Shumon Basar Editor & Author

Aya Mousawi is an Iraqi-British cultural strategist and producer known for delivering international projects, exhibitions and programmes across the world. Dedicated to non-profit and grassroots initiatives, she has worked throughout the Arab world, developing large-scale exhibitions, cultural strategies and public art programmes. In 2012, she co-founded The Moving Museum, a global initiative of city-wide festivals, artist residencies, exhibitions and public programming. She has worked with institutions including Art Basel, Edge of Arabia, Heatherwick Studio, Aorist, and on several cultural projects in Saudi Arabia. Coming from a family of artists and architects, she brings communities together through culture, storytelling and experiences. Ahmed Shihab-Eldin is an Emmy-nominated journalist, producer, and actor committed to storytelling that challenges power and connects people across borders. His latest documentary, Queer Egypt Under Attack (BBC), won a British Journalism Award and an Amnesty International Media Award. Previously, he was a Senior Correspondent for AJ+, producing award-winning documentaries. He stars in The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry and will appear in Palestine 36 (2025). A Columbia Journalism School graduate, Ahmed has worked with PBS, The New York Times, Al Jazeera English, HuffPost, and VICE. He currently hosts Out Loud, a podcast featuring conversations with people challenging the status quo. Shumon Basar is a writer, thinker and curator. He is co-author of The Extreme Self and The Age of Earthquakes, both with Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist. Other roles have included long-term Commissioner of Art Dubai’s Global Art Forum; founding member of Fondazione Prada’s ‘Thought Council’; Expert Advisory Group for the Royal Commission of AlUla; Chief Narrative Officer and co-founder at web3 startup Zien; and establishing a new cultural platform in London entitled Ibraaz, powered by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation. Shumon has held editorial positions at the magazines TANK, Bidoun, 032c, Flash Art, and as Curator-in-Residence at Zora Zine, produced a trilogy of pieces around his viral neologism, 'Lorecore.' Hala Alyan is a Palestinian-American writer and poet. Her novels include The Arsonists' City and Salt Houses, which was winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her family, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.