**This event is now fully booked. To join a waiting list please email b.ezeugo@gsa.ac.uk

“What is art in the time of genocide?” – Online conversation with Jemma Desai & Nehad Khader
6 - 8pm Wednesday 13th March 2024

Online Conversation (Zoom)

Free but ticketed - Book via MS Forms (https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=WHn5Z1EhE0W9IXDN5jJ2i5zKY4OvD01MgKtFpIhfjaVUOUVMU0ZXVDBVUTE2RDg4QkVBMDlHQkZINS4u)

The context of cultural work for those who are engaged in Palestinian activism at this moment sits alongside long-standing campaigns such as PACBI, and more recent autonomous movements such as StrikeGermany. We now also see withholding of funding, the cancellation of art workers by cultural institutions and the threat of scrutiny by our employers should our wish to speak out against a genocide be deemed ‘reputational damage.’   

What do we need to “stay with the trouble” of the different currents of this time and not circumvent their contradictions and complexities? How can we meaningfully examine these institutional responses and complicities, so that we might find spaces and energies to invest in practices, relationships and ways of being that might render these institutions and the formations they create obsolete?  

In this session, two friends, Jemma Desai and Nehad Khader, will talk to each other about the work they do in art and film. They will offer practices, questions and probably very few answers. The conversation will be rooted in a desire for connection, rather than a space of critique so we invite you to bring things to support you to feel open. We would like to invite all who attend to bring an offering of some kind to share with others attending. 

In this session, we will refer to themes of genocide and institutional indifference to colonial violence. We would like to acknowledge the overwhelming nature of this moment in history and how this may be showing up in many different ways for you as you consider the themes of this workshop. We will offer a container that is cognizant of this and will offer a caring space where emotion is welcome, and somatic skills to support it are present in the facilitation. We also invite you to be mindful of your capacities for group work and listening at this time as you consider this invitation. 

Jemma Desai stands against the the genocide of the Palestinian people and is reconsidering her work biography in light of this commitment. In the present moment she is a cultural worker across film, visual arts and performance and a somatic facilitator working with individuals and groups. 

Nehad Khader is the festival director at BlackStar Projects, where she heads the annual BlackStar Film Festival as well as all curatorial projects. 

‘Race, Rights and Sovereignty programme’ is now in its sixth year. It was established as a partnership between The Art School: GSA's Students' Association (GSASA) and GSA Exhibitions. The programme has been developed in order to create opportunities, and forums, to engage with and unpack ideas and issues related to race, rights & sovereignty; particularly in the contexts of creative practice. The series aims to celebrate, challenge, inform and inspire the next generation of artists, designers and architects, empowering them to have a creative voice.