Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian

Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian
Topics: Art – Big Tech – Culture – Democracy – Social Justice
Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian, Ph.D (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, designer of experiences, and cultural activist.
An advocate for plurality, inclusivity, accessibility and radical imagination, she documents and builds platforms that support freedom of thought, the creation of organised communities and public events, and expeditions with socio-political impact.
Her work has been showcased at major cultural institutions including MoMA, V&A, MET, National Museum of China, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, and Gaîté Lyrique, and she has collaborated with NASA, the UN, and underground communities worldwide. Her artwork has flown aboard the International Space Station, where she continues to develop decolonial cultural initiatives focusing on demilitarisation.
Nelly is the founder of the tuition-free University of the Underground, NASA’s International Space Orchestra, and the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute’s Experiences department; she is the director of five acclaimed feature films (SXSW, BAFTA-nominated, LFF, etc.) which support diasporic and queer ecofeminist futures, and one of 79 Berlinale Talents 2025 directors selected globally. Since 2018, Nelly has been a senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, where she works to support freedom of thought against totalitarianism across borders. They are one of the directors of Union of Justice, a European, independent, people of colour (POC) led organisation dedicated to racial justice and climate justice run by former Sheffield’s Mayor Magid Magid, and advisor to Pedro Youth Club, in Hackney London, one of the oldest functioning youth clubs within the UK. In 2020-2022 – Nelly was the creative director and founder on new nationwide LGBTQ+ STEAM festival- Tour de moon- for youths touring all around the UK- celebrating youth countercultures and nightlife and working to redistribute wealth and public funds through commissioned project with thousands of youths involved, which led to the creation of both digital and physical assets. For this project, they brought together thousands of contributors across the globe and they won a public grant from the four governments of the UK as a part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK- this was the UK’s most ambitious showcase of creative STEAM collaboration including free large-scale events, installations and globally accessible digital experiences.
Drawn to the most unexpected collaborations so to platform alternative & experimental creations, Nelly has worked with political activists and artists alike such as Pussy Riot, Massive Attack, Kid Cudi, Maywa Denki, Sigur ros, The Prodigy, Savages and The Avalanches; political thinkers like Noam Chomsky and Uday Mehta; nail artists like Texto Dallas; underground noise artists such as Mirrored Fatality and Asmodessa; together with Nobel Prize-winning physicists and astronomers.
Website: http://nellyben.com
Instagram @nellybenhayounstudios
Twitter : @nellybenhayoun
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NellyBenHayounStudios
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/nelly-ben-hayoun-stépanian
Nelly’s best bits:
‘Radical Imagination’ – Nelly at GDF23:
‘Defying the Impossible’ – Nelly at Brainstorm Design 2019:
‘Designing the Impossible’ – Nelly at Google: