Jessica Zïada Korp

Curator | Systemic Consultant | Educator

Selamta
ሰላምታ

Cover Photo by Florestan Korp (2022)

Welcome to this space.I work towards
anti-fascist
anti-violence
anti-racist and
pro-creative futures.

About

Zïada is a dream oracle, independent curator, educator, and systemic consultant working at the intersection of ancestral memory, sound, data, and liberatory technology. Raised between post-Marxist Ethiopia and Europe, she draws on a bi-racial, diasporic lineage to explore how dreams, sound, and speculative practices can interrupt extractive systems and open space for collective healing.
With a background in project management, data analysis, and DJing, Zïada’s work spans from activating civil society networks to facilitating dream-based workshops and sonic rituals. She’s held leadership roles—including at the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung—and continues to explore how tools like AI and data can be reclaimed as part of decolonial and transformative justice frameworks. Her commitment lies in building accessible, accountable spaces where deep listening, ecological awareness, and creative integrity guide the way.Zïada currently offers 1:1 dream sessions, writes a Substack on AI, dreamwork, and liberation, and co-creates the interactive audio series dream state(s)—a collaborative exploration of dreaming as a political, ancestral, and speculative technology.

Bio

Curatorial Work
08/2022 Curator of Instant Compositions Kunstbrücke am Wildenbruch, Berlin
08/2021 Curator of Talk Series "Breathing Underwater: The Politics of Water & Migration" at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin
07/2020 - 09/2020 Resident Anthropolgist at Tropez, Humboldthain
04/2020-07/2022 Curator & Researcher with Activistar Film Collective
04/2019-10/2019 Curator "Meshwork of Things - The Collection of the Humboldt University" Tieranatomisches Theater, Humboldt University, Helmholz Center for Culture Technology
03/2018-07/2018 Sound Researcher and Performer "Future Sounds" Ballhaus Naunynstraße
011/2016 - 03/2020 Curatorial Assistant at Tieranatomisches Theater ==Humboldt-Universität ==Professional Experience
01/10/22-01/04/23 Guest Lecturer & Consultant for Critical Museumtheory at HTW Berlin University Of Applied Sciences, Berlin
Since 01/2022 Project Management for Virtual Decolonial City Tour at Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung (BpB), Berlin
05/2021-07/2022 Mentor & Project Manager "Breakthrough * Zeyo" at Martin-Roth-Initative
06/2020-11/2021 Organiser & Curator at Out of Time Embassy (OOTE)Lectures, Workshops, Panels
12/2022 Lecturer "Intersectionality and Queerfeminism in Projektmanagement" at Mediadesign Hochschule für Design und Informatik (MD.H)**
09/2022Panelist "FLINTA* Music Makers: On decolonising the climate Movement & club culture" atClubtopia
07/2022** Facilitator "A World without Isms" Empowerment WS for BIPoC at Fusion Festival
09/2022** Panelist "FLINTA* Music Makers: On decolonising the climate Movement & club culture Fusion Festival
07/2022 Facilitator "From Purpose to Practice - Wayfinding in Late Capitalism" at AfroDiaspora 2.0.
05/2022 Panelist "Us too? About Germany's selective welcome culture" at Oyoun
04/2021 Panelist " THE BODY IS: A MAP, A CAGE, A KEY: Embodied practice as research
methodologies" at Embodied Temporalities Festival, Berlin
04/2021 Moderator & Facilitator " Taking Root in the Flesh: Dialogical Exploration and Performance" at Embodied Temporalities Festival, Berlin
03/2021 Facilitator "Transformative Community Care" at BIWOC Rising, Berlin
10/2022 Lecturer "Globalisation & Migration in Midwifery" at Evangelische Hochschule Berlin(EHB)**
04/2019** Lecturer "Transversales Kuratieren" at Humbdoldt Universität zu BerlinEducation
11/2021 - 09/2022 Systemic Transformation ConsultingTransformationsakademie, Berlin
08/2022 A Practical Guide to CuratingNode Center for Curatorial Studies, Berlin
08/2021 Decolonizing Curatorial and Artistic PracticesNode Center for Curatorial Studies, Berlin
2012 - 2015 BA Social & Cultural Studies Goldsmiths, University of London
2009 - 2012 Media & Graphic Design Heinrich-Hertz College, Bonn
1996 - 2007 Primary and Higher Education Deutsche Botschaftsschule Addis Abeba

dream state(s)

dream state(s) is a sonic-meditative practice, exploring dreaming as a political and liberatory practice in collaboration between Gugulethu "dumama" Duma and Ziada. Rooted in sonic ritual, ancestral re-membering, and collective imagination, it gathers conversations with artists, healers, and visionaries who turn to dreams as tools for navigating collapse, remembering worlds beyond the archive, and enacting repair. The project exists in many forms: as an IRL & URL research framework, an archive of practices, and a woven soundscape of visionary futures carrying the potential to liberate and remember. For more details, visit our website hereThis project is funded by Weltoffenes Berlin and supported by Sorora e.V and SAVVY Contemporary.

Phoenix Dreams: Foundations on dreaming and liberation

Phoenix Dreams is a four-part workshop series that explores the intersection of dreaming, community, and liberation. Through a blend of historical insights, cultural practices, and practical dreamwork techniques, participants will reconnect with the profound wisdom of their dreams and discover how they can inspire healing, growth, and social change.Each session is designed to guide participants on a journey from understanding the foundations of dreaming to creating actionable steps for liberation—both within and beyond the dream world.

ni de aqui, ni de alla | Refuge Worldwide | jess2empress & kimbwazo

A wonderfully energetic exploration between kimbwazo and myself. We've been DJ buddies for a while and then we wanted to share some of our thoughts and reflections on the matter of heritage, identity, music as mixed-race/black artists.Hosted by the wonderfully accommodating Refuge Worldwide.

SAVVYZΛΛR x Radio Alhara universe

Our ears will be tuned to the horn of Africa, to its lamentation and geo-political contradictions. The show is dedicated to songs of resistance and protest, mapping the anti-colonial and opening up new transnational future imaginaries. For long, Ethiopia has held a singular position in the Pan-African and anti-colonial imagination world wide, inspiring the Black Panthers, Rastafarian spirituality and various liberation movements across the globe. This translated in black and anti-colonial solidarity in various parts of the world. The stories from within the region itself however remain largely unheard. In light of agro-ecological and socio-political challenges, international solidarity with the struggle around land rights, self-organised anti-imperial struggles for self-determination needs to be meditated on and the questions of what building active networks of solidarity can sound like, addressed.Tune in with your whole being.

RE: GUESTLIST WEDDING PROCESSION (2023)

“Re: Guestlist Wedding Procession” is a critical examination of a major work of Berlin Art Nouveau porcelain and explores current questions about the decolonization of museums, with the so-called “Wedding Procession” as an example. The project focuses on the “Wedding Procession”, a multi-figure porcelain centerpiece designed by sculptor Adolf Amberg in 1904 and sculpted at the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin (KPM). The design is associated with the wedding of the last German Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia and Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Arts-and-crafts objects are rarely associated with the colonial perception at the time of their creation at a first glance. Detached from its holistic composition, individual figures of the wedding procession are viewed critically in terms of discrimination, and stereotypical modes of representation are questioned and examined. A video work created especially for the project deals with the ambivalent object. Over the course of two semesters, eleven students from the HTW’s master’s program in museum management and communication dealt with current issues of discrimination-critical curating and the multi-layered question “To show or not to show?”

Future Party Lab 2022

What about FLINTA* in the club and climate scene and what can they learn from each other? That was the topic of a panel discussion in the second half of the evening. Moderated by DJ Alma Linda,DJ Jess2empress, Lilia van Beukering from the mentoring program FemmeBassMafia and Luisa Brühne from BUNDjugend Berlin talked about the challenges of women, lesbians, inter, non-binary, trans and a-gender people in club culture and in the climate movement. The discussants agreed that FLINTA* usually do not get the same attention and respect as male fellow activists or colleagues. To address this, Lilia von Beukering created a special mentoring program to train FLINTA* as DJs for six months. Jess2empress stressed the importance of not exploiting oneself and negotiating good terms when getting assignments.Sustainability, in this sense, was also referred to by the panelists as being self-caring. Everyone agreed that it was exhausting to have to do gender education work in conversations, but that it was equally necessary in order to break through prejudices and establish new narratives.

Instant Compositions (2022)

Instant Compositions is an invitation to a two-hour musical expression of QT*BIPoC grief and joy, connectedness through immediate and collective composition. Meditation, electronics and improvisation in the middle of the threshold.For this format, six queer BIPoC artists come together for the first time in a somatic movement workshop led by MINQ. After a one-hour sound improvisation, we invited queer and BIPoC musicians, artists, and performers to join the session with instruments, poems, dance, and sound to participate in the second hour of instant compositionCurator: Jessica Korp
Production: Sailesh Naidu & Mel
Artists: David, Minq, Mahtab, Trang, Samad, Adelle, DylanFunded by Kultur Neukölln

Breathing underwater Vol.1 & Vol.2

State(s) Capture(d) Mixtapes (2021)

State(s) Capture(d) Mixtapes is a practice in threading narratives of resistance through South African and Ethiopian perspectives, exploring music from the 1960’s and beyond. Together, the hosts unfold the sonic memories stored in their bodies; excavating music from their respective home countries, as well as the comprehensive, disparate worlds of music evolving. State(s) Capture(d) Mixtapes connect with the whispers, murmurs and funk hidden in the crevices of social movement and the music commemorating pivotal moments in the political, personal and beyond. State(s) Capture(d) Mixtapes is a 6-part radio/podcast show presented by Gugulethu “Dumama” Duma and Jessica Korp and guest speakers from their communities, to be streamed on all streaming platforms.Funded by Goethe Institut Virtual Residency

Collective Practices (2021)

In this show of Minority Report, I chat to my friend Fetewei about what it means to grow up in a society that is traumatized from the outset and it seems to repeat what it has done time and again to expect and find a different outcome. I will have some parting words at the end as to what is happening in the country and explain that inevitable outcome that is Ethiopia.

Ancestral Body Noise (2020)

Breathing Underwater (2020)
Unterwasser Atmen (2020)

The Meshwork of Things - Collection Showcase at the Tieranatomisches Theater (2019)

"The Meshwork of Things - Collection Showcase at the Tieranatomisches Theater" presents diverse perspectives on the scientific collections of Humboldt-Universität. Based on the themes of "use," "origin," "diversity," and "region," visitors can explore a variety of information and connections between the objects. The "Wunderkammer des 21. Jahrhunderts" (Chamber of Wonders of the 21st Century) has lighting that can be individually controlled for each exhibit, making the tour through the exhibition that visitors take via app visible in real time.The virtual tours convey collection practices and forms of use ("practicing", "comparative seeing") and build bridges between scientific disciplines. They create new perspectives on highly topical social issues such as migration. The spectrum of the tours is continuously expanded by further topics, which, for example, make visible contemporary historical classifications ("collected in the GDR",) gender-specific issues ("collecting is a women's matter") and object genres ("models"). Familiar objects and famous people appear as well as the less known and surprising.The objects and thematic foci are regularly exchanged, so that the weaving of things always produces new themes and connections.Curated by Felix Sattler, Sarah Becker and Jessica Korp.
Idea and concept by Felix Sattler and Dr. Jochen Hennig.

FUTURE SOUNDS (2019)

What would tomorrow’s city sound like if the young Black women* and women* of color living in it were in charge today? What are the still hidden practices, (her)stories and skills that would set the tone? These are the questions raised by the participants of the project FUTURE SOUNDS by akademie der autodidakten, directed by activist and sound art expert Shanti Suki Osman.Shanti teaches the practice of listening, provides examples of sound art, and introduces the group to sound modulation. The group members exchange stories of everyday life, visit places in the city, make sound recordings and wonder what the future city of Berlin should sound like. Which voices need to be heard more? And who needs to finally listen?!Here the protagonists of this city are young Black women* and women* of color. They build and narrate their future as they want it to be. They listen to each other and share their knowledge of a harmonious coexistence, self-care, and the power of feminist solidarity. But they also hear the conflicts and contradictions of the everyday and seek to overcome these dysfunctions. Strategies are mutual support and collaboratively finding ways to address everyone’s concerns.With this objective they take ownership of sound as an artistic, feminist and activist resource. They add sound to their narratives of the future city. Empowering stories and strategies have their say, have their sound. In June 2019 they will present their performative sound installation to the audience at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, giving them a foretaste of tomorrow’s auditory experience.Director: Shanti Suki OsmanAssistant director: Chiara Elisa RossiniSound postproduction support: Isabel Gonzalez ToroInterior design: Michaela MuchinaDramaturgy: Dafne Narvaez BerlfeinCreated by and featuring: Amaralina Schmidt, Jennifer Lotsi, Jessica Korp, Miriam Chebaibai Koch, Pegah Tanha