Elsa Benamouzig is an artist and researcher trained at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and ArTeC Paris. Her work lives at the intersection of anthropology, literature, and artistic practice, with a focus on cultural transmission, memory, and diasporic experience. Shushana emerged in a moment of urgency: running in and out of shelters in Jerusalem, Elsa found herself in intensified conversation with Iranian friends across the diaspora. With Sohrab, a Berlin-based poet, these exchanges took the form of long letters—written between stretches of silence as the situation worsened. From this fragile, persistent correspondence came the idea to widen the circle: to invite others into a shared space of attention, language, and relation.Elsa works as a bridge—between languages, cultures, and people. Attentive to the smallest details, she is drawn to what persists under pressure, and to forms of beauty that can still be found, even in the gutter. Her projects bring together ethnographic attention, creative writing, and collaborative formats, often unfolding across the Mediterranean and Middle East.
Sohrab Mokhtari grew up in Tehran among poets and artists, immersed in Persian mythology and epic literature. After the assassination of his father — an Iranian poet who had spoken for freedom of expression — writing became both shelter and direction.
Arriving in Germany at thirteen, he found himself in what he calls an exile within exile — and it was precisely in language, in the constant learning of languages, that he discovered a poetics of his own: tongues that think, that create, that conceal and reveal in the same breath. Over the years he learned ancient languages — among them Ancient Greek and Biblical Hebrew — deepening a lifelong relationship with the texts and worlds that shaped him. He studied philosophy and has worked for years as a poet-writer-translator, bringing into Persian the voices of Paul Celan, Kafka, and Hannah Arendt, writers he recognizes as companions across exile and silence. In the transcendence of language itself, he found his practice: to live as a Utopos between tongues and cultures.
For a long time, he felt the necessity of a bridge between Persian and Jewish worlds — their histories, their solitudes, their ways of mourning and imagining. This urgency found its correspondence with Elsa in Jerusalem — letters that grew beyond themselves. During Purim 2026, they co-founded Shushana — a platform, and a space that forms around correspondence and endures through it. As a Persian proverb says: one hand alone makes no sound.
Sohrab lives and works in Berlin as a poet-writer-translator and language instructor.
Aménéh Simon ( Moayedi ) is an Iranian visual artist and graphic designer, born in Bushehr by the Persian Gulf and based in Paris. Her work engages with social justice, cultural identity, and collective memory through posters, installations, and multidisciplinary practices.
She is co-founder of Shushana, a project rooted between Bushehr and Susa, connecting geography, memory, and language.
She holds degrees in graphic design from Iran and a Master’s (M2) in visual communication from France. Her research explores systems of visual coding from ancient scripts such as Old Persian cuneiform to textile structures drawing on studies of pattern, including Oghlit motifs, and women’s weaving songs as forms of transmission and memory.
Her practice is informed by shared histories across southern Iran, where Persian and Jewish communities intersected through music, rituals, and everyday life. Inherited stories of women across faiths sharing care, grief, and presence form a central thread in her work.
Her work has been exhibited in over 50 countries across biennales and international exhibitions, and she is regularly invited as a jury member in global competitions.
In 2022, she founded Poster for Iran, an international initiative bringing together hundreds of artists in support of the “Woman, Life, Freedom”.
Nova Dobel is an Israeli creator, writer, actress and facilitator based in Paris, working across storytelling, performative art, and creative writing. As the founder of Nova Storytelling, she has guided businesses and startups in building their narrative, and created and hosted unique storytelling evenings throughout Israel. Her artistic work includes poetic writing performances, video art, and sensory performance — some supported by the Israeli Lottery Foundation and presented at the Acre Festival and other platforms. Writing and creation are the thread connecting all her projects: from poetry to developing educational frameworks and creating content through international artistic collaborations. She recently joined the Shushana team as Curator and Artistic Director.