EMBODIED ACTIVISM was the second symposium of the VISIBLE JUSTICE research collective and took place on Friday, 3 May 2019 at London College of Communication. It concluded LCC’s 2019 public program, which comprised an exhibition, publication, roundtables, community workshops, and performances.

The symposium addressed issues of race and representation, stereotyping in the media, the reshaping of narratives, personal agency, and political voice.

The first panel focused on how legal frameworks and the popular press perpetuate cycles of violence enacted on racialised bodies, specifically in terms of knife crime in Britain, the death penalty in the United States, and the torture and rendition of terrorism suspects by UK and US security forces.

The second panel centred on the ways in which creative interventions and media technologies can alter not only the discourse, but also the law. Speakers discussed political mobilisation through film in post-Tahrir Square Egypt, Gulf Labor’s coalition of artists and activists campaigning for the reform of employment practices in Abu Dhabi, a photographic collaboration with Nepalese women subjected to isolation during menstruation, and an archival reassessment of family histories upended by the legacy of British colonialism in Malaysia.

KEYNOTE:

Dr Clive James Nwonka — Fellow in Film Studies (London School of Economics)

ARTISTS:

Khalid Abdalla — Actor, Filmmaker, and Activist (Mosireen Collective)

Poulomi Basu — Artist and Photographer

Abd Doumany — Photographer (Refugee Journalism)

Mariam Ghani — Artist, Writer, Filmmaker, and Activist (Gulf Labor)

Sim Chi Yin — Photographer and Journalist

LAWYERS:

Maya Foa — Director of Reprieve

Sultana Tafadar — Human Rights Lawyer