cafira zoé is a poet, actress, and singer, as well as an essayist, playwright, independent researcher, video artist, and visual artist. Her work investigates counter-colonial forces of gender and sexuality dissidence and multispecies relations. She holds a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and Subjectivity Studies, with the dissertation cerca não prende rio (“a fence doesn’t hold a river”). She joined Teat(r)o Oficina in 2015 and is co-creator of arquivo mangue, nominated for the 2024 PIPA Prize. Zoé identifies as a gender-breaking lesbian and transfeminist.

camila mota is an actress, playwright, director, producer, composer, singer, video artist, and visual artist. She joined Teat(r)o Oficina in 1997 and became the first woman to direct a production by the company, mutação de apoteose (2023–2024). She directed the opening performance of the Paraty International Literary Festival (FLIP, 2019) and the Gala Night of the Circus at the São Paulo Municipal Theater (2024). Mota is the director of Cabra Filmes and co-creator of arquivo mangue, an expanded visual arts collective nominated for the 2024 PIPA Prize.

A pedagogue (UCSal), master’s in Psychology (UFBA), and doctor in Public Health from the Federal University of Bahia, with a postdoctoral fellowship in Contemporary Culture (PACC – UFRJ) at the Institute of Psychology at UFBA and the Graduate Program in Family in Contemporary Society at UCSal, under the National Postdoctoral Program (PNPD – CAPES).

Curator and, along with Vilma Santos, responsible for the Acervo da Laje, which gathers artistic and historical works from the Subúrbio Ferroviário of Salvador and the entire city. He is the author of the books Novos Alagados: histórias do povo e do lugar (EDUSC, 2005), Travessias: a adolescência em Novos Alagados (EDUSC, 2005), Cuidado com o vão: repercussões do homicídio entre jovens da periferia (EDUFBA, 2010), Faixas assombrosas: a nascente da beleza nas canções populares (Scortecci, 2013), Nascente da beleza (Scortecci, 2013), and Acervo da Laje: memória estética e artística do Subúrbio Ferroviário de Salvador (Scortecci, 2014).

With Acervo da Laje, he participated in various exhibitions, including the 1ª exposição pública at Casa de Vera e Antonio Lazzarotto, Salvador (2011); Cadê a bonita? at Galeria Pierre Verger, Salvador (2012); As águas suburbanas no Acervo da Laje at Centro Cultural Plataforma, Salvador (2012); Memórias afetivas do Subúrbio Ferroviário de Salvador at Subúrbio 360, Salvador (2017); Indiano Carioca at Coaty, Salvador (2016); Os labirintos de Zaca Oliveira at Teatro Gamboa Nova, Salvador (2018); Adilson Baiano Paciência at Acervo da Laje, Salvador (2019); #Ocupalajes (2016 and 2018); A memória é uma invenção at MAM Rio, Rio de Janeiro (2022); Subúrbio: uma exposição em três atos at MAM Bahia, Salvador (2022); A parábola do progresso at Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo (2022); César Bahia: uma poética do recomeço at the Museum of Art of Rio (MAR), Rio de Janeiro (2023); Ensaios para o Museu das Origens at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo (2023); Dos Brasis at Sesc Belenzinho, São Paulo (2023); Brasil futuro: as formas da democracia at Solar Ferrão, Salvador (2023); and Memórias para Dona Antônia at Casa 2 of Acervo da Laje (November 2023). His paintings are signed artistically as Zé di Cabeça.

Photo: Ana Devora

Born in 1970 in France. Anne Lafont is an art historian, researcher, and professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She served as director of research programs in art historiography at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art and as editor of the journal Perspective. She was part of the curatorial committee for Le modèle noir – de Géricault à Matisse (Musée d’Orsay, 2019) and is the author of L’art et la race (2019), winner of the Fetkann Maryse Condé and Vitale and Arnold Blokh prizes.

Born in 1953 in Fort-de-France, Martinique. Patrick Chamoiseau is the author of a body of work encompassing novels, tales, essays, and unclassifiable texts, translated into several languages and honored with awards such as the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe and the Prix Goncourt. Among his most recent publications are La Matière de l’absence, Frères migrants, and, in 2025, Que peut Littérature quand elle ne peut. Today, he stands as one of the most influential voices of the Caribbean and a major writer of the contemporary world.

Born in Mali, West Africa. He is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Cinema at New York University. He has published essays in French and English on art, cinema, and politics in The New York Times Magazine, LA Times, Libération, Mediapart, and Artforum. Author of In Search of Africa (1998) and We Won’t Budge: An African in the World (2003), he has also directed films such as Angela Davis, A World of Wider Freedom (2023–2024) and Edouard Glissant, One World in Relation (2010).

Born in 1974 in Nouméa, New Caledonia. Denis Pourawa forges a raw, urban-rooted writing–concise, chiselled–yet warm and dressed in the rhythms of his rich Melanesian culture. A poet shaped by his country, he came to Paris with the firm will to rub shoulders with the old continent, where he undertakes a writing and research project on the performing arts. His latest publications include La Tarodière (2010), Entre voir les mots des murs (2006), and Téâ Kanaké, l’homme aux cinq vies (2003).

From Salvador, Vick Nefertiti is a multidisciplinary artist and researcher of the mysteries and materialities of life. She received her artistic training at the Universidade Livre do Teatro Vila Velha and at the School of Theater of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), as well as in the free courses at the School of Dance of Funceb. She participated in the Transfluências Transatlânticas artistic residency and in the subsequent film projects carried out in Cabo Verde and Lisbon. At Teat(r)o Oficina since 2022, she joined through the “Universidade Antropófaga” (5th dentition) and has taken part in the plays mutação de apoteose (directed by Camila Mota), bori (directed by Marília Piraju, Rodrigo Andreolli, and Fernanda Taddei), Senhora dos Afogados (directed by Monique Gardenberg), and the Christmas performance of 7 Gatinhos (directed by Joana Medeiros). She has also created several video art works featured on the digital platform MUTHA (Transgender Museum of History and Art), including olho de lince and furtacor.