between 2004-2021 was director of the UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver. His extensive writings and curatorial practices on critical and collaborative museology and collection history have contributed to the development of post-colonial models of museum praxis and curation.