Heidi Affi (she/her)

Heidi is an artist-researcher and PhD Candidate in Middle Eastern Studies at Exeter's Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies. Through transdisciplinary methods, her research explores  Syrian countermemories from the Jazira, focusing on the intersection of art, land and memory as a nexus for unsettling colonial and statist formations. Motivated to understand countermemory in the context of the northeast of Syria, she focuses on affective, material and otherwise 'sites' of memory where Jazrawis both unsettle dominant powers and practice alternative political visions. 

Her wider practice is grounded in visual and embodied storytelling emerging from marginal histories and political movements. Her current work focuses on art-based methodologies in geographic and cartographic practice, contemporary surrealism, glitch, and old music videos from the Jazira.  Heidi is also a co-founder of azl, a digital publication, and Surreal Maps, a counter-mapping research and workshop platform. She has a background in environmental justice movements, radical pedagogy development, and organisational development. 

Heidi holds an MSc in Human Rights and Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a dual Bachelor's in Political Science and Religious Studies from Macalester College (US). Her research at Exeter is funded by the Al Qasimi Foundation Studentship and is supervised by Professors William Gallois, Billie Jeanne Brownlee, and Laleh Khalili. 

Heidi is a PGR Representative for IAIS, bringing together student needs and Institute resources to organise events and peer-led support in academic and social settings.