Opening Diva's 8 maart foto's door Françoise Bolechowski
17 October 2025

Imagine Peace: Archives of her in diaspora

The power of feminine statements


We listen to women’s voices in diaspora as they take on a new sound. Their archives – both old and new – take shape through creative writing and poetry. These voices may not always be heard loudly in the streets, but they resonate in the spaces they create themselves. It is about recognition, strength, and the rediscovery of origins. No voice should ever be lost.

This is a hybrid activity. Click on the ticket button, choose whether you want to participate online or offline.

Women's voices as an archive

The event Imagine Peace: Archives of her in diaspora is a women-focused program organized in collaboration with the Yemeni Women Archive. This gathering highlights the courage and strength of women’s voices emerging from the diaspora, migration, and emotional and geographical displacement in times of conflict. These voices bring color to the grey spaces in subtle ways, forming walls and pages of the city—across many countries, but especially in Yemen. 

Globally, we focus on women who translate their experiences into words and images on paper, revealing the power of women’s stories. Despite oppression, forced migration, intimidation, and silence, a collective creative space has emerged—a space of resistance, hope, and self-expression.
The event invites writers, poets, and thinkers from home and abroad to share how creative writing—from poetry to prose—has become a channel for expressing the unspeakable.

Practical information

  • Location: Wereldmuseum Rotterdam
  • Time: 13:30 - 17:00 PM
  • For: womxn
     

The Wereldmuseum as an archive

We will also present archival materials from the World Museum and from women locally and globally, including Yemen. The program explores how women shape stories amid displacement and struggle, and how poetry and storytelling can both break and build walls, with special attention to the work of Saba Hamzah.

This raises the question: what does it mean to archive this collective memory? How do we engage with and build upon old and new archival material? And can archiving also be a form of homemaking? By presenting a living archive, we engage with the past, present, and future.

The sunbeams of Wisdom struck the soil, so that earth might receive seed. The soil is faithful to its trust. - Rumi

Sprekers

We hebben meerdere sprekers uitgenodigd om vanuit verschillende invalshoeken te horen. Lees hieronder meer over hen.

Saba Hamzah

More information will be online soon.

Marieke van Bommel

Marieke van Bommel is a passionate museum director and cultural strategist who is helping to reshape the role of museums in the 21st century. Having held key positions at the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam and the MAS in Antwerp, she now leads Wereldmuseum — with locations in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden, and Nijmegen — where she is committed to inclusion, global citizenship, and the decolonization of collections. Her mission is to challenge Western norms, contribute to redressing historical injustices, and transform museums into spaces of justice and reflection. She sees collections not as possessions, but as responsibilities. For Marieke, museum work is not about projects, but about relationships. She asks fundamental questions: What do we preserve, why, and who gets to decide?    

Marieke van Bommel © Mark Uyl - 5
© Mark Uyl 

Sarah Johnson

Sarah Johnson is a museum curator specializing in the art and culture of West Asia and North Africa. At Wereldmuseum, she focuses on making collections from the region accessible in innovative ways and on expanding the museum’s engagement with modern and contemporary art. She earned her PhD in modern art from Iraq at the Freie Universität in Berlin and previously held curatorial roles at the British Museum in London and the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. Sarah is passionate about the role objects and museums can play in fostering connections between people and culture in an increasingly digital world.  

Sarah Johnson

Sahar Shirzad

More information will be online soon.

Fatima Saleh

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Wethouder Abigail Norville

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Amat Alaleem Alsoswa

More information will be online soon.