an [ im ] material space rooted in wanakaera functioning as an artistic and cultural research lab engaging togetherness and experimental pedagogy
We aim to collectively form and ensure the sustainability of the material and immaterial heritage of socially and culturally engaged thinkers, researchers and artists through embracing a confluence of a multitude of knowledge systems. Occupying the dual function as an educator and a learner, Nianiba manifests itself as a tangible and immaterial space that creates liberal-experimental and creative learning experiences, offering to individuals a diverse array of possibilities to explore their individuality through the collective .
Nianiba takes its name from the city Nianiba, it was once the capital of the Kingdom of Mali, where Sondjata Keyta was the emperor.
Adama Keïta
( she / her ) Founder and Curator of Programs
Adama Keïta is an Indo-Guadeloupean, Martinican and Senegalese curator, writer, program maker, educator, experimental movie maker and researcher raised in Wanakaera. She graduated from a Master's degree in Critical Studies at Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Her thesis approaches Martinican creole , or Palé Matinitjé, as a multi-layered practice that creates tools for liberation, enabling spatial re-appropriation, reclaiming Afro-Martinican presence, and emphasizing cultural representation. In her thesis, Martinican creole is explored as a tool for resistance in correlation with the concept of linguistic cannibalism within musico-choreographic practices such as bèlè.
Since April 2024, Adama Keïta has been a guest teacher at the Fine Art School of Paris, and more specifically for Julien Creuzet’s students. Since 2025 she’s part of the international committee of the Black Civilization Museum in Dakar ( Sénégal ) upon the invitation of Amzat Boukari-Yabara.
Keïta’s work is mostly informed by Caribbean and African thinking, Afrocentric ideologies and non-westerns forms of pedagogy . She draws her curatorial practice; which blends research,historical phenomena with contemporary art; as a way to (re)claim black presence and narratives in (pre) modernity. From a curatorial spectrum, she specializes in sound, architecture, sculpture, time-based art, educational spaces and performance art. Also, when it comes to writing, her practice is at the intersections of surrealism and responsiveness. Her published writings include texts, monography and essays for : Johanna Mirabel, Minia Biabiany, Mehdi Gorbuz, FRAC Auvergne, Imane Farès Gallery, Bakwa Magazines (...) . She’s been Awarded for her various research-projects by Het Cultuur Fonds, Bekker La Bastide and AFK Amsterdam.
( she / her ) Founder and Curator of Programs
Adama Keïta is an Indo-Guadeloupean, Martinican and Senegalese curator, writer, program maker, educator, experimental movie maker and researcher raised in Wanakaera. She graduated from a Master's degree in Critical Studies at Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Her thesis approaches Martinican creole , or Palé Matinitjé, as a multi-layered practice that creates tools for liberation, enabling spatial re-appropriation, reclaiming Afro-Martinican presence, and emphasizing cultural representation. In her thesis, Martinican creole is explored as a tool for resistance in correlation with the concept of linguistic cannibalism within musico-choreographic practices such as bèlè.
Since April 2024, Adama Keïta has been a guest teacher at the Fine Art School of Paris, and more specifically for Julien Creuzet’s students. Since 2025 she’s part of the international committee of the Black Civilization Museum in Dakar ( Sénégal ) upon the invitation of Amzat Boukari-Yabara.
Keïta’s work is mostly informed by Caribbean and African thinking, Afrocentric ideologies and non-westerns forms of pedagogy . She draws her curatorial practice; which blends research,historical phenomena with contemporary art; as a way to (re)claim black presence and narratives in (pre) modernity. From a curatorial spectrum, she specializes in sound, architecture, sculpture, time-based art, educational spaces and performance art. Also, when it comes to writing, her practice is at the intersections of surrealism and responsiveness. Her published writings include texts, monography and essays for : Johanna Mirabel, Minia Biabiany, Mehdi Gorbuz, FRAC Auvergne, Imane Farès Gallery, Bakwa Magazines (...) . She’s been Awarded for her various research-projects by Het Cultuur Fonds, Bekker La Bastide and AFK Amsterdam.
Henrique J. Paris
( he / him ) Curator of Programs and Spatial Practices
( he / him ) Curator of Programs and Spatial Practices
Henrique J. Paris is an Angolan artist-researcher, graduated in Philosophy and currently completing a postgraduate degree in Architecture at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London. His artistic practice dissects philosophical, scenographic, and architectural frameworks, examining enacted modes of power, moral codes, anticolonial praxis and Christian discipleship. J. Paris has explored these themes through image-making, multimedia installations, sound-oriented performance and cultural production; as tools of contestation, re-memory, and testimony.
His ongoing research delves into choreographies of knowledge (re)production, and since his 2019 solo exhibition Home Is Where The Body Isn’t. he has focused on historiographic practices, evolving semantics of belonging and reinstitution.
Previous projects include Proyecto de Movilidad Panamá-Angola-Portugal with the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) Panama, Álbuns de Família at the Padrão dos Descobrimentos in Lisbon, Body as Testimony with Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts), Field Notes with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and Family Lines with the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin.
( she / they ) Programs Coordinator and Liaison
Noëlle Maltet is a Martinican and Swiss student/researcher based in Switzerland, they completed a degree in Art History and Media Studies; with a focus on the Black Atlantic and anticolonial practices. They’re interested in (re)grasping of meanings through poetic transgressions (perceiving both the material and what transcends it), entanglements of the world, and the creation of spaces for empathy within them. They go to the forest often and are beginning to try at sustainable vegetable and fruit growing and harvesting.
With Fabienne Schoch and Jérôme Spira as collective '<3' Noëlle is organizing performances related to sound, understanding sound and listening practices as tools to be together and work against systemic oppression, primarily working with those who are structurally discriminated against and for grounding their voices.
Recently, they have been engaged in organizing the screening of Alain Kassanda's film Coconut Head Generation with Jérôme Spira as 'adozenroses', in the presence of Kassanda, followed by a discussion in Basel; where they plan to continue with further film screenings and discussions.
( she/her) Digital Archivist and Researcher
Deanna Nelson-Mckie is a Jamaican researcher, multidisciplinary artist and creator of Visions of Blackness - earning a degree in Textile Design from Central Saint Martins. Deanna’s focus within her research and artistic work is in pursuing the history of the black diaspora - specifically the history of the Caribbean. As well as the rarer global history, connections, ancient practices of the black diaspora as well as black diasporic / scholar theory.
Visions of Blackness is an archival site showcasing multiple resources and archives of black subject matters such as: African and Caribbean history, black art, African and Caribbean language, black presence in Europe as well as essays, pdf books, physical packages, research services and more.
( she/her ) Programs coordinator and Researcher
Amouraé Alliyah B. Chin is a Caribbean multidisciplinary researcher whose methods privilege care, collaborations, site-specificity, and research-as-practice. With a background in history with creative writing, she interprets the threads, ruptures, and remains of spaces that speak to her diasporic heritage, while tending to archives through informal 'mapping' techniques.
Amouraé's archival work and poetry was showcased in
‘The London Archives' year-long Unforgotten Lives exhibition (2023-24); whilst her arts-based research has featured in displays at MAIA (2024), the Institute of Contemporary Arts (2025), and Architecture Fringe (2025). She was the Guest Curator of International Slavery Remembrance Day 2025 at Royal Museums Greenwich.
( he/him ) Main Programs coordinator and Liaison
Kenny Cairo (1996, Guadeloupe) is a multimedia artist and cultural worker based between Guadeloupe and Paris. His master’s research, completed in 2022 at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales explored the intersections of human relations, recording practices, and the experience of landscape. Through multimedia performances, installations, and writing, he investigates how individuals connect with one another — through friendship, international solidarities, and acts of mutual support — as well as how they relate to their environments and to the objects that inhabit them.
His recent work focusing on the Caribbean region addresses experiences of natural hazards and examines how local communities respond to emergency situations. Through collaborations with Coco Fusco, Contemporary & magazine, the Caribbean digital library Manioc.org, and the Université des Antilles, his practice extends to colonial archives and research-based practices.
In 2024, he joined La Relève, a professional development program by the French Ministry of Culture. The same year, he took part in the on~des program at the Cité internationale des arts, participating in the group exhibition 60 Years from Now: Relaying. He is a member of the Réseau Indépendant des Travailleur·euses et Acteur·ices des Arts Visuels – Guadeloupe (RITAA). As an electronic composer, his work has been broadcast at the Opéra national de Paris, the Jean Rouch International Film Festival, and the Marguerite Duras Media Library.
© Nianiba, 2025
website by Denise Santos