Changing Narratives - Creative Voices from the Global South

Last month a law banning headscarves in schools for girls under 14 came into effect in Austria. It has been officially justified as a measure to ‘promote gender equality, protect child welfare, ensure self determination, and prevent social segregation and patriarchal pressure’. Amnesty International argues that the ban ‘constitutes blatant discrimination against Muslim girls”, is ‘an expression of anti-Muslim racism’, and will “add to the current racist climate towards Muslims”. The headscarf has become a political tool on both sides: in the Western world by centrist and right-wing political parties, and in some parts of the SWANA region to enforce an Islamic national identity. So how has a single visible piece of clothing managed to create an us versus them narrative, and what role do white women play in enforcing it?

In the latest episode of the Changing Narratives podcast I speak with British Libyan author Shahed Ezaydi of The Othered Woman: How White Feminism Harms Muslim Women. A book that asks why Muslim women are so often treated as people to be explained, rescued or judged, rather than people to be heard. In the interview we talk about Shaheds’ first encounter with Islamophobia, what representation means if the structures remain the same, and what people can do in the face of the ongoing rise and politicisation of Islam.

Cairo based graphic designer Nada Hesham discusses Arabic visual culture, decolonising design and the influences that have shaped her approach to graphic design.

We talk about growing up between Cairo and Kuwait, questioning the dominance of Swiss and German design references, and looking instead at Arabic script, manuscripts and the visual language of Cairo itself. Nada reflects on why she is drawn to friction rather than visual perfection, and what it means to work with the density and contradictions of a city rather than against them.

She also discusses founding 40MUSTAQEL and ISDAR MUSTAQEL, a bilingual publication exploring design practices across the region, as well as her move from traditional graphic design towards creative direction.

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In this episode of Changing Narratives, Algerian Sudanese photographer Abdo Shanan describes photography as his fourth language and a form of expression.

Abdo reflects on growing up between Algeria and Libya and on the questions of identity, belonging and national memory that have shaped his work. We discuss his acclaimed project Dry, colonial trauma, national identity and his ongoing research into the ways Algeria remembers itself through photography.

This is a conversation about photography as resistance, and about memory as something both personal and contested.

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Libyan American photographer Annissa Durar talks to Nissrin Zaptia about growing up in Kansas without access to her father’s culture, finding her way to film photography, and travelling through Morocco and Tunisia as she explores questions of diaspora, belonging and her relationship with Libya, a country she has still never visited.

Season two of Changing Narratives focuses on creatives on and from the African continent, with a new episode every two weeks.

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Rana Beiruti is an Amman based curator working across art, architecture and design. She co founded Amman Design Week in 2016, directed it for three editions, and in 2024 curated Arab Design Now, the headline exhibition of the inaugural Design Doha Biennial, bringing together more than 70 designers from across the Arab world.

In this episode of Changing Narratives, Rana talks about design in Jordan and why its so called resource scarcity can also be a source of strength, with designers working with local stone, clay and foraged materials. She makes the case for craft not as something to be fossilised, but as a living practice that adapts to new technologies and contemporary needs.

We also discuss Al Barakah Wheat, an initiative reviving local grain varieties in a country that once produced more wheat than it consumed but now imports almost all of it, and the questions behind curating an exhibition called Arab Design Now, beginning with the most fundamental one: what does Arab mean in the context of contemporary design?

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In this episode we speak to Spandana Gopal, a designer based between Bangalore and London, whose studio Tiipoi challenges Western perceptions of Indian design. Spandana talks about moving beyond familiar stereotypes of embellishment, bright colour and romanticised craft narratives to make the case for India’s everyday utilitarian design and culture of innovation.

From working with Longpi potters in Manipur’s Ukhrul district to collaborating with artisans in Channapatna, Karnataka, she reflects on the realities of building production systems that bring traditional craft and modern manufacturing together, and on why she resists performative storytelling around Indian craft.

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In today’s episode of Changing Narratives, we speak with Palestinian visual artist Noor Abuarafeh, whose work examines memory, history and the archive.

Noor talks about tracing absences and questioning how history is shaped, constructed and understood, particularly when records are incomplete, inaccessible or simply do not exist.

We focus on several of her works, including Observational Desire on a Memory that Remains, a short film that begins with a group photograph taken at an exhibition opening in Jerusalem in 1985. Fourteen artists stand together. One of them, Saqr Al Qatil, becomes the narrator of a work that gradually unfolds as an act of resistance against forgetting.

In researching the film, Noor found no comprehensive Palestinian art archive covering the period before 1993, the year the Oslo Accords were signed. Through contact with Al Qatil’s family and friends, she began reconstructing a visual record of his life and work.

Tracing his story became a way of revisiting a wider artistic moment in Jerusalem that had largely gone undocumented. In reconstructing one life, the work also raises larger questions about who records cultural memory, how it is labelled and what happens when those records disappear.

Those questions feel particularly relevant now. In 2026, the British Museum removed the word “Palestine” from some maps and explanatory panels in its ancient Middle East galleries, saying the terminology was historically inaccurate or no longer neutral, a decision that has itself become the subject of public dispute.

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Priscila Barbosa, a visual artist, muralist and illustrator from São Paulo, discusses using public art to reclaim the image of women as agents of resistance rather than objects of spectacle.

We talk about growing up in the east zone of São Paulo, encountering feminism through Latin American thinkers including Verónica Gago, and challenging the stereotypes imposed on Brazilian women both at home and abroad. Priscila reflects on painting her own body into murals, confronting patriarchal narratives embedded in the history of Latin American muralism, and on why public space remains a political arena.

This episode explores feminism in Brazil, generational legacy, muralism, street art festivals and the role artists can play in reshaping representation.

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Mohamed Somji, Director of Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai, reflects on building one of the UAE’s leading platforms for photography and visual culture.

He discusses the early days of Gulf Photo Plus, the structural gaps it responded to across the MENASA region, and the questions of representation that continue to shape how the Middle East is seen and understood. We talk about Slidefest, the exhibition A Memorial in Fragments, created in honour of Palestinian photographer Majd Arandas, and what it means to make and support work without deferring to inherited hierarchies of recognition.

This episode explores photography, representation, cultural infrastructure and the role independent platforms can play in shaping how the region is seen.

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Changing Narratives is hosted by Nissrin Zaptia and Giovanna Dunmall.

Each episode features architects, artists and designers working across the Global South and its diaspora, examining how cities are shaped, how culture circulates, and who controls representation.

From the UAE to Palestine, from India to Jordan and Tunisia, and from Brazil in South America, we focus on the systems that frame creative work and the people building alternatives across the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and South America.

New episodes every two weeks.