Discursive panel by ITI-Shaping Crossroads 2025/26 fellows: Lilian Hipolyte (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), Wabwire Joseph Ian (Kampala Uganda), Thobile Maphanga (Durban, South Africa)
Facilitated/Moderated by Beatrice Waruinge (Nairobi Kenya)
Beatrice Waruinge (Nairobi Kenya), is a humanitarian and human rights proponent committed to Pan-African ideals and refugee welfare. With a background in community development and international relations, she previously supported refugee case management and human rights advocacy at Amnesty International Kenya. As Operations Coordinator of the Under Our Skin International Film Festival on Human Rights, she uses film to drive dialogue on social justice. Currently serving as Programme Officer at Selam through Connect for Culture Africa, she champions sustainable public funding for Africa’s Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs). Waruinge believes that Cultural Creative Industries (CCIs) are key to driving social transformation, economic inclusion, and community resilience across the continent.
Lilian Hipolyte (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), is a seasoned Creative Director, Brand Strategist, Curator, and Service Designer with over 15 years of experience in design, culture, arts, advertising, and product innovation across East Africa and the UK. Originally trained as a painter-sculptor, her creative path evolved into user experience and product design, leading to roles as a global design director, project manager, and mentor to young creatives. She has worked in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, and the UK, and currently serves as Director of Nafasi Art Space. Hipolyte’s practice is grounded in the intersection of art and design, with a passion for the power of creativity to influence health, culture, community, and business. She builds purpose-driven brands and services that foster sustainability in the creative and cultural industries, with expertise in digital transformation, governance, and institutional development.
Wabwire Joseph Ian (Kampala, Uganda) is a cultural innovator and creative producer based in Kampala who harnesses the power of arts to drive civic engagement, social transformation, and intercultural dialogue across Africa. Through strategic leadership at KQ Hub Africa and co-founding the Culture & Art Community Impact Fund Africa (CACIFA), he has pioneered initiatives that redefine narratives, connect communities, and amplify marginalised voices. His work centres on leveraging artistic expression as a tool for change—curating workshops, exhibitions, festivals, multimedia projects, and cross-border exchanges that foster mobility for African artists and challenge dominant narratives. These initiatives are geared towards bridging divides, promoting peacebuilding, and reimagining Africa’s creative future through collaboration. Wabwire is an activist for new cultural frameworks, ethical funding, artistic mobility, and transnational co-creation, ensuring Africa’s creative voices shape global discourse
Thobile Maphanga is a South African dance practitioner, writer, and creative collaborator dedicated to fostering holistic well-being through the arts. With a focus on social change, she champions festivals as vital spaces for public dialogue, knowledge sharing, and peer-to-peer learning. She serves as the Project Manager and Assistant Curator for the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience and is the co-convener of the African Festivals Network. Her international work as a speaker and mentor for The Festival Academy explores decolonisation, inclusivity, and the unique perspectives of the Global South. As a writer and digital artist, her work has been featured in TURBA, In Dance Magazine, See Chicago Dance, People United: Performing Arts (on) Paper, Hotfoot and JOMBA! Khuluma. Maphanga sits on the boards of The Festival Academy and Flatfoot Dance Company, and is a liaison board member for Durban University of Technology’s Drama & Performance Studies Department. She remains committed to cross-sector collaboration to find diverse solutions for better living.
KATERYNA BOTANOVA is an independent cultural researcher and curator who lives and works between Ukraine and Switzerland. She writes and lectures on ecosystems, decoloniality, and solidarity in societal transformations and cultural practices. She co-curates the Swiss multidisciplinary biennial Culturescapes, where she worked with the cultural landscapes of the Amazon and Northern and Western African regions (2019-2025). Currently, she is a head of analytics at the Frontier Institute, Kyiv, and an affiliated curator at the Research Platform of the PinchukArtCenter, Kyiv. Botanova is a member of PEN Ukraine and a member of the advisory board of RUTA-Association for Central, Southeastern, Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asian Studies. The last book she edited, Reclaiming History: Decoloniality and Art in Ukraine after 1991, is coming out in the spring of 2025. In the summer of 2025, she will curate exhibitions Kherson: Embrace of the Steppe in Mystetskyi Arsenal (Kyiv) and Archipelago of History in PinchukArtCenter (Kyiv) .