Sharing Stories: Food and the Future of Togetherness

Dr. Meryem Choukri (b. 1991) works as a curator for diversity at the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg. She completed a joint doctorate at the University of Warwick and Justus Liebig University Giessen and is a member of the bildungs-Lab. Her work bridges the fields of memory work, academic research, and political education, focusing on racism, feminism, intersectionality, cultures of remembrance, and colonialism. Meryem also works as a freelance educator, speaker, and moderator, and is a co-founder of the Bündnis Komplizinnen alongside Thu Hoài Tran and Miriam Yosef. In 2023, she co-edited the anthology Biting Back: Food, Diaspora, Resistance (Unrast) with Fallon T. Cabral.

Photo by Naėmi Eckert

Natali Bhalchandra Abhyankar (she/her) is a bookseller, moderator, performer, educator, author, and musician currently based in Hamburg. For decades, she has co-organized grassroots community and cultural events within queer and BIPoC-centered spaces.

Her work is consistently driven by the goal of creating and sustaining structures that are empowering, relevant, and future-oriented for queer people and BIPoCs—while simultaneously acknowledging and learning from those who fought before us.

Phot: Dico Baskoro

Sümeyye Bozukluhan (she/her) is a co-founder and board member of MOSAIQ e.V.

MOSAIQ e.V. operates from a perspective that critically examines racism and power dynamics. Our work focuses on issues such as anti-Muslim racism and anti-Black racism, as well as how these intersect with other forms of discrimination and exclusionary practices. Strategies and processes for fostering democracy are also central to our mission. Through various programs, we create spaces where people can raise questions, envision alternatives, develop new ideas, and express themselves artistically.

The Climate Biennale Vienna is a transdisciplinary, decentralized art festival in Vienna that harnesses the power of art to drive a paradigm shift toward a livable future. Through exhibitions, public space interventions, and the festival program, the Climate Biennale Vienna brings together contemporary perspectives from the fields of international art, design, architecture, and science—perspectives that point the way toward socially and ecologically just global relationships.

Cultural education plays a central role in this endeavor: only those given the opportunity to engage creatively with the climate crisis can see themselves as active participants in shaping a shared future. In the spring, the Climate Biennale Vienna and its partners opened up precisely this kind of access for children and young people through KLIMASTRÖME "Playing Food"—an international collaborative project involving Hamburg and Brussels. Working alongside artists and scientists, the participants developed their own artistic projects centered on "Future Food," thereby actively helping to shape how we will share, grow, and consume food in the future.

Head of Art Mediation & Outreach, Klima Biennale Wien 2026

Ahmad Darkhabani curated the mediation program for the Klima Biennale Wien 2026 and is representing the festival in Hamburg this weekend. Together with Sithara Pathirana, he co-managed the collaborative project KLIMASTRÖME in Vienna. He lives and works in Vienna as an art educator with a background in architecture and contemporary art.

The ESD Master Plan aims to connect education stakeholders who are committed to social and political change and eager to shape a socially and environmentally just future. It does so across various fields, ranging from cultural education and environmental education to democracy education and decolonial education.

We want to facilitate connections: in person through networking and meetup events, and digitally on the new Fast Forward Future platform: www.fast-forward-future.de.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) provides the conceptual foundation for this: it combines knowledge, responsibility, and collective action.

Michael Liebert works with the Hamburg Master Plan ESD Coordination Office and the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation, advising—among others—stakeholders whose (educational) work fosters a sustainable world, whether on a large or small scale. He presents a platform for networking that extends beyond the event itself.