This is happening on Thursday (7pm) this week! Watch ‘Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation’ for free, on Zoom, at the Arts + Change Conference
I will give a thought-provoking intro to the film and we will also have a post-screening discussion. All you need to do is to register for the session.
It’s cold outside but we can have a vibrant community event online. Hope to see you then!
so about the film ‘conclave,’ which is generating oscar buzz. i was excited to see it when it came out because of the cast – ralph fiennes, isabella rossellini, stanley tucci, john lithgow – all actors i like. the setting of the film is interesting. most of the action happens during a conclave – an assembly of cardinals who self-segregate until they’ve appointed a new pope. remember the smoke rising from the sistine chapel, signaling that the next pope has been elected? that selection comes out of a conclave.
as i’m watching the film, i’m thinking to myself how wonderful it is to see this thriller with these masterful actors set in a completely different context, constructed with meticulous replicas of the vatican and full of elaborate costumes and rituals. v catholic of course.
towards the end of the film, there is an explosion in the midst of the conclave. there’s a hole in the building where the voting is taking place, with debris and pulverized dust everywhere. the camera begins to shoot at an angle, ralph fiennes is hurt, we feel disoriented.
my first thought is: it’s a dream. fiennes is under stress so he’s imagining the end of days. no such luck. this is actually happening. we soon find out that this is a terrorist attack – a suicide bombing to be more exact – which triggers a disgusting islamophobic rant from one of the cardinals: “we can never work with muslims, they are animals.”
at this point i say to myself: “this can’t be. they will probably reveal that the attack was the work of some christian sect or extremist group. they’ll flip it.” nope. the bombing is immediately assumed to be a muslim thing and that gut reaction is proven to be right.
now i’m thinking: “there will be strong pushback, this cannot be allowed to pass.” in fact, there is some pushback by one of the cardinals, but it’s not political. it’s simply meaningless generalities about not hating anyone (even suicide bombers).
for a film about catholics, taking place in the vatican, where the central theme is the election of a pope, this bit of last minute anti-muslim racism is so arbitrary. or is it? in the midst of a live streamed genocide of mostly muslim people, with propaganda deployed to invert reality and turn the killers into victims, perhaps every film that comes out has to fulfill a certain quota of islamophobia, even if it’s a side story randomly added at the end. my husband and i paid $20 per person to see this bs at a movie theater. it’s hard to tell what’s what when we are picking films. there are racist traps embedded in every bit of western culture.
As many of my friends know, I’ve been working for a while now on ‘The Injured Body,’ a feature length documentary about racism in America inspired by Claudia Rankine’s book of poems called ‘Citizen: An American Lyric.’
Well, I’m back on the project and already have a date for the film’s premiere – November 14th at Cinema Arts Center in Huntington, NY!
For years, friends and colleagues have urged me to contact Claudia Rankine and tell her about the film. It made sense. Yet I kept procrastinating.
I am not impressed by celebrities, politicians or rich dudes, but I’ve always been starstruck by Ms. Rankine. The beauty and brilliance of her mind, the simplicity and precision of her language, the ease and lyricism with which she captures the subtleties in our day to day interactions with each other, are all extraordinary.
Now that I have a deadline and am pressed for time, I found Ms. Rankine’s email (her assistant’s to be exact) and asked if I could use some of her words as text in the film. My work is interdisciplinary and so it crosses many boundaries between art, literature, politics, and philosophical writing. ‘Citizen’ is at the heart of this film. I didn’t overthink and just sent the email along with a link to the trailer.
Today I got an email from her assistant telling me how wonderful the film sounds and saying, “Of course, Claudia is willing to have her words used in this way.” No fees. No need to contact the publisher. Just “quoted with the permission of the author.”
Are you kidding me? Is this for real? I’m so excited for this project!
[Photograph of Ayni Ali by Arleen Thaler]
as we step into 2025 (an arbitrary threshold with just one meaning at this moment – the shattering reality that a holocaust has been enabled and supported for more than a year in full view of the world), i feel unsettled. the cognitive dissonance that many of us have experienced since october 2023 (or since forever) seems heavy. on the one hand, i am thankful for my family and friends and the fact that we live in relative security, on the other, i am intensely aware of the suicidal gluttony, violence and vulgarity that underpin all systems promising safety in exchange for genocide. the brutal murder of robert brooks in a graphic video that’s impossible to watch, reminds me of the bodies being starved, exploded, pulverized, and piled into mass graves in gaza. i want to write something about the racial dynamics of it. the word ‘dehumanization’ is so overused, it’s lost all meaning. what is truly happening when the black or brown body is savagely penetrated, its skin broken, its borders breached? the mind boggles at the viciousness embedded in white supremacist colonial ideologies, and the widespread silence, convoluted justifications, and hardcore denial they entail. i have no faith in any of these systems – capitalism, the nation state, settler colonial logics, imperial bs, or international ‘rules’ and pompous political rhetoric. the only thing that makes sense is community, resistance, and indigenous/ palestinian ways of living in concert with the land and its inhabitants, with respect and generosity. may 2025 be a year of peace and connection. may 2025 be the year we celebrate palestinian freedom.
As we approach the end of 2024, a big shout-out to @pyaari_azaadi and her brilliant Hicksville-based project (supported by a fellowship from @huntingtonarts) which hopes to bring South Asian feminist creatives together on Long Island. It’s a powerful idea about solidarity, kinship, art, politics, language, and intent. Honored to be on this journey together – look forward to collabs and lots of fun. Here we are in Pyaari’s enchanted sunroom earlier in December <3
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyeh is the head of pediatrics and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza. Israel killed his son in front of him. The genocidaires injured him and threatened to kill him. They burned the hospital down over his head. Even though he had the chance to leave, he refused to abandon his patients. He stayed until he was taken hostage by Israel. Ask for his immediate release.
A hero for the ages.
A couple of weeks ago I saw Elizabeth Catlett’s work at the Brooklyn Museum. I had already seen ‘Target’ as part of the exhibition ‘We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85’ in Buffalo, in 2018. It’s a beautiful bronze bust of a Black man, his distinguished face seen through the crosshairs of a rifle scope made of metal and drilled roughly into the wood block that holds the sculpture. Fierce.
‘Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) was an avowed feminist, a lifelong activist, and an astutely observant artist. Spanning 75 years of diverse production, Catlett’s career was guided by her bold creative artistry, rigorous practice, and deep commitment to social justice and political activism.’
The first thing one sees in Brooklyn, as one enters the exhibition, is an exquisite terra cotta sculpture of a woman’s head. I was completely overcome by the delicate beauty of the piece.
In 1946, Catlett moved to Mexico as a guest artist at the printmaking collective, Taller de Grafica Popular. It was in Mexico City that she learned the terra cotta technique she later employed in her work (building a hollow shape from coils of clay) from the artist Francisco Zuniga. This indigenous technique, which allows the gentle definition of features, was in use long before the Spanish invaded and colonized. ‘Tired’ which depicts a physically depleted Black woman claiming a moment of respite and ‘Mother and Child,’ a smaller piece which brims with tenderness and the sense of safety we should all be allowed to feel in our parent’s arms, are stunning. The mother’s muscular legs seem to be rooted in the soil beneath her and reminded me of Soviet monuments and Diego Rivera’s murals.
‘While ultimately becoming a Mexican citizen, Catlett never lost sight of the Black liberation struggle in the United States. She embraced a political radicalism that merged the goals of the Black Left in the United States with the lessons of the Mexican Revolution and international feminist movements. Her transnational identity fueled a critical understanding that Black Americans and Mexicans were linked with other oppressed people around the world in a struggle against poverty, racism, and imperialism. As a result, she developed a rich visual language through which she articulated her solidarity politics across various media.’
Her sketches, lithographs, woodcuts, lino prints, watercolors, and sculptures bridge the gap between aesthetics and politics.
Catlett’s work will be on display at the Brooklyn Museum until Jan 19, 2025.
So happy to attend NEW QUEER CINEMA FROM LONG ISLAND yesterday evening, a celebration of independent queer cinema at @cinema_arts. Three genre-defying short films created by three filmmakers of color from Long Island (Grace Zhang, Jard Lerebours, and Devon Narine-Singh), curated by the wonderful Grace Zhang, and supported by Huntington Arts. More of this on Long Island pls!
I am flattered that the wonderful George Payne has written a beautiful piece about Muslims in America (in the form of a dialogue between two friends) and has chosen to use my film, The Muslims I Know, to structure his thesis. It’s no coincidence. In 2016, George along with my friend Judith Bello, organized a screening of The Muslims I Know at the Irondequoit Public Library. The screening (sponsored by Metro Justice Peace Action & Education, the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Rochester Chapter, and Gandhi Earth Keepers International) led to a productive discussion which could easily continue today given our present political context. Thank you George for writing so beautifully about the film. My views on/ approach to anti-Muslim racism have changed over the years, but it’s a documentary that’s very much part of my evolution as an activist filmmaker.
From George’s piece:
“Yes, the resilience is extraordinary. And I think that’s what The Muslims I Know does so well. It shows us the real, lived experiences of Muslims — not as statistics or abstractions but as full human beings with hopes, fears, families, and aspirations. It confronts us with the fact that Islamophobia is not just a political or ideological issue — it’s a deeply personal one that affects real lives. The film captures the tenderness, strength, and grace with which people navigate a world that often judges them unfairly.” More here.
The brilliant Batool Abu Akleen, whose poems we have read for the Warp & Weft, is publishing her first book! Pls pre-order and support her astonishing work.
48kg.
By Batool Abu Akleen
Translated from the Arabic by the poet, with Graham Liddell, Wiam El-Tamami, Cristina Viti & Yasmin Zaher
A debut collection from the Palestinian poet—Modern Poetry in Translation’s Poet in Residence, 2024—a bilingual assembly of forty-eight poems in which each work accounts for a single kilogram; a body’s mass; a testament to a sieged city; a vivid and visceral voicing of the personal and the public in the midsts of unspeakable violence.
You can pre-order your copy here.
Dr Omar Suleiman: Today a righteous man was killed by the most wicked army on earth. Khaled Nabhan who we watched bid farewell to his beloved Reem, the soul of our soul, has joined her in the realm of souls where the wickedness of this so called humanity will no longer reach them. The man had an angelic presence to say the least. He smiled in the face of a genocide, and went around hospitals and camps comforting people despite his own pain. A man who seemed too good to be here. I longed for the day to meet him in person. I imagined the day the genocide would be over and he would be celebrated with awards around the world on the biggest stages. The demonized turbaned Muslim man who was everything they said he couldn’t be. Kind. Loving. Righteous. Resilient. Too good for this world. Our hearts are broken.
it’s my birthday tomorrow. for all the murderous violence in this world and the devaluation of life (even the lives of children – our common future), i am grateful for the small community of friends i have on this planet – people who continue to fight for justice even when it’s inconvenient or painful, people whose hearts are always in the right place whatever absurdities might be floating around them, people whose moral clarity helps us see thru racist ideologies and imperial politics warped by greed and propaganda. so a big thank u to my community all over the world. if u think of me tomorrow, pls donate something (whatever u can) to the gaza municipality and to heal palestine.
in solidarity <3
Houria Bouteldja: The objective being to truly put an end to anti-Semitism or, more modestly, to take the shortest and quickest path to achieve this goal. To do this, we must put an end to the banishment of Jews from history and put an end to their sacralization. And to put it even more clearly, free them from their status as timeless victims and make them responsible for their choices, all their choices, and therefore for their existence. In short, reintegrate them into generic humanity by confronting them with their freedom, in the sense that Sartre gave to the word “freedom”. More here.
Thrilled to announce that I will be presenting virtually on Jan 23, 2025 (7pm) at the Arts + Change Conference organized by the University of Rochester Institute for the Performing Arts.
We will screen my short film, Return to Sender: Women of Color in Colonial Postcards & the Politics of Representation. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can catch this free online screening. I will introduce the film by breaking down some of its themes e.g. colonial representations and narrative control through images and culture. There will be time for Q & A of course:)
Please don’t forget to register for the conference and hope to see you in Jan!
The liberal white man:
-chronically limited by his two-state-solution imagination, in full view of a holocaust
-speaks an all-lives-matter language of non-violence and neutrality
-reads Noam Chomsky but has zero exposure to Palestinian intellectual thought or activist positions
-centers himself and his frailties when faced with simple provocations (such as wanted posters that highlight people with institutional ties to an apartheid state)
-cries racism/ antisemitism if his ego, fears, and vast knowledge about the world are not prioritized
-believes with incredible sincerity that struggles for justice cannot be successful without his stamp of approval or that of his fellow liberal cohort
The liberal white man is MLK’s ‘white moderate’ and we should be done with his policing and pedantic talking down
Martin Luther King, Jr, 16 April 1963
Letter from Birmingham Jail:
‘First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.’
