Chapter 21: New Narratives: Artists Marking Memory During COVID

CHAPTER 23: NEW NARRATIVES: ARTISTS MARKING MEMORY DURING COVID

Companion Website by: Samuel Ellyson and Maggie Flanagan

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

MORE ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS:

VIDEOS FEATURING THE PARTICIPANTS:

ART PROJECTS BY PARTICIPANTS:

KATIE YAMASAKI:

SHURUQ HARB:

TC TOLBERT:

VIOLETA LUNA:

CHAPTER STUDY RESOURCES:

CHAPTER SUMMARY:

We asked four artists about the role of the arts in promoting a culture of human rights, and how the global pandemic has influenced and changed their creative practices. Each of the artists in this chapter suggests a distinctive answer to the question of what it is that art might do for human rights, and what strategies they create to contribute to the conversation. These diverse answers speak not just to the question about the relation between human rights and art as a practice, but to the nature of arts for human rights as a distinctive practice, rooted in community. 

The specific human rights issues discussed include mass incarceration, femicides, transgender rights, the Palestinian Occupation and others. 

This chapter intersects nicely with mass incarceration, LGBTQ rights, racism, violence against women, activism, community-based collaborative work, migration, occupation, militarization, borders

ADDITIONAL NOTABLE ARTISTS:

THOMAS HARTWELL, PHOTOJOURNALIST:

URSULA BIEMANN, SWISS ARTIST:

JORDANIAN PALESTINIAN ARTIST SAMA HIJAWI AND CURATOR TOLEEN TOUQ:

AUGUSTO BOAL:

ART:

ART MAKING UNDERREPRESENTED GROUPS VISIBLE:

ARTMAKING WHILE INCARCERATED:

PARTICIPATORY ARTS PROJECTS:

COLONIAL DIVIDE EXISTS WITHIN HOW ART IS HISTORICIZED:

ART CAN SHED LIGHT ON THE EVERYDAY CULTURES PRODUCED BY THE POLITICAL REALITIES:

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR TRANS AND NONBINARY POETRY:

ART AS A PLACE OF SAFETY:

POETICS ABOUT EXPLICIT VIOLENCE:

ART HUMANIZES:

ART AND COVID:

INCARCERATION:

MASS INCARCERATION AND FAMILY SEPARATION:

INCARCERATION MAKES PEOPLE INVISIBLE/INVISIBLE PUNISHMENTS:

LIMITING PRISONERS THROUGH EMPLOYMENT AFTER INCARCERATION:

MULTIGENERATIONAL/INTERGENERATIONAL IMPACT OF INCARCERATION:

FACING TRAUMA AFTER INCARCERATION:

STIGMA AROUND INCARCERATION:

JOBS AND MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES FOR THOSE PREVIOUSLY INCARCERATED:

SUPPORT CHILDREN WHOSE PARENTS ARE INCARCERATED:

MOTHERS INCARCERATED AT RIKERS ISLAND AND THEIR CHILDREN:

PALESTINE/ISRAEL/MIDDLE EAST:

HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE:

PALESTINIAN POP CULTURE (‘90S):

TRANCE MUSIC AS A SOURCE OF ESCAPISM FOR ISRAELI SOLDIERS:

REBRAND TEL-AVIV AS A PARTY MECCA THAT IS “FREE, ALTERNATIVE, AND QUEER” → SHIFTING ATTENTION AWAY FROM THE VIOLENCE OF THE OCCUPATION:

BORDER IMPERIALISM IN THE US AND THE ISRAELI MILITARY:

ISSUES OF NAMING AND IDENTITY (US STIGMA AROUND TERRORIST-SOUNDING NAMES):

“MIDDLE EAST” OR “ARAB WORLD” AS SOMETHING EXOTIC OR OTHER IN ART MAGAZINE AND ART HISTORY:

DIFFICULTIES TRAVELING WITHIN THE ARAB WORLD:

“PALESTINE IS ALREADY A PRISON, AND COVID CREATED AN ADDITIONAL LAYER OF IMPRISONMENT” :

LATIN/CENTRAL AMERICA:

YUYACHKANI – PERUVIAN THEATER GROUP:

MOTHERS OF THE PLAZA DE MAYO/LAS MADRES DE JUAREZ/LAS MADRES BUSCADORAS:

NARCO-VIOLENCE IN MEXICO:

MERIDA PLAN:

NUESTRAS HIJAS DE REGRESO A CASA – NHRC (OUR DAUGHTERS NEED TO COME BACK HOME):

US INTERVENTIONIST POLICIES IN CENTRAL AMERICA:

IMMIGRATION/ASYLUM/VIOLENCE:

MASS GRAVES – STATE STIGMATIZES THE BODIES AS ANONYMOUS:

VIOLENCE AND MILITARIZATION JUSTIFIED IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY:

BUREAUCRATIC BANALITY OF THE ASYLUM PROCESS:

UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN ASYLUM PROCESS:

ADMINISTRATIVE LIMBO:

COMMUNICATION/MEDIA:

DIGITAL COMMUNICATION MAKES IT EASIER TO COMMUNICATE WITH DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES:

WORKING WITH DIFFERENT COMMUNITIES FORCES US TO ENGAGE IN A DIFFERENT KIND OF DIALOGUE:

MASS MEDIA REPRODUCE THE GAZE OF THE NATION-STATE:

TRANS REPRESENTATION:

MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF TRANS PEOPLE:

REPRESENTATIONS OF TWOC:

MAINSTREAM MEDIA NEEDS TO EXPAND THEIR STORIES AND THEIR REPRESENTATION OF BITWOC:

OTHER TOPICS:

BODY AS A POLITICAL SPACE:

ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS:

EMOTIONAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, AND INTELLECTUAL SAFETY: