Saddie Choua, trained as a sociologist, is a Belgian-Moroccan filmmaker, author, and mixed-media artist based in Molenbeek. In her body of work, she merges art with her academic background, employing political documentaries, video installations, mixed media collages, and short stories.
Choua employs meta-documentary techniques, such as fragmented narratives and visual essays, integrating cross-cultural elements from popular culture. She draws inspiration from commercials, soap operas, novels, music videos, magazines, YouTube videos, pop stars, and athletes, urging a critical examination of these components. Her work focuses on discrimination based on race and/or ethnic origin, discrimination against women, colonialism, class, and even her cats take the spotlight.
The challenge she undertakes lies in creating ‘situations’ that unveil the power structures behind the images we internalize and reproduce. She invites us to reflect on how we assimilate images and dialogues about ‘the other’ and how these affect our self-image and historical awareness.
Saffina Rana is a British journalist, storyteller and lateral thinker with a scientific background, who has spent much of her adult life at the intersections of research, society, culture and diversity. She monitors EU policies on new technologies, health, culture, governance, gender equality and discrimination; and platforms culture in Belgium for various newspapers, journals, governmental and non-governmental organizations. Her work includes a focus on the ramifications of these policies on the othering of minority groups in Europe, particularly those structurally considered to be racialized. She is currently developing capacity building, education and employment initiatives for displaced people resettled by the Belgium government as part of the European Settlement Programme at Focus Humanitarian Assistance Europe.
