GoFundMe for Roya's book of artwork
Kirsten Roya Azal (b. 1968-d. 2019) was a mother, a wife, an activist and one of the great visionary artists of our time. Born to a Communist mother who practiced a German lineage of witchcraft (and an Iranian Azeri father who died just before Roya's birth), Roya was raised and educated in Munich, Germany where she obtained a master's degree in Communications from Ludwig Maximilian University in the 1990s. She later left Germany, first briefly to the Middle East and then the United States after which she settled in the UK. During her time in the UK, Roya worked for the Guardian.UK as an investigative journalist and was even sent to Haiti and the Dominican Republic on assignment. She also briefly worked as a curator for the Cambridge University Museum of Anthropology. In Haiti Roya was initiated into a Haitian voudon lineage. Later she would be initiated into the Fatimiya Sufi Order. Roya's first child and daughter, Inji, was born in 2006, but due to a grave injustice perpetrated by the corrupt UK Family Court system, Inji and Roya were to be forever separated in 2009. In 2010 she first virtually met her husband, Wahid Azal, and in 2011 they were united in person in London, England where they briefly lived together in the Muswell Hill district of Highgate (and only three houses away from the home of the late comedian and actor, Peter Sellers). Later that year in 2011 they relocated together to Berlin, Germany and formally married. In March 2011, Roya and Wahid's daughter Nuriel was born in Berlin and they lived happily together as a family until Roya's tragic and as yet unexplained passing (which Wahid as well as federal German authorities believe to be murder by poisoning perpetrated by still to be determined assailants) on the night/early morning hours of 11-12 March 2019. Roya was laid to rest on 4 April 2019 and is buried in the Berlin Friedhoff cemetery of Pankow, Berlin.
Going by the monikers of the Red Mother (Die Rotte Mutte) and Earthangel, while Roya lived in the United States she had gained celebrity as the author of the art-form known as Girlphish which both NYU (New York University) as well as Columbia University actively promoted. During the '00s and the second decade of the 21st century, Roya spawned a unique form of collage art (both drawn by hand on canvas as well as made digitally) that was inspired by the themes of Iranian Islamic mysticism, the writings of the French Iranologist Henry Corbin and the entheogenic-based visionary experiences of her husband, Wahid Azal. Many of these pieces were often displayed on her The Art of Islamic Healing blog (now defunct) together with penetrating social commentary that wed the unlikely worlds of contemplative mysticism with that of radical leftwing social activism and advocacy on behalf of the abused and downtrodden of the world (especially women). During 2016 and 2017, the Brandenburg provincial government took note of her work and so officially promoted her art throughout the German province as a way to stem the tide of the rising Islamophobia, toxic anti-refugee rhetoric and xenophobic far-right politics then blemishing the German political scene.
This GoFundMe is for the purpose of funding a coffee-table book of all of Roya's visionary artwork together with commentary by her husband and widower, Wahid Azal. The book will tentatively be entitled The Redmother (Die Rotte Mutte): The visionary art of Kirsten Roya Azal, the Earthangel and will be dedicated to Roya's two children: Inji and Nuriel. As these projects are expensive and can become prohibitive to execute, it will require substantial funding (as well as technical advice) to bring the project to port.
