POLITICAL WORK
LO†ERÍA BY ANA PUENTE FLORES
Freedom travels through many avenues. Leisure activities are what we do when we are off-duty, thus they are seen as an “apolitical” action. We spend our free time, or we frame free[dom] time as currency. Why is freedom framed as currency for some, and framed as the universal standard for others? Parting from the premise that leisure and board games feed the socio-political dynamics, I would like to rethink board games as a tool for political consciousness.
SOUNDMAP OF MUSLIM PRAYER SPACES BY FAMA NDIAYE
CLICK HERE TO EXPERIENCE THE SOUNDMAP
Fama spent a semester analyzing and unpacking the spaces she interacts with daily. The spaces she inhabits as a community member, as a political agent, and as Fama. The map locates the various prayer spaces located in Harlem. Aside from being tangibly useful to her community as a resource for working class Muslims, the map is also a tool for Fama to engage with her community through interviews with local board members, locals, or teachers from each space. These interviews allowed her to position herself as an observer within her community. The map is quickly gaining popularity within the community.
RESPONDING TO LESSON 1 FROM “THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF SPACE” WITH Dr. VALERIA LUISELLI
On the first day of class for the course The Politics and Poetics of Spaces students did not meet with their professor Dr. Valeria Luiselli. Instead the class was instructed to meet in the East Village and do a guided walk through Lower Manhattan guided by the East Village Poetry Walk: Passing Stranger. The podcast episode below is a response to the poetry walk.
A Syllabus: Designing an Everyday Collection: Fashion as Feminist Self-Reflection and Praxis
By: Christelle Jasmin
"To the students I will come to grow with: As millennial’s and as influencers operating in these precarious times, you have a distinct responsibility. A responsibility to create that which is thoughtful and grounded. No longer can art claim a space in the realm of the apolitical. As today’s creators, you are in the business of foraging spaces that reflect and uplift. My hope for you is that the spaces you forage break barriers to provide humanity with fuller, richer existence. In order to do this and do this well your rendering of humanity need be as inclusive as possible. Strive to do no harm. An awareness of your position, your influence, and your privilege will ground your work in meaning that will reach broader more diverse audiences. You are all small revolutions and potential revolutionaries."
POETRY
I’ve always hated needles. Ever since I was child. Even now I walk into a doctor’s office in a
cold sweat hoping they don’t tell me I need a vaccine. However, I love getting tattoos. After
some reflection, I’ve realized something I’ve been too afraid to admit to myself. Tattoos are the
only way I can inflict pain on myself without anyone questioning it or asking me if I’m okay. It’s
an acceptable form of self-inflicted pain. It draws less attention than when I pinch myself so hard
that my skin stays red and bruises.
When I got my first tattoo last May, I laughed. My friends thought I was crazy and even the
tattoo artist asked if I was okay. But I was just fascinated. Fascinated by how strongly I could
feel the needle go into my skin. Feeling every small vibration, the machine made. The scratching
of the needle felt more like comfort than pain. My numbness was almost gone, even if just for a
few minutes.
I got my second tattoo at the end of March of last year. A few weeks after a breakup. I got ‘i am
mine. before i am ever anyone else’s’ tattooed along my ribs. I got it as a way of reclaiming
Myself and to feel something other than the emptiness that was always within me. The artist only
took 10 minutes. I wish he had taken longer.
SHARON SHAJI: PINKWASHING GENDER VIOLENCE
ÑANDA MAÑACHI ZINE BY ANA PUENTE FLORES
The project Ñanda Mañachi arises from a series of workshops with author Meena Kandasamy in which we question the production of art and how it’s defined. In an attempt to visualize the mass detention of immigrants at the border and the treatment of immigrant families, with a focus on women as mothers and as political agents, the zine is produced.
The aesthetic realities of immigrant family detention cannot be portrayed in a realist way because there is no access to the detention center unless one is providing legal services. Yet, this small zine gives us snippets that reflect on the confinement of the brown female body.
An important part of Ñanda Mañachi Vol I is the photography. The photos in the zine are black and brown women and girls in Harlem. In an attempt to juxtapose freedom with confinement, the photos hope to shed a light on the identities that are prone to be incarcerated or are already captive to some extent, but still find ways to survive within a punitive system.
If knowledge is power, producing new knowledge is essential to dismantle the system of oppression that looks like incarceration and the criminalization of brown, black, female, and migrant bodies and all the other bodies that ultimately depend on the confined woman– free or unfree.
Spiritual of a Colored Bastard Child by Nailah Garard
I AM THE COLORED BASTARD CHILD Whose black mother cost me my inheritance Into the infallible will of God Born unholy, into a progeny of sin My enslaved ancestors and children are the lost sheep Lost our status as members of the moral universe, of human consideration My soul must leave behind this flesh and blood For this body has no protection in this nation under God And the body I have is not mine anyways They will dismember me, cut off my nose, my ears, pull out my teeth, bash in my face, rip open my guts