Core Team
Caroline Wanjiku Kihato
Caroline is our curator.
From a middle-income neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya, she grew up a twenty-minute walk from Kibera, one of Africa’s largest informal settlements. For most of her life, it was off limits. The poverty it represented was kept at arms-length, paradoxically understood as both a problem of the state and the poor individuals. Despite being warned away, Caroline imagined the uncertainty, the resilience and struggle unfolding on the other side of the fence. ...continue reading →
Katja Holtz
Katja is our scribe.
Trained in material anthropology and the multi-disciplinary rigours of migration studies, she brings to Frame45 her voice and passion for writing radical, hopeful stories. She believes building a just and inclusive future is as much a feat of imagination as of action, that in order to create cities capable of nurturing human (and non-human) flourishing … ...continue reading →
Kiran Glass
Kiran is our handler.
Driven by her own history of migration starting in Johannesburg, South Africa, Kiran understands the pressing need for thoughtful reinvention of narratives, especially surrounding the Global South. During her formative years growing up in the US, she has become fiercely invested in social justice causes, coming to understand the complexity and interconnectedness of national and … ...continue reading →
Associates
David Ndegwa
David is our bookkeeper.
Born in Kenya and, like a number of our team, trained in South Africa, David has always had an eye for justice and migration. Working in Ethiopia, Malawi, Uganda and elsewhere, he is interested in development finance, populations, and infrastructure. Essentially, the ins and outs of how services are realised materially. His commitment to the mechanics of development, from higher bodies both international and domestic all the way down to the people in need of aid on the ground, gives our work a strong footing. ...continue reading →
Regina Kihato
Regina is our analyst.
After completing her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in finance and accounting in South Africa and the United States respectively, she moved toward analytics. Her work has taken her across the corporate US, honed her skills, and broadened her expertise in the number-world. Data plays a central role in almost all contemporary decision-making processes, from divvying … ...continue reading →
Loren Landau
Loren is our sceptic.
In our work developing sustainable approaches to urban mobility in the Global South, Frame45 must reflect honestly and critically on past failures and entrenched orthodoxies, not shying away from hard truths. To this, Loren brings his discerning eye and expertise on mobility, multi-scale governance, and socio-political change. Working to resist dogma, single narratives and approaches, … ...continue reading →
Hellen Zziwa
Hellen is our problem solver.
With over twenty years experience in identifying the gap between a stated goal and the outcome, she is a trained strategist and project manager. Hellen’s interest in human behaviour and cognition, piqued during her masters degree in Communications and Signal Processing, turned to questions of migrant justice and equity. Building the kinds of cities we … ...continue reading →
Tanya Pampalone
Tanya is our sleuth.
Based in Berkeley, trained across and between California and Johannesburg and Prague, Tanya is always in search of the (lowercase-t) truth. In a life telling stories about those at the margins for those at the centre, her work revolves around getting people to think differently about the issues they face everyday. Frame45 opens a space … ...continue reading →
Sumayya Vally
Sumayya is our eye.
Growing up in an Indian-only apartheid township in South Africa, she has always been interested in cities as places full to brimming with diversity, movement, and change. Her practice began in Johannesburg but she has since set her sights elsewhere—examining how the city, as a form of human settlement, promotes flourishing. A trained architect, curator, … ...continue reading →
Aditya Sarkar
Aditya is our polymath.
Not quite comfortable being pigeon-holed as a lawyer, policy 'wonk' or a researcher, Aditya's work and passion traverses disciplinary boundaries, embracing his multiple identities and skills. After ending up as a lawyer—in his own words—almost by accident, Aditya has worked for the Indian government, International Labour Organisation, and World Bank. Over the years, he has … ...continue reading →
Fred Swart
Fred is our visionary.
As a graphic designer based in Johannesburg, Fred quips that he was born between an airport, powerstation and a dynamite factory. Perhaps it was being edged-in between these stark landscapes that piqued Fred’s interest in form, and the language and meaning shapes convey. With a background in advertising, Fred has been designing for the cultural … ...continue reading →