Team und Beitragende

Team

Project Director:

Iris Rajanayagam is a historian (MA Modern / Contemporary History, University of Cologne / Humboldt University Berlin / University of Dar es Salaam). She works on postcolonial theories, her focus particularly lying on colonial continuities in German and European migration, refugee and asylum policies, intersectionality as well as on theories and practice of antiracism and antidiscrimination. She is co-founder of the radio show Talking Feminisms on Reboot.fm and was active in The Caravan for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants for many years.  From 2013 to 2016 she was part of the editing team of the magazine „Leben nach Migration“ (Eng.: „Life after Migration“) of the Migrationsrat Berlin. In addition to this she is researcher and lecturer at the Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin in the field „Racism and Migration“ and works as a director of xart splitta.

 

Project Assistance:

Fallon Tiffany Cabral is a political scientist (Diplom Politikwissenschaft, Geographie und Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Philipps-Universität Marburg/ Universidad de Granada) and is doing her doctorate on the interface of family and racism research (Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg/Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin). She works as a lecturer and consultant specialized in racism, empowerment, gender and postcolonial theory. Her target groups include students, pupils, social workers, teachers and educators. At xart splitta she works in the program team of the symposium „New perspectives on… Memory(ies)/Narratives/Future“.

Zara Zandieh works as an independent filmmaker and cinematographer, teaches filmmaking and gives workshops from a postcolonial, queer-feminist perspectives. Her films have been screened at international film festivals. Currently she works with Iris Rajanayagam at xart splitta. Zara graduated as a master student of Art & Media from the University of the Arts Berlin, studied cinematography at the film school filmArche and worked at LesMigraS in the empowerment program for LGBT*I*Q. She was co-organizer and programmer of the film festival SECOND TAKE – Gender and Society in Cinema in Kabul in 2008.

---

Contributors:

Mahdis Azarmandi graduated from the National Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in Aoteroa, New Zealand. She holds a master’s degree in Peace, Conflict and Development from the UNESCO Chair in Philosophy for Peace of the University of Jaume I and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Jewish Studies and English. Her research interests are in the fields of racialisation and anti-racism, feminism, critical whiteness studies and politics of remembrance as well as colonization and decolonization. Azarmandi was one of the organizers of the Decolonize the City! Conference in Berlin in 2012.

Macarena Gómez-Barris is a cultural critic and author. She is founder and Director of the Global South Center, a hub for critical inquiry, aesthetic praxis, and experimental forms of social living. She is currently Chairperson of the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies in Brooklyn, New York. Macarena works on cultural memory, race, queer and decolonial theory, and rethinking the anthropocene. She is author of the recently published „The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives“, a book that theorizes social life through five extractive scenes of ruinous capitalism upon Indigenous territories (Duke University Press, 2017). She is also author of „Beyond the Pink Tide: Art and Politics in the Américas“ (UC Press, 2018, forthcoming), „Where Memory Dwells: Culture and State Violence in Chile“ (UC Press, 2009), and co-editor with Herman Gray of „Towards a Sociology of a Trace“ (University of Minnesota Press, 2010). Macarena is author of numerous essays in art catalogues, including work on Laura Aguilar, Julie Mehretu, Cecilia Vicuña, and Carolina Caycedo, as well as peer reviewed journals. Macarena was a Fulbright fellow in 2014-2015 at Sociology and Gender Department in FLACSO Ecuador, Quito.

Manuela Bauche reconstructs history. She has a doctorate degree in history, researches and has published extensively on German colonialism. She is the author of Medizin und Herrschaft. Malariabekämpfung in Kamerun, Ostafrika und Ostfriesland (1890–1919). As a policy advisor for political education, she has coordinated numerous projects focusing on colonial history. Finally, as an activist, she has been committed to initiatives which promote an adequate commemoration of German colonialism, among others www.kolonialismusimkasten.de. She is currently a researcher on postcolonial expeditions at the Museum of National History Berlin.

Natalie Bayer has been director of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum, Berlin, since 2018. Before that she was a research assistant for migration, new methods and format at the Munich City Museum. She is a member of “kritnet – Netzwerk für kritische Migrations- und Grenzregimeforschung”, advisory board member and consultant for cultural projects. Latest publication: Bayer, Natalie/Kazeem-Kaminski, Belinda/Sternfeld, Nora (Ed.) (2017): “Curating as an anti-racist practice”. Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter. Natalie Bayer will soon be submitting her dissertation “Migration on Display. An anthropological study on the cultural-political discourse on migration in museums” at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Her research and work focuses on the city, racism, politics of history and the history of migration.

Clementine Ewokolo Burnley is a writer, mother and community worker. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in Versal Journal, The Feminist Wire, Parabola Magazine, and elsewhere. She has been a finalist in the Bristol Short Story Prize Competition 2017, the Miles Morland Scholarship Award and received an Honourable Mention in the Berlin Writing Prize Competition. You can find her on Facebook or on Twitter at @decolonialheart.

Nikita Dhawan, M.A. M.A. (Mumbai), Dr. phil. (Bochum), has been professor of political theory with thematic accentuation in the field of women’s and gender studies at the University of Innsbruck since 2014. Until 2016 she was director of the Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies at the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main. Her research focuses on transnational feminism, global justice, human rights, democracy and decolonization.

Shanice Dover is a journalism graduate, marketing professional and Social Media Editor for gal-dem – an online and print magazine and creative collective, comprised of over 70 women and non-binary people of colour which launched in September 2015.

Athena Farrokhzad lives and works in Stockholm. She is a poet, literary critic, translator, playwright and teaches creative writing. After several years of cooperation in poetry projects and international cooperation, she published her first volume of poetry, “Vitsvit”, at Albert Bonniers Verlag in 2013. The book is about revolution, war, migration and racism and how these experiences determine the lives of different family members. “Vitsvit” has been translated into several languages and also made into a play. In the same year her first play, Päron, was premiered at Ung Scen/Öst.

Diane Izabiliza studies socio-cultural studies at the European University Viadrina, in Frankfurt/Oder. She is a graduate of the Bachelor’s programme Social Work at the ASH Berlin and a trained educator. Her main areas of study include gender, racism research, postcolonial theories, intersectionality research and critical migration research. She works as a student assistant in the research project “Passport Control! Life without papers in the mind and the present”. Prior to this, she worked on the research project „Erinnerungsorte. Forgotten and interwoven stories“. From 2011 to 2016 she was a founding member of the „Rwanda Connection“ youth network.

Olga Gerstenberger is a research assistant in the project “Passport Control! Living without papers in the past and present” and lecturer at Alice Salomon University. Previously she was coordinator of the project „Erinnerungsorte. Forgotten and interwoven stories“. She studied political science at the University of Bielefeld and holds a Master in “Ideology and Discourse Analysis” (University of Essex) funded by the DAAD. After completing her studies, she taught racism-critical migration research/historical-political education at the Free University of Berlin and the Alice Salomon University and was active in various film and educational projects, especially at the Initiative with WINGS and ROOTS.

Ayşe Güleç is a research activist and engaged as cultural worker in self-organized initiatives in the areas of migration, post-colonialism, anti-racism and art, e.g. in the initiative “6th April and the tribunal “Dissolving the NSU Complex”. Güleç worked as Community Liaison in the Artistic director office of documenta 14 in Kassel. She studied social pedagogy at the University of Kassel and began working in the cultural centre Schlachthof in the field of migration and (inter-)cultural education from 1998. She developed the documenta 12 advisory board as a result of which she was spokesperson. She also became a member of the Maybe Education Group of dOCUMENTA (13), where she trained some of the art educators.

Noa K. Ha is a qualified landscape gardener and studied landscape planning. After completing her doctorate in architecture at the TU Berlin, she went to the Center for Metropolitan Studies as a post-doc. She is a board member of the Migration Council Berlin-Brandenburg e.V., is involved in the Asian-German network korientation e.V. and in the Critical Ethnic Studies Association (CESA). Ha works and researches at the interfaces between post-colonialism, racism, feminism, migration and the city. She was one of the organizers of the Decolonize the City! conference in Berlin in 2012.

Rajkamal Kahlon. In the work of American artist, Rajkamal Kahlon, we witness an autopsy,
a dissection of the visual legacies of empire. The body – injured and transformed – is a reoccurring motif throughout Kahlon’s work. Subject to political and intimate forms of violence, the body also becomes a space for transformation and resistance. Her work remakes the boundaries of political experience into an emotional arena, ranging between anger, grief, revenge and humor.

Emily Ngubia Kessé has taught and conducted research at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and has worked as part of the Black Literature and Media Archive EOTO. As a doctor of neuroscience with a socio-political focus, Emily Ngubia works inside and outside the university against racist_sexist practices of knowledge and history production, and has participated in numerous discussions about institutional changes at German-speaking universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It is particularly important to her to empower young Black people and students of Colour in their academic career.

Anna Kim, born 1977 in South Korea, lives and works in Vienna and Berlin. Last publications: „Anatomie einer Nacht““(2012), „Fingerpflanzen“ (2017) and „Die große Heimkehr“ (2017). She has received numerous awards and scholarships for her work, most recently the Literature Prize of the European Union in 2012.

Denise Garcia Bergt and Jennifer Kamau  (International Women Space) are both active in the organization International Women Space, a Berlin-based feminist political group of migrants and refugee women* and women* without these experiences. Together they are active in the fight against racism, sexism and other intersectional power structures.

Garunya Karunaharamoorthy studied Franco-German and European Studies in Berlin (FU), Paris (Sciences-Po, Sorbonne-Nouvell) and London (LSE) and acquired a diploma in Tamil (TBV) as well as in Carnatic Music (OFAAL). She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. Garunya works as a senior editor at Lexxion Publishing House and as a teacher at the Tamil Education Association e.V. in Berlin.

Philip Kojo Metz. After studying photography, Philip Kojo Metz studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and graduated as a master student. In the years following the Academy, he received numerous national and international grants and scholarships. In the meantime he is represented in international exhibitions. His project “Adler Afrika”, presented here, has received international attention in the recent years. His central theme in this working cycle is to explore the history of Germany in various African countries against an authentic background. He approaches a “hidden” part of German history. Philip Kojo Metz lives and works in Berlin.

Sunanda Mesquita is a visual artist, community organiser, curator and co-founder of WE DEY x SPACE in Vienna, Austria. (we-dey.in) She is currently studying at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the class of Video and Video Installation. In her artistic practice she focuses on possibilities of a radical, utopian, queer, feminist collectivity of Black and People of Colour and the topics of community, solidarity and belonging.

Sita Ngoumou is a practicing gynaecologist in Saarland and has been working as a visual artist since 2007. She is the daughter of a Cameroonian father and a German mother and grew up in Yaoundé (Cameroon). Among other things, her pictures tell stories on identity and transculturality. For this she uses different techniques. She prefers painting and drawing, but also uses screen printing, collages and digital imaging techniques.

Musa Okwonga is a poet, journalist and musician. He studied law at Oxford before leaving a career as a solicitor to become a poet. The winner of the 1996 WHSmith Young Writers Competition, he is the author of two books about football, the first of which, A Cultured Left Foot, was nominated for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He has written for several outlets, including The Economist, The New York Times, The New Statesman, Al-Jazeera, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian. A vocalist who has been described by Q Magazine as “a globe-trotting Mike Skinner”, Musa’s music has been played by BBC Radio One, BBC6 Music and Xfm, and he is one half of future blues outfit BBXO.

Moona Moon is a graduated social educator and social worker, empowerment trainer, poetess and writing trainer.

Rena Onat is currently working on her doctoral thesis on “Strategies of resistance, empowerment and survival in the works of queer artists of Colour in the German context”. She is a research assistant in the field of media studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig. Her research interests lie at the interface of Visual Culture Studies and Queer of Colour Critique.

Sharon Dodua Otoo writes stories. She is a Black British mother, activist and author. She is also the editor of the book series “Witnessed” which appeared in the Münster-based publishing collective edition assemblage. In 2017 her most recent novels “the things i am thinking while smiling politely” and “Synchronicity” were published in German translation by Fischer Verlag. She won the prestigious Ingeborg-Bachmann-Prize at the 2016 Festival of German Language Literature with the text “Herr Gröttrup setzt sich hin”.

Peggy Piesche, born and raised in the GDR, is a black German literary and cultural scientist and transcultural trainer for critical reflection of whiteness in science, politics and society. Since 1990 she is active in the Black (German) movement and member of ADEFRA e.V. (Black women in Germany) and since 2016 executive board member of ASWAD (Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora). Her research and teaching covers the fields of diaspora and translocality, performativity of commemorative cultures (Spatiality and Coloniality of Memories) as well as Black Feminist Studies, Critical Race and Whiteness Studies.

Raju Rage is an interdisciplinary artist based in London UK who uses art, education and activism to forge creative survival. They are concerned with bridging the gap between dis/connected bodies, theory and practice, and aesthetics and politics. Focusing on techniques of resistance they use sculpture, textiles, print, video and sound. Previous work in performance, explored tensions and conflicts surrounding the mediation of identity, with a focus on the exploration, occupation and performance of race, ethnicity, queerness and culture in the diaspora, as well as in/visibility, stereotypes, ethnic codes, ideologies and views on the gendered and racialised body.

Isidora Randjelović studied social pedagogy / social work and worked for many years as a social worker in the field of youth welfare and political education. She is director of the RomaniPhen Feminist Romnja Archive in Berlin. In addition, she teaches racism and migration at Alice Salomon College. Main topics and publications focus on racism against Roma *nja and Sinte *zza as well as their civic engagement and current social movements, empowerment perspectives, critical social work and feminist analyses. She is involved in the IniRromnja, a network of Berlin Sinti and Roma women*.

Emilia Roig holds a PhD in Political Science from the Humboldt University of Berlin and from Sciences Po Lyon. She obtained her Master of Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance and her Master of Business Administration from Jean Moulin University in Lyon. Her doctoral dissertation analysed the processes of intersectional discrimination in the French and German labour markets for care and household services. She is founder and Director of the Centre for Intersectional Justice in Berlin. From 2011 to 2015, she taught Intersectionality Theory, Postcolonial Studies and Critical Race Theory at the Humboldt University and the Free University of Berlin, and International and European Law at Jean Moulin University in Lyon. She is also faculty member in the Social Justice Study Abroad Program of DePaul University of Chicago since 2015.

Nicola Lauré al-Samarai is a historian and cultural theorist who works as a freelance writer and editor. Her research interests include Black and Diaspora Studies, Critical Race Feminism, critical museology, as well as marginalized memories and postcoloniality. She has participated in the long-term exhibition project “Homestory Deutschland. Schwarze Biografien in Geschichte und Gegenwart” (2005-2012), co-edited together with Kien Nghi Ha and Sheila Mysorekar the anthology “re/visionen. Postkoloniale Perspektiven von People of Color auf Rassismus, Kulturpolitik und Widerstand in Deutschland” (2007) and has published numerous articles on Black German history, memory formation, cultural politics and questions of representation.

Bahar Sanli studied Cultural Studies and Communication Science (MA) at Humboldt University and Freie Universität Berlin. She has been working as a community worker in the Nachbarschaftshaus Urbanstraße since 2009 and builds action and discourse spaces in the neighbourhood together with residents, initiatives and organisations on different
(District) issues such as gentrification, poverty, racism, migration and inclusion. Her point of departure is the old building area Graefe-Kiez in Kreuzberg. She has been teaching community work at the Evangelische Hochschule Berlin since 2009.

Talking Feminisms is a team of Women* with different backgrounds united in the ideas of intersectional queer feminist empowerment; and lots of love for music. http://reboot.fm/category/magazin-talk/talking-feminisms/

Tuğba Tanyılmaz is an educator and social worker. Her focus is non-discriminatory education, intersectionality, homo- and transphobia, crisis intervention and conflict management. She worked for GLADT e.V. for 4 years and worked as a psychosocial counsellor/social worker in a women’s shelter. As a self-employed educational officer, she offers workshops and courses for teachers, parents, students, (prospective) educators, educators and other multipliers from social professions (on the topics: Gender, homophobia, transphobia, sexuality, identity, racism, discrimination and empowerment). Tanyılmaz is co-founder of the initiative intersectional pedagogy (i-Päd) and currently directing manager of the Migration Council Berlin.

Fatima El-Tayeb is professor of Literature and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her work deconstructs structural racism in “colour-blind” Europe and centres strategies of resistance among racialized communities, especially those that politicize culture through an intersectional, queer practice. She is the author of three books – “Schwarze Deutsche. ‚Rasse‘ und nationale Identität 1890 – 1933” (2001), “European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe” (2011) and “Undeutsch. Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der postmigrantischen Gesellschaft” (2016) – and numerous articles on the interactions of race, gender, sexuality, religion and nation. She is active in black feminist, migrant, and queer of Colour organizations in Europe and the US. She co-founded the Black European Studies Project (BEST) in 2004 and co-author of the feature film “Alles wird gut/Everything will be fine” (1997).

Ceren Türkmen is a research assistant at the Institute of Sociology of the Justus-Liebig University in Gießen. She is a sociologist and works, writes and lectures on the history of labour migration in Germany, (historical) racism and political migration research, neo-Marxism & postcolonial criticism, urban sociology and capitalism research. Since the mid-1990s she has been active in MSOs and in the NSB. She is a member of the political sound art collective Ultra-red.

Hengameh Yaghoobifarah, born 1991 in Kiel, studied “something with media” (Media and Culture Studies) and “something exotic” (Scandinavian Studies) at the University of Freiburg and in Linköping. Meanwhile and since then they blog and write as a freelance writer, for the daily newspaper taz, SPEX and an.schläge, among others. Today they work as an editor of Missy Magazine and live in Berlin.

 

Music:

Hoe__mies (Lucia Luciano & Gizem Adiyaman) is a community space that organizes hip-hop parties explicitly addressing Black / of Colour women*, non-binary and trans* persons.

Ford Kelly plays a mix of Afrobeats Hiphop and dancehall and all the music to make you shake, whine n grind!!! This Berlin based dj will bring a whole host of diasporic bass and sounds to the dance floor. You can catch them playing in queer and or BPoC parties and festivals in and beyond Berlin. www.mixcloud.com/FordKelly/

 

Food:

Jelnar Ahmad  lives in Berlin since almost three years and  has a passion for food and cooking for a long time. In the last couple of years however Jelnar’s interest shifted from merely cooking at home or for friends into the more public sphere. With the support of friends, Jelnar started a small project called ShegelBait (which means homemade in Arabic) with a focus on the social aspect of food, mainly memories, emotions and stories that we all connect with food, homemade food. Through this project Jelnar provides food for some events, did Küfa for a while as well but had to stop due to time limitations. Last month Jelnar started a blog in order write and share personal stories about food. The blog is still in the first steps with only two posts so far, however there is a lot coming on the way. It is accessible through the following link: https://shegelbait.wordpress.com/

 

---