The panel was part of a series of events that took place in the context of the Testimonies of Change student exhibition. The panel speakers consisted of women’s rights activist Rahinatou Moussa Souna from Niger, alongside her interpreter; assistant professor in Literary Studies and Gender Studies Looi van Kessel from Leiden University; and programme development manager Karen Hammink from Dutch NGO Hivos. The discussion was moderated by Sheena Calvert, from Camberwell College of Art, London, and Ramon Amaro, from Non Linear Narrative at KABK and Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam.

Testimonies of Change was a project collaboration with Hivos that challenged students to understand the local effects of global injustices and connect to the lived experiences of activists campaigning for climate justice, LGBTQ and women’s rights in Namibia, Niger, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The accompanying exhibition presented six stories of transformational change through the voices of communities leading the way in re-imagining a more equitable and just future.

For the exhibition, each student developed a visual response to the narratives centred around the professional and biographical background of the six independent human rights advocates. The topics included socio-ecological exhaustion, colonial origins of climate vulnerability, ‘de-victimising’ queer people, equal rights of people with disabilities, anti-colonialist liberation movements, and the impact of inter-generational trauma and modes of healing.

Student-activist groups

Alessandro Caccuri and Teddy Munyimani
Marta Cuccurullo and Friedel Dausab
Mirna Jancic Doyle and Linda Baumann
Kai Jiao and Kiss Brian Abraham
Guillaume Lelong and Rahinatou Moussa Souna
Michela Meliddo, Nigel van der Pol and Saber Ammar

Project supervision

KABK: Ramon Amaro, Linda van Deursen, Edwin Jakobs, Katrin Korfmann, Niels Schrader and Judy Wetters
Hivos: Mickey Andeweg, Charlotte van Dalfsen, Mark Schleedoorn and Quirine Lengkeek