Ariana Zustra was born in Dubrovnik in 1987 and lives in Berlin as a freelance journalist and musician. After studying cultural studies and sociology at the University of Tübingen, she completed training courses at the Reportage School and the Axel Springer Academy, as well as an internship at Rolling Stone. She is the senior editor of the literature section of Musikexpress and a freelance author for the philosophy magazine Hohe Luft. Since 2022, she has been a lecturer in journalism at the University of Tübingen’s Institute for Media Studies. She also works as an editor for the sustainability magazine Perspective Daily and as a presenter and speaker at events such as re:publica and the Ludwigsburg Festival. She is also a critic on the radioeins programme Soundcheck – Das musikalische Quartett. With her essay ‘Ariana Grande and Blackfishing – Where Does Racism Begin?’ in kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop, she won the Reeperbahn Festival’s International Music Journalism Award for the best text of the year in 2020. As ZUSTRA, she releases art pop, and her debut album ‘The Dream Of Reason’ was released in February 2022. Deutschlandfunk Kultur named it Album of the Week, BBC Radio 6 played the single ‘The Twinkling Of An Eye’ and it received rave reviews in the music press and arts sections, including from SPIEGEL: ‘This Berlin-based artist, who follows in the footsteps of Florence Welsh and P.J. Harvey, is definitely a discovery for internationally recognised indie pop from Germany.’
