Artists & Speakers
Artists & Authors
Abir Ibrahim is a Sudanese-American author, development economist and public historian whose work spans African history, culture and political economy. She is the author of Love Letters to Sudan, the first photography book to document all regions of Sudan through more than 200 photographs, developed from a decade of fieldwork and collaboration with Sudanese photographers. She is also the author of the forthcoming Stolen Genius, tracing African discoveries and knowledge across human history. Abir serves as Associate Director for Africa at the World Economic Forum and was named one of the 100 Most Influential African Women in 2023. Her work follows a family legacy of documenting history: her grandfather founded the first National Library of Kassala in Sudan.
Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company, where he has interviewed hundreds of writers, from debut novelists to Nobel Prize winners. A selection of twenty of these conversations was published by Canongate in 2023 as The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews, while more recent discussions have appeared in the Yale Review. His interviews have also been published internationally, including in Italy and South Korea. He hosts the bookshop’s interview podcast and curated the 2022 series ‘Friends of Shakespeare and Company read Ulysses by James Joyce’, with the podcasts collectively downloaded more than two million times.
Also a writer and translator, he is the author of two critically acclaimed novels: Feeding Time (2016) and Beasts of England (2023), an anarchic sequel to Orwell’s Animal Farm, both published by Galley Beggar Press. His fiction has been published in France and India, where Beasts of England will appear in Malayalam. Adam’s new novel Reckless Ways will be published by Granta in 2027.
Ahmed Hawwash is a Palestinian clarinetist, saxophonist, and composer, known for his
distinctive sound that blends jazz with Middle Eastern traditions. Trained by some of
Europe’s leading jazz musicians, he has developed a refined and expressive style that
connects cultures and genres. Hawwash has collaborated on numerous renowned
projects and albums, and has performed at major festivals in Europe and the Arab world.
His music weaves cultural heritage with contemporary expression.
Ahmed Saleh. Poet and writer from Palestine, based in Brussels. Author of “Gaza on the Cross” and the forthcoming “Remember That I Was a Good Man.” Worked at the International House of Literature (Passa Porta), Author of PEN Flanders and Founder & Editor-in-Chief of Rihla Magazine.
Azieb Pool
Writer, arts strategist and Director of Creative Ambition, people make it work
Azieb is a senior creative leader, arts strategist, and writer, passionate about the power of culture to connect people, unlock hidden stories, and spark radical change. From 2019 to 2025, she led the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in London, UK, helping it become a nationally recognised home for bold, Black-led creativity. During her tenure, she secured Arts Council England National Portfolio status for the first time in BGAC’s history, founded the Tottenham Literature Festival and BGAC Windrush Festival, and developed exciting partnerships with brilliant organisations including Talawa, Dance Umbrella, LIFT, Greater London Authority, National Youth Theatre, Punchdrunk, and major funders such as Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Freelands Foundation, and Barings Foundation.
Prior to BGAC, Azieb was Senior Programmer for Contemporary Culture at Southbank Centre, London, where she led Africa Utopia, an annual festival celebrating African and diaspora arts and ideas. She also played a key role in expanding the Women of the World festival (WOW), including its international editions in Somaliland, Nigeria, and Baltimore, USA. She has served as a trustee of LIFT, an Artistic Advisor to Manchester International Festival, a patron of the SI Leeds Prize, a member of the Mayor of London’s Black Cultural Events Advisory Group and co-curated the International Read My World festival in Amsterdam (2023).
Azieb began her career as a journalist, writing for The Guardian for over a decade and contributing to The Times, Stylist, and Vogue UK. She is the editor of Fashion Cities Africa and the author of My Fathers’ Daughter — reprinted in 2022 as part of Bernardine Evaristo and Penguin’s Black Britain Writing Back series. She believes that truly ambitious work must be inclusive and collaborative. Her specialist areas include creative ambition, vision, artistic strategy, artistic development, racial and gender equity within the arts, and embedding diverse practices.
Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin is one of Sudan’s most prominent novelists and playwrights today. He was born in Kassala, Eastern Sudan in 1963, and lived in Khashm el-Girba until he was forced into exile in 2011 by the previous military regime in Khartoum. Although most of his significant works were banned in Sudan – allegedly for violation of literary laws – his books were traded and circulated online amongst Sudanese readers of all generations. Sakin studied Business Administration at Asyut University in Egypt and has solid experience in the non-profit sector in which he worked as a child rights consultant for Save the Children Sweden and the UNICEF in Darfur. He was also director of development schemes under the World Bank’s Community Development Fund in Blue Nile, Sudan.
Sakin’s novels were taught in various schools, including the Higher Technical Institute (HTL) in Saalfelden, Salzburg, Austria. Between 2021 and 2023, his book Le Messie du Darfour was taught across all colleges of education in France, including Sorbonne University.
In 2023, Sakin was awarded the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (Grade de chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) by the French Ministry of Culture; and in 2026, the Committed Optimist Award for Freedom of Expression (Premio Libertad de Expresión Optimistas Comprometidos) by the Spanish magazine “Anoche tuve un sueño”.
Bethlehem Wolday-Myers is an Eritrean and English poet, actress, writer and playwright hailing from north London. Bethlehem trained at Mountview, doing the BA Acting course. After graduating in 2023, Bethlehem has had her poetry published in Heroica Magazine’s Body Odyssey anthology in 2024, winning their national poetry competition out of 1,500+ submissions. Bethlehem has worked with The National Youth Theatre, Phosphorous Theatre, RADA, The Pleasance, Brixton Radio, London Bubble Theatre and BBC Radio 4 in brand new radio drama titled The Coat alongside Toby Jones. Bethlehem has performed her poetry on NTS Radio, at London Stock Exchange Group and numerous other venues around London as a paid headliner. Bethlehem most recently won an award for Best Poet/Spoken Word Artist 2026 from The Mainstream UK. ADEY ኣደይ was picked to be a part of A Pleasance Scratch, herself and 13 others selected out of 200 applicants. Bethlehem and 3 other writers will now participate in the Bridges Festival at the Pleasance, working alongside producer Natalie Denton to develop and work on ADEY ኣደይ. Bethlehem now is taking her one-woman show ADEY ኣደይ to Edinburgh Fringe 2026 – a body of work she has written, produced, directed and performed in entirely herself.
Canan Sibel·Abdullah (she/they) is an artist, writer, literary translator and archivist whose multidisciplinary
practice investigates translation as an artistic methodology across public space, archives, publishing and education. Based at artist collective Tugela85 in Amsterdam. Formerly published as Canan Marasligil. http://www.cityintranslation.com
Born in Rwanda in 1986 and raised in Belgium, Dalilla Hermans is a prominent figure in the Flemish cultural landscape. As an author, director, columnist, and painter, she uses a wide range of mediums to challenge concepts of memory, identity, and social inclusion.
After gaining widespread recognition through her impactful 2014 open letter and regular columns for De Standaard, she authored several books and directed compelling theatrical productions. A passionate advocate and master storyteller, her work strives to build open, human-centered dialogues across cultures.
Desta Haile is a British-Eritrean musician, educator and writer, and former director of Film Africa and Africa Writes, the UK’s biggest festivals of African film and literature. Her first short story prize came from AALFIE’s collective and hybrid writing competition, To Speak Europe in Different Languages (2020). She won Afritondo’s Short Story Prize in 2021, and has two books coming out in 2027: Languages through Music (Teach Yourself) and Black Beauty Model Agency (Cassava Republic Press).
Gary Younge is an award-winning author, broadcaster and a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Formerly editor-at-large at The Guardian, he has written seven books, most recently Pigeonholed: Creative Freedom as an Act of Resistance (Faber, 2025). Winner of the 2023 Orwell Prize for Journalism and the 2025 Robert. B. Silvers Prize for Journalism, he has written for the New York Review of Books, Granta, GQ and New Statesman, among others, and made radio and television documentaries on subjects ranging from gay marriage to Brexit. His fifth book, Another Day in the Death of America, won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize from Columbia School of Journalism and Nieman Foundation.
IRENOSEN OKOJIE is an award winning Nigerian British author whose work pushes the boundaries of form, language and ideas. Her novels, Curandera, Butterfly Fish, short story collections, Speak Gigantular and Nudibranch, have won and been nominated for multiple awards. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Observer, the Guardian and the Huffington Post. She co-presented the BBC’s Turn Up for The Books podcast, alongside Simon Savidge and Bastille frontman Dan Smith. Her work has been optioned for the screen. She has judged various literary prizes including the BBC National Short Story Award and the Dublin Literary Award. She was a judge for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Formerly the Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, she was awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021 and selected as a visionary talent in The Next 25 Visionaries to Watch list. She is the director and founder of Black to the Future Festival and the chair of the 2026 Dylan Thomas Prize.
J.P. Bimeni is a Burundian soul singer and songwriter with a deep love of his country and its culture. Writing across distance and displacement, he sings in Kirundi and English about freedom, unity, love and social justice. With The Black Belts, he released Free Me (2018) and Give Me Hope (2022), performing internationally and using music as a force for dialogue, healing and African identity. His recent collaborations and connections include Moby, Jovanotti and Stone Foundation.
Julia Galaski is a writer and activist. ‘Le Passeport’ is her debut novel (2022). Born in Brussels, from German and Jewish parents, her writings question our relationship with history and borders, migration and exile, language and memory, liberation and solidarity movements, love and friendship. She is currently working on a collection of poetry entitled ‘Retour à Al Mujaydil’.
Kopano Maroga (they/them) is a South African performance artist, writer, educator and cultural worker. They are a PhD candidate at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound in Brussels, Belgium and incumbent interfaith minister through The Thread Interspiritual Seminary.
Their debut poetry collection, Jesus Thesis and Other Critical Fabulations, was released through uHlanga Press in 2020, shortlisted for the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences award for Best Fiction (Poetry) and later translated into German through akono Verlag in 2023.
Lara is a love and care activist, writer, performer, educator, and researcher. Her work explores love, care and transformation through writing, performance, and creative practice. She has a background in Psychology, Education, and Creative Intelligence, and has been working across artistic and pedagogical contexts for over ten years.
She has published two poetry books, La belleza de rendirse and Ahora y poema, and transformed her poetry into music with the EP El Bardo. In 2024, she was selected for the writing residency Am I Evil? – Erotic Writing as a Decolonial Practice, where she wrote Russian Dolls, later published and presented at events including the Brussels Book Fair. She is currently writing her first prose book.
She develops socially engaged projects that challenge established norms and propose new ways of relating through artistic expression. Among her most significant projects are Bordel Shira (Tel Aviv) and What is Love? (international). As a performer, she has collaborated with internationally renowned artists in projects such as Mirror Piece I & II (Joan Jonas – USA).
She currently lives between Belgium and Spain and is writing her first book of prose. She teaches Spanish language and Creative Writting and works as a researcher in pedagogy, care and creativity (EDUCARE Erasmus+). She is also part of the Creative Intelligence Master’s programme team, where she coordinates the Phenomenology component of creative practice. What drives her work is the desire to accompany others in their creative and life journeys to cocreate a more authentic, coherent, joyful and loving world.
Lemn Sissay OBE is one of the UK’s most acclaimed poets, playwrights, and cultural figures. Born to an Ethiopian mother and raised in the British care system, his lived experience profoundly shapes his artistic voice.
He has published numerous poetry books, written landmark plays, and authored the Sunday Times bestselling memoir My Name Is Why. A former Chancellor of the University of Manchester and recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize, Sissay’s powerful poetry is displayed on public landmarks across London, Manchester, and Huddersfield. He continues to perform internationally and advocate for young people in care.
Linda Zhengova is a Czech-Chinese photographer, curator, and writer currently based in Paris. Her work delves into the themes of representation, sexuality, and trauma, using photography to challenge societal boundaries and taboos.
Zhengova’s images, often spontaneous and personal, capture her romantic and friendly encounters with strangers and fleeting moments of pure happiness. Her erotic imagery, evocative of a bygone era, suggests that memory is the space where love most vividly resides. By confronting viewers with moments of vulnerability and intimacy, her work invites a deep reflection on the intensity of human relationships. Through this, Zhengová challenges us to reconsider how we connect with both ourselves and others, offering a delicate balance between discomfort and empathy.
Her artistic practice is informed by academic and visual research, and she has authored several publications, including The Ambiguity of Visual Representations of Trauma (2020), Catharsis (2021), Strangers (2024), and Oxymoron (2025), among others. These works explore emotional landscapes, memory, and personal history, often uncovering hidden layers of trauma and healing.
She contributes editorially to GUP Magazine, Extra Extra, and Discarded Magazine, and is a member of Revoke Photo Collective. In 2025, she was nominated as BJP’s Ones to Watch, and in 2026 as Futures Talent.
Lubi Barre is a writer, poet, and cultural organizer whose work bridges borders and cultures. Born in Paris and raised in Somalia, she eventually moved to Hamburg, Germany, where she has established herself as a vital voice in the contemporary literary scene.
Barre’s poetry and prose explore the complexities of home, identity, migration, and power dynamics. Beyond her own writing, she is deeply committed to building inclusive creative spaces—co-founding the popular Hamburg-based event series Prose & Poetry to platform international and underrepresented voices. Her work has been published in multiple anthologies, and she regularly leads creative writing workshops across Europe.
Malya Bhattacharya is an interdisciplinary writer and historian whose work explores home, friendship, history and place. Her academic research focuses on radical women’s politics and the ethics of surveillance archives, with essays published in Gender & History and Contemporary South Asia. Her creative practice spans fiction, oral history and community writing, with recent work published in The Bombay Literary Magazine. She co-created the oral history film اپنی آواز (Apni Awaz) with New Writing North and South Asian women in the northeast of England, and has led creative writing projects with multilingual children and migrant communities. She is currently writing her first novel.
Dr Nat Raha is an activist-scholar and poet, whose work considers queer, transfeminist and anti-colonial practices of liberation, present, past and future. She is the author of four books of poetry, most recently apparitions (nines) (Nightboat Books, 2024). With Mijke van der Drift, Nat is co-author of Trans Femme Futures: Abolitionist Ethics for Transfeminist Worlds (Pluto Press, 2024) and co-editor of Radical Transfeminism zine. She teaches at the Glasgow School of Art.
Dr Nat Raha is a poet and activist-scholar. Her books of poetry include apparitions (nines) (Nightboat Books, 2024), of sirens, body & faultlines (Boiler House Press, 2018), and countersonnets (Contraband Books, 2013). With Mijke van der Drift, Nat is co-author of Trans Femme Futures: Abolitionist Ethics for Transfeminist Worlds (Pluto Press, 2024, finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards 2025) and co-editor of Radical Transfeminism zine. She teaches at the Glasgow School of Art.
Preti Taneja is the author of We That Are Young, an epic translation of Shakespeare’s King Lear set in contemporary India and Kashmir. She won the UK’s Desmond Elliott Prize for the finest literary debut novel of the year, and was nominated for numerous international awards, including the Folio Prize, India’s Shakti Bhatt First Novel Prize, and Europe’s most prestigious award for a work of world literature, the Prix Jan Michalski. We That Are Young was also a New York Public Library pick, and appeared on multiple end-of-year ‘best of’ lists. It is published in the UK, USA, India and in translation around the world. Her second book is Aftermath, a non fiction lament about terror, trauma and grief following the UK London Bridge attack in 2019. Aftermath won the Gordon Burn Prize for literature that is ‘fearless in ambition and execution’ and was a New Yorker Book of the Year. In 2022 Preti was awarded the prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize in Languages and Literatures for her groundbreaking experimental work.
Radna Fabias (1983) was born and raised in Curaçao. She is a graduate of HKU
University of the Arts Utrecht. She debuted as a poet with the poetry collection Habitus
(2018) which won all major poetry awards in the Netherlands & Belgium, amongst which the
Herman de Coninck prize and the Grote Poëzieprijs. She was hailed as the Dutch literary
talent of 2019 by Dutch National newspaper De Volkskrant.
Fabias’ style is characterized by a great variety, both in terms of content and
style. According to Dutch Magazine De Groene, “Fabias dares to use every nook and cranny
of poetry as an art form, the poems are short and lyrical, sometimes narrative and long,
sometimes clear and accessible and sometimes hermetic and experimental.” Habitus has
been translated into English, French, Spanish, Arabic and German.
Fabias also translates poetry herself. She is the Dutch translator of both Warsan
Shire and Nobel Prize winner Louise Glück.
Sagal Farah, born in Mogadishu, Somalia, examines poetics in the intersection of natural and built environments through storytelling, memory, archives, and material form. A particular focus lies in where stories become entangled with histories of power, displacement, and desire, and her curiosity drives an investigation into how affect lingers in terrain and lineages. She cherishes how the poetic offers a way to rethink inherited geographies as spaces that both shape us and are shaped by us.
Shady Lewis, born 1978, is an Egyptian novelist and journalist whose writing centers on cultural and political intersections within and beyond the Arab world. He lives in London, where he has spent many years working in the social care field. He has published three novels in Arabic to date – The Lord’s Ways (2018), On the Greenwich Line (2019), and A Brief History of Genesis and Eastern Cairo (2021) – each of which engage with the social history of Coptic Christians and trajectories of migration from Egypt to the West, and a travel diary, Death Tourism, or a Comedy of Foreigners (2024). On the Greenwich Line has also been translated into English, German, French and Italian; the English translation won James Tait Black Prize 2026, Shortlisted for the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize 2025, shortlisted for the EBRD Literature Prize 2026 and longlisted for the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026.
Shira Wolfe is a multidisciplinary artist, poet, and writer whose creative practice spans literature, performance, and visual art. Born in the United States and raised in the Netherlands, her cross-cultural background deeply influences her writing, which frequently deals with themes of displacement, memory, bodily experience, and womanhood.
Holders of a background in literature and theatre, Wolfe has performed her poetry internationally at galleries, festivals, and cultural institutions. Beyond her creative writing, she contributes to prominent art publications and is the creator of The Artists’ Club, a community initiative aimed at connecting and supporting emerging contemporary artists. Her work continues to bridge the gap between written language and visual expression.
Sylvia Arthur is a cultural institution builder and storyteller whose work is dedicated to preserving and protecting African memory, knowledge, and literary heritage. She is the founder of the Library Of Africa and The African Diaspora (LOATAD), a library, archive, writing residency, and research institute in Accra, Ghana, devoted to safeguarding and celebrating the work of African and Diaspora writers from the late 19th century to the present day. Through LOATAD, Arthur has built an internationally recognised institution that preserves African intellectual and cultural histories while creating space for future generations of writers, readers, and researchers to engage with them.
At the centre of Arthur’s practice is a commitment to archival preservation as a form of cultural and political intervention. Her work challenges the historical erasure of African voices by protecting both written and oral histories, particularly those of women and everyday people often excluded from official archives. She is the creator of the National Geographic-supported project, A Women’s Oral History of West Africa, an extensive oral archive documenting the lives of women aged 60 and over across the region and preserving alternative postcolonial histories through their testimonies and lived experiences.
A National Geographic Explorer, Ford Global Fellow, Brittle Paper Literary Person of the Year, and Creative Activism Award recipient, Arthur’s work stands at the intersection of preservation, institution-building, and cultural stewardship, ensuring that African stories – written, spoken, and lived – are protected on African terms for generations to come.
Vjosa Musliu is associate professor of international relations at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She combines narrative style in her academic writing about military and humanitarian interventions and post-war recovery. Her latest book Girlhood At War. Interpreting War and Liberation in Kosovo (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) is a rendition of short stories based on her childhood in Kosovo at the backdrop of Serbia’s war against Kosovo Albanians, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and NATO intervention.
Yara Nakahanda Monteiro is a Portuguese-Angolan writer and artist whose work focuses on colonialism, family memory, migration, and feminism.
Her debut novel, “Essa dama bate bué!” (2018, Guerra e Paz Editores), was nominated for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award and has been translated into several languages.
“Memórias Aparições Arritmias” (2021, Companhia das Letras) won the Glória de Sant’Anna Literary Prize for best book of poetry.
Her short stories, essays, and poems are available in various publications.
“Kimbundamento – palavras dadas ao chão” (2024) was her first exhibition/performance.
Monteiro is currently splitting her time between Portugal and Malaysia
Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese diaspora author, screenwriter and award-winning social advocate.
A former mechanical engineer, Abdel-Magied’s debut literary novel At Sea was a Dua Lipa Service95 ‘must read’ for 2026. Previous titles include action packed teen fantasy Silverbrook: Yumna and the Golden Horse, essay collection Talking About a Revolution and two novels for younger readers, You Must Be Layla and the award-winning Listen, Layla. Yassmin is currently a writer on British continuing drama Emmerdale and her original drama series Cruise Control is in development with the BBC.
The creator of eyesonsudan.net and adviser on the sudandigitalarchive.com, Yassmin is dedicated to the civilian movement in Sudan and the celebration and amplification of Sudanese culture. In all her work, Yassmin is an advocate for transformative justice and a fairer, safer world for all.
Read-a-thon
Anneka Robeyns is a Brussels-based Belgian illustrator and graphic novelist. Her work explores language, identity and complexities of communication, shaped by her (loss of her) Chinese roots.
Poète et peintre, Antonio MOYANO est né à La Línea de La
Concepción (Cádiz) en 1958, arrive en Belgique à l’âge de huit
ans. École des Arts & Métiers, ouvrier imprimeur ; après des
cours de promotion sociale, il exerce durant trente-quatre ans
le métier de bibliothécaire-animateur dans une MJ des
Marolles. Parcours littéraire revendiqué et atypique : depuis
1995, il opte pour la micro-édition et fonde La Collection :
chaque année il sort un petit livre, telle une bouteille à la mer.
A publié : Libre livraison (1977), préface de Jacques Crickillon
(1940-2021).
Et aux Editions du Fram (Liège) : Je n’aime que rester ; suivi
de Autour de Liël (2000) et Château en bord de Meuse &
autres poèmes (2002).
Un spectacle sur base de ses dessins fut créé au Nouveau
Théâtre de Belgique rue du Sceptre : Sans légende.
A co-dirigé la revue Revue & Corrigée.
Anime de façon sporadique des rencontres littéraires
Benjamin De Roover is a poet and a bookseller. He is editor at online magazine Flemish Review de la Poëzie. Together with Daniël Rovers he made the podcast De stem van Jeroen Mettes. His latest collection Leerjaren, was published in 2026 by Zwarte Pagina.
Efia BAE (@efiampress on Instagram) is a content creator, artist, and jurist by training and passion. She is of Ghanaian origin and based in Belgium. In 2021, she won the Audience Choice Award in the first round of the NK Poetry Slam 2021 competition in Antwerp. That same year, she received an honorary award at the Senghor International Poetry Prize, presented in Rome. She qualified twice for the first rounds of the Belgian Slam Championships in Brussels (in 2021 and 2022). Nominated for the Urban Words Awards organized by Lezarts Urbains in 2023, she had the honor of sharing the stage with 20 other artists at this event. She (co-)leads workshops where she helps young people and adults discover (or rediscover) poetry and slam. These workshops offer participants the opportunity to express themselves.
Efia writes and performs in English, French, and sometimes Dutch.
Efia BAE’s creative world is multilingual, heartfelt, and can be described as sincere and captivating. Her texts address themes such as origins, identity, self-esteem, suffering, and healing. On stage, she takes audiences on a journey through a range of emotions with the gentleness, tenderness, and power of her words and stage presence.
Ibrahim, father of two cats, is from Türkiye and he is a researcher in genetics trying to understand the code of life. Outside work, he learns to make and play music, and experiments with dance. He enjoys exploring the mind, life, the universe, and the end.
A Montreal-born rapper now based in Brussels. His mother is Palestinian and his father is Franco-American. Founding member of the rap group Traumaturges (1995–2000) and the hip-hop collective Atach Tatuq (2000–2006). Leader of the improvised music group L’Ensemble Kesdjan (2003–2006) and the experimental rap group Héliodrome (2006–2018).
Marcel is a producer and performer based in Brussels, with years of advocacy and activism within the queer community.
In 2025, they joined the production of Them Fatale, a Montréal-based cabaret founded by Rosie Bourgeoisie, featuring trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming artists. Them Fatale showed them what it truly means to center marginalized, disabled, fat, trans bodies in a production, as well as its political and social implications.
Today, together with Meriç Dogan, Marcel co-produces HOTSPOT (@hotspot_theshow), a sensual erotic strip show casting exclusively transmasculine performers, which premiered in July 2026 at Cabaret Mademoiselle in Brussels. HOTSPOT was created because, within a growing pool of queer and cabaret-like shows, the representation of transmasculine bodies was lacking, minimized and often misunderstood. In an industry where sensuality is mostly expressed through feminine conventions, HOTSPOT redefines what a hot, sensual, sweet, fun and safe(r) masculinity can be.
Alongside the show, Marcel co-creates workshops training transmasc performers and building safer space to explore sensual masculinity through joy.
Their practice reclaims a masculinity beyond cisheteronormative codes, where softness and power coexist, treating erotic touch as an act of care and genuine encounter.
Miglena Dikova-Milanova is a Bulgarian poet, writer and scholar based in Belgium. She is the author of three poetry collections, including the bilingual Bulgarian-Dutch collection 4(four)2(two)na and Landscapes from the Edge of the World. Her poetry explores memory, displacement, identity and the fragile boundaries between cultures. She has received the Slaveykov Poetry Award and the Special Award of the Chicago Salon.
Naama Shoshana Fogiel Lewin is a multidisciplinary performance artist based in Brussels, originally from Haifa (Israel/Occupied Palestine). Her practice emerges from dance and movement and extends into voice, text, and installation, supported by theoretical research. Through her work, she navigates the politics of body, space, land, and identity, developing deconstructive practices that challenge mechanisms of nationalism and militarism. She accesses archives living within us — memories, trauma, and narratives. Naama’s work takes place outside normative black-box settings, seeking formats that invite active witnessing and carry a ritual dimension. She creates a liminal space between intimacy and political realities.
After completing RE-SEARCH (IL) dance training program (2018), she earned a BA+MA (2023) in choreography and performance from ISAC at ARBA ESA (BE). Recently, she has been a resident at Fundaziun Nairs (CH), SODAS2123 (LT) ATLAS – ImPulsTanz (AT), workspacebrussels, De-Markten, RADAR, BAMP, and De Grot Post (BE). Her work has been performed at Par Hasard X Dok Noord (BE), Nomad Dance Academy Choreographic Convention (CR) in 2024, and in Theatre de la Vie, Outside In Festival (BE), Amsterdam Fringe Festival, and De Generator (NL) in 2025.
Naama’s writing was published in The Art Of The Working Class, and in the book In the Absence of Bombs, curated by Pascal Gielen and Bahia Shehab. From September 25, Naama is leading a series of writing workshops, “Letters to Homelands,” together with the organisation Curieus in Brussels.
Her work has been supported by Janivo Stichting, Stichting Another Shot (NL), Kunstendecreet, WBI, FWB (BE), and Culture Moves Europe.
Between 2021 and 2023, Naama performed in Melting Pot by Marco Torrice, touring across major venues in Belgium and Italy. Since 2023, she has been part of AÏE AÏE AÏE, a Franco-Finnish street movement theater project. In 2026, she started collaborating as an actor with Indie Nile for his project Making Propaganda (NL).
Naama also works as a choreographer’s assistant and dramaturge, and has collaborated with Pierre-Louis Kerbart, Florian Boutin, Zoé Hagen, and Andrée Chapatte.
Naama refuses any monetary transaction with government-subsidized institutions in Israel and stands in solidarity with the liberation of the Palestinian people.
Born in Athens, Nina Alexandraki studied philosophy and then film at INSAS. Her artistic practice lies at the intersection of film and literature and seeks to create intimate voices. Journal d’une solitude sexuelle and Je suis dehors are her first two films.
Paola is a performance artist, singer and music producer interested in merging music composition and performance. Between 2021 and 2023, she created a series of performances called “Pocket Poney Live Concerts.” These concerts are conceived as dance-theatre mini-shows in which a fantomatic female character (herself) comes to deliver her story, in a stand-up comedy–like form.
Interested in approaching music as a performative act, Paola has composed many single songs in different musical styles and with different musicians: Gasper Piano, Jean Noël Boissé, Clelia Patrono, Gonzalo Rojas, Sergio Roberto Gratteri, Diego Higueras. In 2026 Paola will release her first Album ET_NÀ (a collection of tracks she composed with the cellist and sound engineer Jean Noël Boissé) produced by the Label HOMERECORDS In Belgium.
Creative Writing Academy
Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, her early life was surrounded by poetry, literature, and academia. The loss of her father at a young age shaped her character, giving rise to a rebellious spirit and a deep sense of justice. These qualities continue to influence both her life and her writing.
After receiving several national and international medals during her school years, she escaped the Taliban following their takeover of Afghanistan and eventually settled in Europe. Since then, she has continued her advocacy for human rights, particularly for the rights and education of Afghan girls.
She is currently writing her first novel, Aya, which follows the adventures of a young girl and explores themes of identity, freedom, and justice. She also writes poetry in English and Dutch, creates Persian calligraphy, and continues her work in human rights advocacy.
Maja Ułasik is a Polish-Belgian writer. Her poetry has appeared in Popshot and Tinted Trails Anthology, among others. She’s a fellow of the Elisabeth Kostova Foundation and a mentee in the Republic of Trees. Her debut novel-in-progress explores the intersections of global health, folk medicine, and neurodiversity.
Ig: @mju_
Ninah Dau is an undocumented Venezuelan poet, writer, zine maker, and songwriter based in the Netherlands. Blending raw vulnerability, dark wit, and radical honesty, her multi disciplinary work explores Latinhood and undocumented life, a fierce testament to the art of survival.
Nusrat Batool (Pakistan) is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and visual storyteller whose work moves between the political and the deeply private .Her stories are drawn toward people and places standing at the edge of visibility.
Across writing, documentary, graphic novels/comics, and research-led storytelling, Nusrat explores cultural heritage, social justice, identity, and the fragile architecture of inner life. Her projects include Kites of Hope, Paralaya(the guardians of earth), Semurgh, and Living Archives.
Her creative practice asks difficult questions with tenderness: Who gets to belong?
Oucef Mannai is an artist, performer, and creative voice operating at the intersection of theatre, literature, and visual expression. Drawing deeply from his rich heritage and lived experiences, his creative output explores the nuances of belonging, memory, and cross-cultural dialogue.
Known for his compelling stage presence and nuanced writing, Mannai uses performance as a medium to question social norms and bridge diverse perspectives. Over the course of his career, he has collaborated with numerous creative platforms, theatre companies, and cultural organizations, captivating audiences with stories that are as intimate as they are universally resonant.
Sascha/Sarkhan, of South Caucasian origin, is a pacifist, social worker, humanitarian, and human rights researcher tracing epistemic violence – the West civilizing the savage East via “best practices/standards”. Currently he is writing literary texts, combining his academic/professional findings with a queer gaze to describe “bare life” in prisons: bodies seized by neoliberal norm games.