Wider Perspectives

Leana Boven (b. 1993, Paramaribo) is a curator, programme maker, writer, and researcher with a background in gender- and postcolonial theory. Her work centers on counterculture, diasporic connectedness and the feeling of belonging, spatial justice, ecology and decolonial climate justice, and collective care. Leana curated her first exhibition, On Collective Care & Togetherness, at MAMA in Rotterdam in 2020, and has since organized multiple exhibitions and programs. She worked as a curator at Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons for several years, and currently works as a curator at Stroom Den Haag, where she curated the exhibitions Positions: Soft Intimacies (2024) and Beloved Waters (2025). She is also a curator at Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam, where, together with Yusser al Obaidi, she organized the exhibition series Spiritual Disobedience (2025) and Love, Labour, Liberate (2024). Leana has taught at the Willem de Kooning Academy in the Social Practice department and is currently a tutor in Social Design at the Design Academy Eindhoven. In addition to her teaching, Leana regularly writes for platforms such as Metropolis M and is a board member at No Limits! Art Castle.

Alexandre Furtado Melville (1988) is a writer, artist, art director and entrepreneur. His current roles include partner and business director at Concrete Blossom, committee member visual arts for the city of The Hague, creative director and founder of Furtado Melville. In his work, Furtado Melville is driven by the invisible, the unexpected. The economic, social, and political realities play an important part in his practice. Common sense is his philosophy. He is currently working on his first book, an autofiction on Europe through the eyes of the black African migrant.