ZOBAYDA

ZOBAYDA is an Egyptian multidisciplinary artist based between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Her practice spans audio-visual direction, photography, archiving, and cultural programming. As a DJ and visual storyteller, she explores memory, music, and lived experience as tools for gathering, reflection, resistance, and reimagination.

Her practice is rooted in community—especially with BIPOC artists from the global south, whether or not they have an immigrant or refugee background—with a consistent focus on femmes, queer, and trans folk. She often collaborates with chosen family and other artists she holds dear, whose stories reflect wider cultural and political landscapes of which she is a part.

Through image and sound, ZOBAYDA documents personal and collective memory, aiming to build bridges across geographies while creating safer, grounded platforms for connection. Her work celebrates the beauty, care, and complexity that emerges from underground spaces. She is interested in creative legacy and how it can be archived—not just to preserve, but to amplify, remix, and pass on. Whether behind the camera or curating spaces, she strives to hold space for voices often sidelined; not as a form of retreat, but of reclamation and communion.

HOW DOES YOUR SUBMITTED WORK RESPOND TO THE CIRCA 20:25 MANIFESTO?
Ful/فل responds to REFUGIA by offering sanctuary not in isolation, but through deep connection, collaboration, and creative resistance. The artists featured in the first season of Ful – Donia, Kiki, Manga & Andro El Hawy – carve out spaces of joy, survival, and community within a city that often denies them safety. These are sonic refugia – temporary but powerful ecosystems where people come together to dance, grieve, celebrate, and grow.

In Cairo, underground music spaces aren’t just about culture – they are also about resistance. This work exists between visibility and care; it can’t name everything explicitly, for safety reasons, but it vibrates what cannot be said. It preserves intimacy while still reaching out. Ful:فل mirrors the “in-between-ness” at the heart of the manifesto: a diasporic, border-crossing practice rooted in intimate relationships and shared political consciousness. It centers collectivity and legacy over spectacle.

Like the jasmine flower it’s named after, it blooms quietly – and persists. It’s a refusal to be erased, and a promise to keep going.

IF AWARDED THE £30,000 CIRCA PRIZE, WHAT 10-MINUTE WORK WOULD YOU CREATE – AND HOW WOULD IT EMBODY THE SPIRIT OF REFUGIA?
With the CIRCA Prize, I would create a 10-minute moving image work expanding the Ful/فل archive, centering underground artists shaping sonic refugia across borders. Using slow, immersive portraits that weave performance, voice, and personal narrative, the film follows the rhythms of community, everyday life, and soundscapes in rural, urban, and natural settings. Safety and trust guide the work, protecting artists in repressive contexts while celebrating resilience. Funds would pay collaborators, support editing, and extend Ful to different countries such as Morocco and Brazil.

FOLLOW ZUBAYDA ON INSTAGRAM

Funding for the CIRCA PRIZE is generated entirely by the #CIRCAECONOMY, a circular model that reinvests proceeds from affordable art sold on CIRCA.ART into new public art commissions, charitable causes, art education and prizes. Since launching in 2020, the initiative has raised over £1 Million, placing artists and communities at the centre of an economy that continually reinvests in the future of art and culture.

The CIRCA PRIZE 2025 winners will be revealed LIVE in Piccadilly Circus on Monday 13 October, with a special 30-minute award ceremony starting at 20:00 BST. Don’t miss it!