The Role of Art & Cultural Organizing in Justice Movements

Arts and cultural organizing have played central roles in our justice movements. For many artists and cultural workers art serves as a spark to ignite action, counter erasure, challenge invisibility and counter dominant narratives while shaping a future. Art offers a place for healing, visioning and a space for radical imagination that is critical during times of great despair. During this webinar, artists and cultural workers will be discussing the role of art and culture work for our social justice movements during a time of crisis/genocide.

About the speakers:

Arshia Fatima Haq (born in Hyderabad, India) works across film, visual art, performance, and sound, through counter-archives and speculative narratives, and is currently exploring themes of indigenous and localized knowledge within the context of Sufism. Her projects have been presented nationally and internationally at museums, galleries, nightclubs, and in the streets, and have been featured at the Broad Museum, LA; LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions); the Hammer Museum, LA; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston; Onassis Stegi, Athens; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; Toronto International Film Festival; and NPR; among others. Haq is the founder of Discostan, a collaborative club-based project, radio show and record label drawing from the cultural production of South and West Asia and North Africa and their diasporas. She has produced radio programming for Dublab and KCRW and currently hosts and produces a monthly radio show on NTS. Haq received an MFA in Film and Video from California Institute of the Arts.

Rekoil Chafe Born in Vikhroli, Rekoil Chafe is one of the “OG” Lyricist and Music Producers of Mumbai’s Hip-hop scene and has been making music for almost a decade now. Rapping in English, Hindi & Marathi, his music features lived experiences, abstract and metaphorical concepts, and assertion of his identity as an Ambedkarite Buddhist—often addressing issues that his community, independent artists and freelancers face through bars, schemes and satirical bits. An ex-core member of a Thane based organisation “The Hip-Hop Movement” (THHM), Rekoil contributed to the planning and organizing first of many Hip-Hop events in the blooming stage of the Indian Hip-Hop circuit. He has produced for several Indian Hip Hop Favourites including producing & engineering singles for MTV Hustle Fame Gravity, Shah Rule from Gully Gang & Gully Boy Movie roster, Farhan Khan, Kidshot, Kr$na and many more.

Seema Hari is a non-binary engineer, multihyphenate artist, producer and activist focused on annihilating colorism, casteism and queerphobia through their work. They co-produced the internationally acclaimed short film ‘Sheer Qorma’ with director Faraz Arif Ansari, which has traveled to over 250 film festivals and won 76 awards – including awards at the prestigious BAFTA Qualifying FRAMELINE Film Festival (San Francisco), the Academy Award qualifying Out on Film (Atlanta). They also co-created and acted in ‘Closer’, a musical short film made with musician Khanvict and director Anjali Nayar which won the ‘Prism Prize’ Audience award from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. They have acted in various music videos for international acts like Young The Giant, Sunny Jain, Love Fame Tragedy, Racquel Jones etc. and in the feature film Anxious which will be releasing soon.Seema also DJs focusing on blending south asian sounds and rhythms into music from around the world. They have played at festivals internationally and love bringing people together through the unifying power of music and dance.

Key questions we will discuss:

In what ways do art and cultural work play a critical role in our social justice movement work?

What are examples of ways art and culture work connects us to legacies of healing and liberation that preserve traditions that are invisiblized or lost?

What ways do art and culture counter dominant narratives?

In what ways does art and culture work serve as a catalyst to action?

What is the artists role in a time of genocide?

Note: While this event is free to the general public, we encourage those from caste privileged backgrounds to donate to our caste equity work.