Between Peril and Progress

Zara Momand is a psychologist-in-training, political educator, and freelance writer. Since 2016, she has worked in various settings supporting migrants and refugees. Beginning in 2021, her work – through writing, lectures, and workshops – has focused on raising awareness about structural inequalities in mental healthcare. She advocates for accessible mental health services and explores psychological topics through an intersectional lens. Her empowerment work prioritizes personal empowerment and collective resistance, especially through cultural preservation, self-efficacy, and strategic use of available resources.

Razia Akbari is an Afghan visual artist and filmmaker. She holds a BA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Kabul University. She joined the Studio of Contemporary Arts at Kabul University in 2019. Her artistic work focuses on lost narratives, identity, social structures and history. In 2021, she moved to Germany to continue her studies and artistic activities. She studies art at the HfG Offenbach am Main in Germany. She is a founding member of the Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in Exile and has coordinated many projects, including Crossing the Distance, Frankfurt Prototype, Art and Contemporary Narratives.

Fanus Ghorjani is a political scientist currently pursuing training in data science. Her work examines how data collection can perpetuate colonial patterns, leading to global inequalities in knowledge, especially as the amount of data continues to grow. As an educator focused on anti-discrimination, Fanus combines academic research with cultural initiatives through her role as a project manager at mehmani, an organization dedicated to cultural exchange and awareness. She identifies specifically as a Hamburg Afghan, highlighting her strong connection to the city of Hamburg, and speaks German, English, and Dari.

Aman Mojadidi has spent over 15 years working as a conceptual artist and in the fields of art and culture in Afghanistan. His research, writing, and creative practice utilize an experimental ethnography combining qualitative research, traditional storytelling, postmodern narratives, and mixed-media artworks to approach themes such as belonging, identity, conflict, neo-orientalism, imperialism, and migration; blurring the lines between fact and fiction, documentation and imagination. His artwork has been exhibited internationally including the Linden Museum-Stuttgart, Imperial War Museum-London, Times Square, NYC, 3rd Dhaka Art Summit, 12th Havana Biennale, 3rd Asia Triennial Manchester, 1st Kochi/Muziris Biennale, and dOCUMENTA (13). He is currently pursuing a PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.

Isabelle Nabila Wermke is a reporter at Handelsblatt. She studied political science at the University of Passau and then completed a traineeship at the Georg von Holtzbrinck School for Business Journalists. Her main focus during her studies was on governance and international relations, political sociology and social analysis, international law, and global ethics. Wermke gained her first media experience while an internship in the Investigative Department of the Handelsblatt in Düsseldorf. There Wermke has been a reporter for energy-intensive industry since 2023 and occasionally writes about Afghanistan and international law issues.