The fellowship expanded my horizon of what museums can be and do
NEO Lab fellows Azam Masoumzadeh & Benjamin Berry in conversation with journalist and filmmaker Wana Udobang. This is part 1 of a 5 part series.
Visual artist Azam and musician Ben take the concept of “Friendship” as their point of departure into NEO Collections. From the Persian carpets to the Beatles in Liverpool.
In this conversation they look at the intersection of friendship, history, and place-making as points of connection and experience in storytelling. They talk about intellectual shame and the intimidating nature of museum culture and how our approach to storytelling can reshape those feelings for the audience.
See their full conversation here
Benjamin Berry is a composer, music producer and content creator from UK. He has worked with organisations such as Universal Music, Deutsche Grammophon, Yahoo!, AAT and SonyBMG. He produced music for artists including Max Richter, Kylie Minogue and Ellie Goulding as well as for international brands and tv shows. For professional bodies, government and third sector organisations he was working on research, content and campaigns that covered issues such as social mobility, adult education and the gender gap.
Born in Isfahan (Iran), Azam Mazoumzadeh is an award-winning storyteller. She has a background in speculative narration (L’ERG, Belgium) and is trained as a comic artist (LUCA — School of Arts, Belgium) and digital storyteller (KASK, Belgium). Her work has been shown in South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Canada and Belgium. In 2020, her virtual reality project based on the poetry of Omar Khayyam — Glad that I came, not sorry to depart, received a Special Mention at Anima Festival. Currently she is doing a residency in Belgium, working with Fonds Soziokultur in Germany and developing her future virtual reality project.
Wana Udobang is a storyteller whose work exists in writing, poetry, performance, filmmaking and curatorial projects.
This is part 1 of a 5 part series of conversations between Wana Udobang and fellows of the first NEO Collections Online Fellowship at MK&G Hamburg. Click here for the next conversation.
NEO Collections is funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Funded by The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
