THERE IS A LAUNCH DATE ON THE HORIZON!
The work is turning into a beautiful internally immersive piece of digital storytelling. Join us.
The Time is Now
We have one week left for you to support the healing and transformational work that telling our stories can accomplish.
The Muslim Women’s Story Lab is working to keep all of us human and to have our humanity recognized through storytelling, community engagement, and the arts.
As media personalities and political candidates spread divisive messages of fear and misinformation, this is an important time to reflect on how we choose to recognize and uphold the humanity within ourselves and each other.
With one week left in our fundraising campaign we need you more than ever.
Launching the Muslim Women's Story Lab
I am so pleased to announce the launch of the The Muslim Women’s Story Lab! The Lab builds women’s capacity to lead creative, culturally resonant community engagement projects within the Muslim community using strategies that harness and reclaim Islam's empowerment of women.
Making It
Hello Everyone:
3 exciting things below! My writing, an event at the NYC Municipal Archives, and the Muslim Women's Story Lab moves forward!
A short piece I wrote on making art, diversity, and compromise, was just published in Montrealserai -- a lovely online webzine focused on arts, culture and politics!
Here's a little excerpt to get you interested:
"So I look down at my feet. My sandals are touching ground where Diego Rivera once stood, or sat, or walked by. I’m pulled into a world which, when he was creating it, was all but banned subject matter. Poor people’s lives, indigenous lives, didn’t matter. He made space, literally, by painting giant public murals that projected the sound and color, history and memory of poor and working class people in Mexico. And he showed not only what he knew to be true, and beautiful, but what he knew had power to change the world." Read on ...
And here in New York, I'm making the final preparations for a discussion at the NYC Municipal Archives on the history of sterilization abuse in NYC and the struggle for change.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Please RSVP to: visitorcenter@records.nyc.gov
31 Chambers Street, New York, NY 10007
We have a terrific panel and will be displaying archival materials from the women's own collections. Here is one example of what you'll see:
Courtesy of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party Archives.
Last but not least, I got great news that the Muslim Women's Story Lab is going to move forward this fall! Stay tuned for updates.
Have a wonderful Independence Day. It's time to get free!
Shiny New Things
Falling Into Place
Isn’t that a funny phrase? Given the events in the past few months, I hear this phrase as: Falling. — Into Place. The past few months have felt like a sort of free fall, a shedding of outdated ideas, a rearranging of my life and schedule, and a re-prioritizing of what I want. Things fell away, and I am right where I need to be.
Stay Here
I can’t seem to turn on the news without having violence, persecution, oppression and the worst of human behavior splashed in my face. Yesterday, I was speaking to my partner’s ex-roommate and he, teasingly, asked me what war-torn part of the world was I planning to visit next? The truth is I’ve had many impulses to run away and try to heal the pain of the world — somewhere else — but I’m counseling myself to stay here.
History as Territory
I went to a wonderful talk last night organized by the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance on reclaiming feminisms at the grassroots. The inspirational speaker, Sandra Moran, spoke about planting. The first part of creating something new is developing an idea, planting a seed. To do that, you must reclaim what is yours and decide that territory will be where something new can grow.
Free Expression — Free Dimensional
I’m using this blog space to make you all aware of a wonderful organization I am on the board of – Free Dimensional. Since 2006, fD has worked with nearly 200 artists and culture workers, from over 35 countries, who are at risk because of their art. We help find them safe haven in artists residencies, small living grants, and we develop tools for our partners to use in supporting artists in danger.
Longest Night
Tonight, we will pass through the longest night of the year. We will regain a tiny bit of light, with each new day. The end of 2013 seems to have opened a thousand little doors of terror inside me. This is the first time I am “properly” developing a play. That means I’m not jumping right into a production process but taking time to write, re-write, show it to others, share my thoughts, and hear the words read aloud. It’s brought me face to face with many of my feelings of inadequacy, superiority, futility, and desperation. It’s been a long night in the life of this artist.
