Member biographies
Romeo Gongora is an artist, professor of Critical Approaches to Cultural Diversities at the École des arts visuels et médiatiques of Université du Québec à Montreal and PhD fellow in the Art Department at Goldsmiths, University of London (UK). He is co-founder of the Arts Research Centre In Cultural Diversities, a temporary and traveling research center based in Montreal (Canada) promoting intercultural dialogue. Since 2008, he has conducted major collaborative arts projects that interact with the social sphere, integrating politics and pedagogy in the practice of performance. Gongora has shown his work at, amongst others, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (Canada), HISK (Belgium), Centre of Art Torun (Poland), Centre Makan (Jordan) and Leonard&Bina Ellen Art Gallery (Canada). www.romeogongora.com
Stephanie Guirand (She/her, hers) is a Haiti-born Haitian-American woman who grew up in Massachusetts, USA. Stephanie holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut, master’s degree from SOAS University of London, and is currently a Doctoral Researcher in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research is focused on gender and racial discrimination in rental housing policy, intra-community network housing transience, and census undercounting of mariginalised African-descended males in the United States. Stephanie is also interested in Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, Margo Okazawa-Rey’s description of social location, and Hartmut Rosa’s theory of social acceleration. Stephanie is developing an abstract theory of hyper-dynamic intersectionality to describe compounding vulnerabilities over time.
Stephanie has interned at UNESCO and the ANC Partnership Archives at the University of Connecticut and has worked with many non-profits/ NGOs and charities around the world. Stephanie is a co-founder of The Haiti Initiative (SUD), a project under the umbrella of the YWCA Cambridge. The Haiti initiative (SUD) supports Haitians with hurricane preparedness and implementing climate change adaptive strategies. In her spare time, Stephanie is a member of an arts-activist organisation called the Daughters of Yemaya Collective (DYC), the Board Secretary for AMINGA: Youth Sports Development Program and a member of UNA-UK-Laser Global South Action / Focus on Africa committee.
Phavine Phung is a Cambodian doctoral candidate in visual sociology. She did her MA in gender, media and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2016 then moved back to Cambodia to teach university courses ranging from sociology, to sexuality and research methods. While in Cambodia, Phavine exhibited her artworks, mostly using acrylics as a medium that focused mostly on the topic of gender inequality in Cambodia. This pushed for an interest in visual sociology. She started her PhD at Goldsmiths late 2018 in which the focus of her research is using mixed methods to understand the experience of marriage migrants in going through the visa application process in the UK. Her PhD is guided by her interest in official documents such as a visa application form, how it enacts subjects and how it has the power to coordinate and organise the lives of migrants. Phavine is also trained in giving immigration advice and is now working to become a certified immigration advisor.
Hassan Vawda has worked within the intersection of communities, artistic risk and culture as a practitioner within local and grassroots organisations as well as with major public institutions. In 2017 he was awarded an Aziz Foundation scholarship to develop ideas, trial projects and complete an MA in anthropology and community development (Goldsmiths, University of London) around inclusion/exclusion within the cultural sector and ways of connecting with faith communities. Vawda is currently undertaking a collaborative doctorate between Tate and Goldsmiths, looking at how religion is manifested in the art museum, the perceptions of secularism embedded in the museum and how Muslims in Britain are considered by art museums.
Eduardo Vega Clarke is Brazilian born from Salvador, a city in the Northeast of Brazil. Eduardo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law. He trained, qualified and practiced Civil, Criminal and Tax law in Brazil for 15 years in the private sector. Then, he studied and completed his Masters Degree in Ethnic and African Studies at Federal University of Bahia. During this period of study, he discovered teaching as his real passion. He was a Teaching Assistant, an undergraduate course in History of Anthropology in Brazil and Qualitative Methods in Social Sciences. He is currently a doctoral researcher in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His PhD research covers subjects including contemporary debate in Criminology, Sociology and Anthropology of Law and mainly focused on race, racism, drug trafficking, criminal courts and punishment. He is naturally curious about human behaviour and he has written academic articles on subjects ranging from Anthropology of Religion to Anthropology of Law, Crime and Deviance. Eduardo is fluent in Portuguese and English, as well as conversational Spanish. In his spare time, Eduardo loves cooking, gardening and Yoga.
Teleica Kirkland is a fashion historian, curator, associate lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies (CHS) at London College of Fashion and a doctoral candidate at Goldsmiths University. She is also the founder and Creative Director of the Costume Institute of the African Diaspora (CIAD) an organisation dedicated to researching the history and culture of dress and adornment from the African Diaspora.
As an academic, she has travelled extensively establishing links with researchers, custodians and practitioners across the globe and been invited to speak and show work at international events such as Bogotá Fashion Week in Colombia and transforming Spaces Art Festival in the Bahamas. As a curator Teleica curated Tartan: Its Journey through the African Diaspora; CIAD’s first major project, in August 2014 and in May 2018, chaired CIAD’s first International dress conference entitled Si Wi Yah: Sartorial Representations of the African Diaspora. Her PhD focuses on post-war Caribbean women of the Windrush Generation and how they used their clothing as signifiers of respect and dignity.
Miranda Armstrong is an ESRC-funded PhD candidate in sociology and a black Londoner of African-Trinidadian heritage. Her research examines experiences of parenting and emergent manhood among black single mother-son pairs. An associate lecturer, she has enjoyed teaching sociology and criminology undergraduates. Previously Miranda studied Social Research Methods at the LSE and sociology at the University of Surrey. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, having completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching. Miranda has given invited talks at conferences and public events, has been interviewed on the Tell Dem Podcast and Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, and her work has been published in Discover Society and Media Diversified. In her free time, she collects vintage dresses and skirts, enjoys movies and plays as well as long walks in green spaces.
Edwina Peart is a part time, Doctoral Researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London. Of African Caribbean heritage, her academic background started in sociology, continued in Education and International Development and is currently in the department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies. This has facilitated a wide and varied project management, training and research career clustered in the field of equality and justice and spanning local, national and international contexts. Her current post is with The Society of Friends (Quakers) supporting and coordinating their work on diversity and inclusion.
Her research uses the work of reggae artist, Gregory Isaacs, to examine musical communication prioritising the perspectives of listeners. It explores how and in what ways this creative form functions as a means of making sense of the world and our position within it, as well as acting upon it. Embedded in the interrogation of culture and identity, it incorporates the theme of diaspora as created and expressed through a reggae aesthetic. Her multidisciplinary approach relates to the lived experience of musical appreciation, encompassing the post-colonial relations of Jamaica alongside social formations and inequalities in the UK. It engages with the consumptive gaze initiated under slavery and audible in the export of musical culture.
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