Race/Remix

The need for civic dialogue has never been as important as it is today. In the US and around the world, communities are facing complex problems. Finding solutions is contentious. How can art help bring people together across lines of difference to talk, listen, and understand the myriad forces shaping civic life? We bring you a conversation with Hank Willis Thomas, a boundary-spanning artist whose work grapples with hard truths. Ou...

Have you ever wondered how art becomes activism? We bring you a conversation with curator and writer Elizabeth Ferrer, who takes us from the Chicano murals of her east Los Angeles childhood to groundbreaking exhibitions on Latinx photography. Guest hosts Gia Del Pino and Lizzy Guevara speak with Elizabeth about her retrospective on Louis Carlos Bernal, a trailblazing Chicano photographer who centered Mexican-American lives and trad...

Music is everywhere. It’s in our cars, doctors’ offices, shopping malls, movies, and video games. There’s no question that music is ubiquitous, but is anyone really listening? What does it mean to truly listen? What happens when we tune in, not only to the soundwaves of music, but also the vibrations of community, the echoes of ancestors, and the whispers of dreams? For musician and storyteller Michael Mwenso, Black music is a port...

Schools have long been a battlefield for racial and social justice. What role do artists play in pushing for reforms in education? Kim Cosier, an art educator and member of the national network of Art Build Workers, explains non-violent practices of using art in service of social justice movements. This conversation is a window into field-tested practices for artists working side-by-side with students, teachers’ unions, state assoc...

How does one transform trauma into possibility? Trained dancer and multidisciplinary artist Kayla Farrish explores police brutality and death afflicting Black communities in America. Through movement research, she finds a radical imagination that powers the African American struggle to do more than survive from enslavement in the colonial era to systemic oppression by modern institutions. Black people have wrought hope and art from...

Can language practices break down the separation between “us” and “them”? Reid Gómez, a native speaker of Black vernacular English and Navlish (Navajo-English), shares her multi-lingual writing practice. To “make the story speak,” she criss-crosses the boundaries between languages, embracing various linguistic structures and vocabularies simultaneously. Her writing moves away from oppositional colonial frameworks and toward a more ...

What is it like to navigate a world where “no papers” means no identity and no public recognition? For immigrants traversing such a world, are human connections even possible when faced with forced family separation and deportation? Anike Tourse's filmmaking brings audiences into the human dimension of navigating the complexities of US immigration. Through collaboration with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and other organ...

Visual artists are skilled at taking ordinary materials and transforming them into something new and thought-provoking. Their work goes beyond aesthetics; it unearths histories, challenges perceptions, and sparks crucial conversations. In the US where racism is endemic—structured into the everyday existence of individuals and institutions so as to appear ordinary—how do artists rework the remains of racism and resist its traumas in...

How are classical musicians speaking to the times in which they live? Band kids turned classical virtuosas, Monica Ellis and Toyin Spellman-Diaz have performed with Imani Winds since its founding more than 25 years ago. True to its beginnings, this predominantly people of color woodwind ensemble continues to break new ground with their socially relevant programming and physically demanding musical repertory. In this episode, they s...

What do iconic movements like women's suffrage, Civil Rights, queer liberation, and the Vietnam war resistance have in common? They tapped into the power of words and images to convey messages of protest that changed the collective imagination and direction of history. For LA-based designer and educator Silas Munro, there is “no shortage of opportunities for design to be part of the conversation of social justice.” In this conversa...

How can we “act selfishly for our own humanity”? How might we recalibrate institutions so they reflect how our individual futures are intertwined? Explore these questions and more in a timely discussion with sociologist Ruha Benjamin. She takes on racism in education, healthcare, the arts and beyond in this riveting conversation. 

Currently, Dr. Benjamin is an associate professor of African American Studies at Princeton University....