The Thirst Symposium Day Two

Anita is an award-winning writer, journalist and author of 'I Belong Here: a Journey Along the Backbone of Britain' which won a Books Are My Bag Award and was nominated for the Wainwright Prize for UK Nature Writing, the Great Outdoors Award and Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize for writing evoking the spirit of a place. She has written columns, features and reviews for newspapers and magazines including the Guardian and Observer, Sunday Times, The i Paper, Independent, Telegraph, BBC Wildlife, Vogue, New Statesman, Granta, The Times Literary Supplement, among others. In broadcasting she has appeared as a presenter and panellist on several BBC radio programmes. She has been a Judge of the Women’s Prize, British Book Awards, Costa Book Awards, Orwell Prize and Society of Authors Awards among others. She has interviewed many high-profile writers, artists, musicians, and public figures. She has a doctorate exploring topics including writing, the medical humanities and environmental humanities.

Kirsteen McNish is a writer focused on unearthing lesser-heard stories and curating one-off events in unusual places.  She writes a column for online arts magazine Caught By The River and has contributed to both print and online publications, including The Quietus, Elliot & Thompson and Little Toller. Kirsteen has co-produced and featured on BBC Radio, Soho Radio and Resonance FM, and she regularly campaigns for inclusion within the arts.

Gaylene is a socially-engaged artist who affects social change through artistic projects that build communities of care. She is the Lead Artist of The Black Mary Project. 

Janice Li is a curator at Wellcome Collection, where she has led exhibitions including 'Thirst: In Search of Freshwater', 'The Cult of Beauty' and 'The Healing Pavilion'. Her practice bridges art, design, science and society, focusing on material culture, ecology and intersectionality. She has worked on exhibitions, collections and research projects internationally at the Victoria & Albert Museum, MoMu Antwerp, London Design Biennale and Milan Design Week. She teaches on the MA Design for Social Innovation & Sustainable Futures at the University of the Arts London and has lectured in the UK and the US including Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths and Columbia University.

Elif is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into 58 languages. The author of 20 books – 13 of which are novels – she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Elif’s novel '10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World' was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. 'The Island of Missing Trees' was a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her latest novel, 'There are Rivers in the Sky', won the Edward Stanford Award for Fiction. Elif holds a PhD in political science and is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature. She has been awarded the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2024, she was awarded the British Academy President's Medal for "her excellent body of work which demonstrates an incredible intercultural range". 

Feifei is a Chinese-born spatial and visual designer and founder of the studio TerriStories. Her work explores the spatial, cultural, and ecological impacts of industrialised built and natural environments through narrative-based spatial analysis and collaboration with social and natural scientists. She co-edited ‘Feral Atlas: The More-than-Human Anthropocene’ and co-authored ‘Field Guide to the Patchy Anthropocene: The New Nature’. Feifei has previously taught at Columbia GSAPP, Cornell AAP and Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

Jefree is a self-taught photographer and proud member of the Orang Seletar community from Kampung Sungai Temon, Johor Bahru. A fisherman by trade, his deep connection to the mangrove-enriched coast of the Johor Straits is both personal and professional. He began photographing in 2002 with a camera found by his younger brother, and over nearly two decades he's used his lens to document his community’s daily life, capturing moments of joy, resilience, and change. 

Karan is an artist based in Kathmandu, Nepal and Delhi, India. His artistic practice includes drawings, sculpture, photographs, films and texts that speak to the complex, entangled relations of Nepal’s recent history. Shrestha presents works that are an archive of the terrain, political histories and transient memories, and a speculative world that suspends reality, to question ideas of progress while tracing connections to the ecological, cultural and socio-economical dimensions of Nepali life. Shrestha has presented work in numerous regional and international institutions.

Hannah is a physical geographer, natural hazards researcher, climate scientist and hydrologist at the University of Reading, UK. She leads a wide programme of research on the development of early warning systems for natural hazards, particularly for floods, droughts and heatwaves. Hannah advises government, forecasting authorities and humanitarian agencies on national and international flooding incidents and forecasting science. She is currently a Fellow of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and has worked as a research partner for the EU’s Copernicus Emergency Management Service for Floods since 2003. Hannah was awarded the 2018 Plinius Medal of the European Geosciences Union and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2019 for services to flood forecasting and the development of hazard early warning systems.

Meridel is an artist whose work focuses on intersections of nature and culture in relationship to ecological and social imbalance. She has been a Professor of Photography, Art and Ecology. Meridel is currently an adjunct professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, after long residencies at Nanyang Technological University, Smith College and San Francisco State. Meridel is project director of the Eden in Iraq Wastewater Garden Project. Her monograph, 'Eden Turned on its Side', features artwork made in conjunction with the project.

Jassim is a prominent human rights defender, engineer and environmentalist. He is an expert on environmental issues, including water and the protection of marshes in Southern Iraq. Jassim is co-founder and head of Nature Iraq, an Iraqi NGO which works on defending the environment and is the in-country sponsor of the Eden in Iraq Wastewater Garden Project. Jassim was kidnapped in 2023 and subsequently published his book 'The Ghosts of Iraq’s Marshes: A History of Conflict, Tragedy, and Restoration'.

Christine Kandie is a peace ambassador and an Indigenous, disabled woman leader of the Endorois Indigenous Community of Kenya. She is a committed human rights defender, advocating for the rights of the Endorois community with a special focus on Indigenous women and persons with disabilities at local, traditional, regional and international levels. Christine was an Indigenous fellow in 2017 and served as a senior fellow at the Kenya country office in 2020. Her work centers on Endorois women’s land rights as the Director of the Endorois Indigenous Women Empowerment Network (EIWEN). She strongly supports the inclusion of women in community activities and the review of policy and legal framework implementation to ensure gender equity.

Bint researches the intersections of water and sound cultures in Palestine. She describes her practice as: "exploring Palestinian ways of inquiring and world-making that challenge colonial authority – particularly in relation to narratives of water scarcity, and Israeli settler colonialism." She employs the voice as a kind of tap, mirroring the water bodies embedded in collective histories: the voice marks time, speaks to the future, and helps form shared experiences.

Stephanie is a child of deaf parents, raised in a world of two languages, cultures and belonging. She is a sign language interpreter, senior practitioner, trainer and mentor. With a career spanning over 27 years, Stephanie has interpreted in a diverse range of settings, including the arts, theatre, media, festivals, mental health, legal and social care.

Sharan has worked as a Sign Language Interpreter for over 15 years, including 10 years with Wellcome Collection. Based in London, she takes a holistic approach to her work and enjoys bringing to life, through her interpretation, the experiences that Wellcome Collection offers for all to enjoy. NRCPD number: 1011797.