Alma Kaiser
Writer
-
Cologne (Germany)
Alma Kaiser’s research and artistic interests are power structures, inequality and a decolonial future.
As the daughter of a sculptor and a special needs teacher, an artistic perspective as well as a critical view of the hierarchical construction of human difference have always been present in her life. She grew up in Cologne and moved to Brazil, her grandmother’s home country, for a year at the age of 16. This was where she developed a critical approach to her being white and German and to the socio-economic legacies of colonialism, as well as to her own role within a decolonial and anti-racist transformation.
She studied anthropology and linguistics at the University of Leipzig, with a period of study spent at the Université Nanterre. After her work experience in the field of cultural and educational cooperation at the Goethe-Institut Rio de Janeiro, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Paris and at the UNESCO headquarters, she narrowed her focus with a master’s degree in Inequalities and Social Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
She perceives writing and dance as practices of decolonial (un)learning, which allow her to engage in dialogue without speaking and to listen without being silent. Her central inspiration stems from the work of Paulo Freire, Lélia Gonzalez, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Grada Kilomba, Audre Lorde and Djamila Ribeiro.
As the daughter of a sculptor and a special needs teacher, an artistic perspective as well as a critical view of the hierarchical construction of human difference have always been present in her life. She grew up in Cologne and moved to Brazil, her grandmother’s home country, for a year at the age of 16. This was where she developed a critical approach to her being white and German and to the socio-economic legacies of colonialism, as well as to her own role within a decolonial and anti-racist transformation.
She studied anthropology and linguistics at the University of Leipzig, with a period of study spent at the Université Nanterre. After her work experience in the field of cultural and educational cooperation at the Goethe-Institut Rio de Janeiro, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Paris and at the UNESCO headquarters, she narrowed her focus with a master’s degree in Inequalities and Social Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
She perceives writing and dance as practices of decolonial (un)learning, which allow her to engage in dialogue without speaking and to listen without being silent. Her central inspiration stems from the work of Paulo Freire, Lélia Gonzalez, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Grada Kilomba, Audre Lorde and Djamila Ribeiro.