In partnership with the British Council, Liverpool Biennial is hosting a week of events, discourse and networking from 22 - 29 July at Liverpool Biennial 2025 'BEDROCK'.
The delegates, who were selected via an open call, are curators working across South Asia, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Throughout the week the group will participate in curated tours of Liverpool Biennial 2025, visit arts organisations across Liverpool and Bradford, and experience the second stage of our public programme. The week will culminate with a ‘Sector Day’ bringing together local, national, and international peers where delegates will be invited to discuss and consider ways in which we find solace and hope in peer networks, family, chosen family and friendships during times of uncertainty.
The participating delegates are:
Dian Arumningtyas researcher, curator and director of Indeks (Indonesia).
Hajra Haider Karrar writer and curator at SAVVY Contemporary (Germany) and guest curator of Colomboscope (Sri Lanka)
James Luigi Tana independent curator and writer (Philippines)
Joel Lukhovi artist, curator and co-founder of PiCHA Museum (Kenya)
Kakizi Jemima artist, curator and founder Impundu Arts (Rwanda)
Lilian Munuo artist, curator, disability rights advocate, and founder of Beyond the Label Initiative (Tanzania)
Nala Xaba cultural organiser, curator, writer-researcher and programmes manager at Bag Factory Artists’ Studios (South Africa)
Parsa Sajid writer, researcher, and cultural practitioner (Bangladesh).
Further information on the delegates can be found below.
About the programme
The Liverpool Biennial x British Council Curator’s Week is part of the British Council’s Biennials Connect programme. This is a distinctive programme developed to enhance collaboration between curators based in the UK, leading international curators working in global biennials and visual arts festivals, and early-and mid-career curators from Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. The programme brings together leading international peers and early to mid-career curators, to connect, collaborate and build meaningful, cross-cultural partnerships.
Find out more at http://visualarts.britishcouncil.org/programmes
Find out more about the British Council at https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts
About the Curators' Week Delegates
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Dian Arumningtyas
Dian Arumningtyas is a researcher and curator who works closely with topics related to cultural mobility, community involvement in artistic instruments, and textual reading through archives and library collections. Her long-term research project dissects how artist-in-residence programs become a cultural strategy driven by the governmental and unders’ agendas to develop and revitalize communities. She is interested in delving into power relations and the agency of the local community to be equally active in shaping the culture.
Recent projects that Dian has been working on include directing programs for Indeks—a curatorial platform based in Bandung, Indonesia (2020-present), involved in the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale curatorial team under the direction of Prof. Ute Meta Bauer, participated in the Gwangju Biennale International Curators Course (2024), commissioned as an external advisor to the Prince Claus Seed Award selection process (2024), awarded the Prince Claus Seed Award (2023), co-curating “Post-Localization Syndrome” with Barim Gwangju, supported by the Korean Foundation for International Culture Exchange (2022).
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Hajra Haider Karrar
Hajra Haider Karrar is a curator and writer invested in articulating questions that destabilize and reconfigure colonial and capital paradigms underlying knowledge production through ancestral and affective epistemes.
She is curator at SAVVY Contemporary: The Laboratory of Form-Ideas, Berlin, and the guest curator of Colomboscope Edition 9, 2026.
Karrar’s curatorial and collaborative projects have been featured at cultural institutions and biennales including Tate Research Centre: Asia, London 2018; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow 2014; Centre Pompidou, Paris 2017; Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester 2016-2017; Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku 2012; Akademie der Künst, Berlin; Lahore Biennale 02, IV Moscow Biennale for Young Art, 5th International Biennale of Contemporary Art Azerbaijan, and Kochi – Muziris Biennale 2022.
Karrar has edited multiple publications and her writings on artistic practice, and visual and media cultures are regularly published in journals, monographs, and publications.
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James Luigi Tana
James Luigi Tana is an independent curator and writer focusing on contemporary art. In 2024, he was awarded a competitive travel grant by CiMAM, an international association of museum experts, where he is an active member.
He co-curated the Adaptation: A Reconnected Earth (2023) and was the project manager for various exhibitions from 2019 to 2024 at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) in Manila, including solo presentations by artists Haegue Yang and Maria Taniguchi.
He has curated exhibitions featuring works by Kiri Dalena and Shireen Seno, showing his keen interest in film, moving image, and videos. He served as a scout expert for Han Nefkens Foundation’s Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2022, and LOOP Barcelona Video Art Production Grant 2022. He was a curator-mentor for MCAD’s curatorial incubator workshop Practices and Potentials. In 2024, he co- curated the inaugural presentation of Benilde Open Design and Art: Curious.
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Joel Lukhovi
Joel Lukhovi is a Nairobi-based photo artist and curator working primarily with lens-based media. With a background in Literature from the University of Nairobi, his practice explores memory, identity, and erasure through photography. Joel has collaborated with institutions such as Goethe-Institut, British Institute in East Africa, C&, National Museum of Kenya and Kamene Residency, and held his 2023 solo exhibition image & exploration in Nairobi and Paderborn, Germany.
He’s passionate about accessible storytelling and has shown work across East Africa, including at Nafasi Art Space, Kuona Trust, and Uganda Arts Trust. In 2023, he co-curated Sisi Ni Hao with African Women Photography at Goethe-Institut and, in 2024, joined FOAM Amsterdam’s curatorial residency, contributing to Missing Mirror.
A Sasa Nairobi Art Fellow, Joel was co-curator of now you see (2025), an exhibition on memory and photo archives. He co-founded PiCHA – Museum of Photography in Nairobi and is a an active member of African Cityzens, a trans-African photography initiative.
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Kakizi Jemima
Kakizi Jemima is a multidisciplinary artist and curator. Her remarkable contributions to the arts have gained recognition, earning her a nomination for the Forbes Women Africa Social Impact Awards in 2023. Her inspiring journey is also featured in the book ‘HER STORY,’ published by Kvinna till Kvinna, which highlights the narratives of 32 courageous and visionary women in Rwanda who have been instrumental in advocating and organizing for women’s rights throughout history and on France 24 documentary ‘Rwanda’s cultural renaissance’.
Fuelled by her passion for advocacy, she immersed herself in creating and learning through art, collaborating with community members of all ages. Over the years, her artistic exploration has delved into diverse topics, including women empowerment, environmental protection, and mental health. Noticing a glaring lack of visibility for women in visual arts in Rwanda, Jemima became a fervent advocate, aiming to elevate their presence and foster a more inclusive art environment starting in Rwanda. This commitment led her to establish the Impundu Arts in 2022, where she exclusively curates for women visual artists.
She has worked on art projects with institutions such as UNICEF Rwanda, Rwanda Art Museum, Girl Effect Rwanda, Goethe Institut, Creative Action Institute, Kvinna till Kvinna and the French Embassy in Rwanda to name a few.
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Lilian Munuo
Lilian Munuo is a multidisciplinary visual artist, curator, and disability rights advocate from Tanzania. Her curatorial and artistic practices ranging from string and nail installations to mixed media are grounded in lived experience and a deep commitment to accessibility. Through bold, empathetic, and intentional curation, she creates spaces that challenge narratives and center marginalized voices, particularly those of people with disabilities. Lilian curates for Beyond the Label, an initiative that amplifies personal stories through collaborative artistic expression.
Her curatorial work includes co-curating Strings of Hope, an immersive installation exploring hope, visibility, and resilience. Her work has been featured locally and internationally, including at Concordia University’s Arts and Human Rights: Conversing Multiplicities in Canada.
Recognized as a Mandela Washington Fellow, UN Youth Fellow, and Africa No Filter Cover Star, Lilian’s work invites audiences to not just view art, but to feel, question, and engage with it as a tool for transformation.
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Nala Xaba
Nala Xaba (she/they) is a cultural organiser, curator and writer-researcher from Johannesburg, with ten years’ experience working with museums and galleries; social justice organisations; public archives; publishers and media houses.
Research and curatorial work have focused on the politics of story-telling, collective memory and belief, embodied knowledge systems and how these relate to the history of social movements. Xaba holds a Master of Arts in Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy with distinction from Goldsmiths College, University of London (2019), and a Bachelor of Arts Honours in Curatorship, First Class from the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town (2015). They also earned a Bachelor of Commerce in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from the University of Cape Town (2014).
Recent projects include convening Queering the Ga(y)ze: A Public Dialogue Series, exploring various sites of queer visibility and archiving, supported by the British Council; and curating Blacks Can Farm: a photographic exhibition challenging hegemonic counter-agrarian narratives, which was shortlisted for the 2025 National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences Best Project for Social Engagement Award.
Currently, they serve as the Programmes Manager at Bag Factory Artists’ Studios, overseeing programme development, local fundraising, and day-to-day operations.
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Parsa Sajid
Parsa Sanjana Sajid is a writer, researcher, curator and cultural practitioner. She works across disciplines spanning digital, visual and literary cultures, social spaces and movements, migration practices, and gender justice. She is currently working on a minor archive project involving left movements in Bangladesh and has plans to publish a monograph on uprising graffities from the July uprising 2024.
Her recent curatorial and academic projects have included a curatorial intensive on the interplays of digital and social subjectivities, a Palestinian film series, a volume on critical Bangladesh studies. She has previously designed and developed an oral history project on the 1947 partition of the sub-continent, a visual and documentary intervention on land rights and the idea of development, an investigation on food, supply chain, vernacular practices. Her writing has been published in the Funambulist, Migrant Journal, March, New Age, New Internationalist and more.