Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian

Director, artist and filmmaker Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian Ph.D (she/they) has been manufacturing the impossible for over a decade. Advocating for plurality, she creates multi-dimensional transdisciplinary projects with community engagement and accessibility at their core. Supporting the creation of organized communities, Nelly builds platforms for others to experience plurality, so that history does not repeat itself on earth or beyond. To this end, she is a senior fellow of the Hannah Arendt Center, which supports freedom of thinking and human rights across the globe and in 2017 Nelly founded The University of the Underground, a tuition free university that supports free, pluralistic and transnational education from the basement of nightclubs with board members like Noam Chomsky, Arjun Appadurai and activists like Pussy Riot and Massive Attack.

Nelly is the author and director of five feature-length documentaries investigating topics such as the origins of knowledge and totalitarian regimes but also the next phase of humanity in space, her films work to platform diasporic and queer ecofeminist visions: The International Space Orchestra, 2013; Disaster Playground, 2015; I am (not) a monster, 2019; Tour de moon (2023) and Doppelgängers³ (2024). Their films have screened at film festivals such as SXSW or London Film Festival, and were awarded grants from Sundance Institute and the British Film Institute Doc Society.

Nelly has also led and designed multiple large scale scientific and cultural expeditions, trained special forces in the USA or the United Nations on space disasters such as near earth objects and asteroid impacts. As Designer of Experiences at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute) she founded the world’s first International Space Orchestra, a group made up of NASA space scientists and astronauts. Nelly’s musical collaborations include grammy-award winning artists Kid Cudi, Sigur Ros, Beck, and most recently, with The Avalanches.
Wired awarded Nelly their inaugural Innovation Fellowship,most recently she won a Karman fellowship for her unique global cultural achievements in astronautics and space exploration and in June 2023 Design Week awarded her with their Lifetime Achievement Award. Nelly also has two doppelgangers who work with her to appear at multiple places at the same time, a Barbie doll and a Lego made of herself.

Photo by Kasia Bobula for Soho House magazine.