The Current V: Ancestral Ocean
Flotation #1: Listening into Waterways

August 29–September 6, 2026

Nairobi and Lamu

Natasha Ginwala is a curator, researcher, and writer, co-curator of Sharjah Biennial 16, artistic director of Colomboscope since 2019, and was Associate Curator at Large for Gropius Bau, Berlin (2018–2024). She also served as the artistic director of the 13th Gwangju Biennale. Ginwala has been part of the curatorial teams for the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Contour Biennale 8, documenta 14, and the Taipei Biennale 2012, and has co-curated several international exhibitions. Ginwala is a widely published author with a focus on contemporary art, visual culture, and social justice.

Shiraz Bayjoo is a Mauritian multidisciplinary artist working in film, painting, and installation, based in London. Originally from Mauritius, his research-based practice focuses on personal and public archives addressing cultural memory and postcolonial nationhood in the Indian Ocean region, including the intersection of colonial extraction and ecological erasure within enslaved and plantation landscapes. 
 

Sana Ginwalla is a curator, artist, and archivist, born, raised, and based in Lusaka. With roots in India and Burma, her work explores identity, migration, and belonging. She is the founder of Everyday Lusaka and Zambia Belonging, initiatives that make visible what lies at the margins of memory.

Batila is a Congolese musician, performer, singer, and songwriter based in Berlin. A poet and musician from age ten, he developed a powerful relationship with ancestral rhythms and storytelling. Batila bridges the past with the present, blending Congolese traditions with reggae, jazz, and electronic sounds to create his signature "Bantu Soul". 

Priya Basil is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a curator based in Berlin. Her work draws on her trans-territorial roots to weave across genres and cultures, from family histories (Be My Guest) to what questions emerge when writers encounter museum collections (Objects Talk Back).

Parisa Vaziri is a scholar of comparative literature and film, based in Ithaca, NY. In her first book project, Racial Blackness and Indian Ocean Slavery: Iran’s Cinematic Archive, she places the understudied history of African enslavement in the Indian Ocean in relation to the history of transatlantic slavery.

Renée Akitelek Mboya, writer, curator, and filmmaker 

Anja Bengelstorff, journalist, co-founder and director of the Macondo Literary Festival 

Syowia Kyambi, interdisciplinary artist, educator, and curator, co-founder of Untethered Magic

Omar Kibulanga, Swahili filmmaker 

Ogutu Muraya, writer and theater-maker 

Rosie Olang’ Odhiambo, writer, independent artist, curator, and bookmaker

Tabu Osusa (Ketebul Music and Singing Wells), producer, author, and mentor with a focus on documenting East African traditional music

Azza Satti, creative producer, cultural strategist, and community builder

Dr. Radha Upadhyaya, Development Economist, Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies

Tabea Zwimpfer, international development expert and environmental justice practitioner, co-founder of Kuchanua

Kamene Cultural Practice and Research Space, a collaborative creative hub dedicated to enhancing the quality of African cultural practices

Lamu Youth Alliance, a community-driven organization empowering youth through education, creativity, and sustainability

Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, a non-profit visual art space dedicated to the growth and preservation of contemporary art in East Africa

Munyu Space, a space for individual and collective artistic practice

The fifth cycle of The Current fellowship program (2026–2028), entitled Ancestral Ocean and led by Natasha Ginwala, traces oceanic kinships, cultural languages, embodied legacies, ancestral memory, and marine historiographies resonant across the Indian Ocean World, with particular emphasis on islands connecting Afrasian pasts, presents, and futures, cultivating site-responsive artistic and scientific practices across island and coastal nodes. Supporting engagements within culturally rooted contexts that encourage slow, conscious mobility and deep listening, The Current V aims to cultivate long-term relationships across the Indian Ocean basin, expanding TBA21’s long-standing commitment to pan-oceanic alliances.

Organized as a curatorial fellowship program, The Current is a pioneering initiative that cultivates transdisciplinary practices and the exchange of ideas around the Ocean and its understanding. It aims to form strong connections to local networks, map the contemporary issues concerning watery worlds, and weave them into an interdisciplinary conversation, embracing the spheres of science, conservation, policy, and education. 

Each cycle of The Current is led by one or more curatorial fellows selected by the Academy, who in turn nominate artists, scientists, environmentalists, and other cultural actors to join a collective research project unfolding over three years. Since its inception in 2015, cycles of the fellowship program have been led by curators Ute Meta Bauer, Cesar Garcia, Chus Martínez, Barbara Casavecchia, and Yina Jiménez Suriel, and the artist group SUPERFLEX.