Socially Engaged Art in Volatile Times
In this arts practice talk, Dalit artist Thenmozhi Soundararajan will discuss her work as a transmedia artist covering issues of race, caste, and gender based violence. She will explore challenges in both process and product in the making of socially engaged art. The talk will feature excerpts of her work through her career, while also providing an intimate look at creating in the face of violence, and how to handle trauma and self-care while tackling volatile subjects in polarized times.
Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit rights activist, artist, technologist, and theorist. She is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Equality Labs, a Dalit civil rights organization that uses community research, cultural and political organizing, popular education, and digital security to build power to end caste apartheid, white supremacy, gender based violence, and religious intolerance. Through her work across mediums, she centers the voices of communities into the vital debates of our time. Her work has been recognized by the Producers Guild of America Diversity Program, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), The Sorbonne, The Source Magazine, Utne Reader, The National Center for the Humanities, The National Science Foundation, and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. You can follow her work as a Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellow and at the Atlantic Foundation for Racial Equity, and you can find Twitter Instagram and Facebook as @dalitdiva.
Our lecture series is made possible by generous support from the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, and MIT Transmedia Storytelling Initiative.