Article
Şirin Sidar is a Kurdish student from Germany, cultural mediator, and activist whose work invites communities to see their surroundings with new eyes. Through workshops and as a livespeaker for “OVERLOOKED/OVERSEAS: Postcolonial Investigation in Duisburg,” she creates conversations about colonial footprints hidden in plain sight in street names and cultural institutions of her industrial hometown. Her IBIM qualification equips her to provide counseling on Turkish right-wing extremism, addressing the overlooked threat of Grey Wolves. With the NDC, she facilitates workshops on democracy, anti-racism, and classism that foster critical thinking. Drawing from the writings of Frantz Fanon, James Baldwin, and bell hooks, Şirin brings theory into practice through her multilingual mediation work supporting migrant rights. She believes that lasting change requires creating platforms where communities that have been marginalized can define their own narratives guiding her work across intersecting movements for anti-racism, intersectional feminism and dismantling systems of domination.