When art easily becomes activism - five great examples from Yemen, Wales, Brazil, Gaza, Palestine
Break dancing in Gaza with Camps Breakerz Crew
Another great curation from Atlas of The Future - five artistic acts that easily become a form of activism, selected by Common Wealth Theatre (who we profiled in 2018). This is about creativity as a force for good: “People are hungry to connect and be connected. People give a shit about the places they live and they want to see change”, say Rhiannon White and Evie Manning, founders of Common Wealth.
Comra Films: Indie filmmakers help Yemen reclaim its voice
Sara Ishaq and Yousra Ishaq
Oscar-nominated Yemeni-Scottish film director Sara Ishaq and Yemen’s top-ranking film producer Yousra Ishaq are using the medium that they love to shed light on the most pressing issues that the country faces.
Film has the ability to transport the viewer across time and space. That’s why, in 2017, the independent filmmakers (pictured below) set up Comra Films in the capital city of Sanaa, as the first Yemen-based film foundation for creative film productions and training.
Yemen is experiencing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, having been in a state of political crisis since 2011 and devastated by a civil war. Though the Arab world’s poorest country is one of the most hyper-narrated places on earth, the representation of its struggles, even in Arabic cinema, is virtually non-existent. Foreign media access is blocked and local political media outlets control the world’s view of Yemen and its people. Comra Films is changing that.
It was the link between the invention of the camera and Arab history that drew the team to the name. ‘Comra’ is the early Arabic word for ‘camera’ and was coined by Arab physicist Ibn Al-Haytham back in the Middle Ages. Known as the father of modern optics, he was the first scientist to thoroughly study and describe the natural phenomenon of the camera obscura effect. Over the centuries, others started to experiment with his observations, mainly in dark rooms with a small opening in the wall to let in light
Now Sara and Yousra want Yemeni filmmakers to be able to let in the light; to have the potential to contribute positively to the transformation and conflict resolution process, to counteract internalised stereotypes about Yemen and Yemenis, and to raise awareness internationally about the crisis there. Sara explains: “In a place like Yemen where our cultural heritage is being systematically destroyed, filmmaking is an extremely important tool to preserve what is beautiful about our culture.”
Privilege Cafe: How to use white privilege for good (in Wales)
The world is going more and more online every day, and as millions of us meet on Zooms (other video conferencing apps are available), our offline behaviour is being reflected online.
Frustrated with a lack of diversity, and partly inspired by lockdown boredom, in April 2020 Mymuna Soleman decided to set up an online forum where people of all backgrounds were invited to talk freely and openly.
In a case of frustration used for good, Mymuna called it ‘Privilege Cafe’, but never expected that the “virtual cafe for difficult conversations” would take off. But it very much did, with hundreds of people joining the conversations.
As a Somali-Welsh female living in Cardiff, Mymuna is often told she “doesn’t look Welsh”, but what does it mean to be Welsh/anything in the 21st Century? Mymuna is from Butetown, a deprived district and community in a city with a huge Somali population, which is one of the oldest ethnic groups in the city.
The Somali community in Cardiff was drawn there originally at the end of the 19th Century as seafarers to work in the city’s docks, and has swelled further since the 1980s by refugees and people fleeing civil war.
The iconic Butonian community is melting pot of races, culture and religion. Passionate about equality, diversity and equal representation for Muslim women like herself, Mymuna wanted to create a new inclusive environment that was open to all – where people could be empowered, confident and “talk privilege” to fight inequality.
Camps Breakerz: Make breakz, not bombs in Gaza
Backflipping for freedom in Gaza, the Camps Breakerz Crewaren’t letting rubble-strewn pavements stop them dancing in the street. Meet the B-boys and B-girls in occupied Palestine headspinning and body rolling their way to hope, peace and positivity.
Living in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, Moh ‘Funk’ Ghraizstarted Camps Breakerz Crew in 2004 with his brothers Ahmed ‘Shark’ Alghariz and Abdullah ‘Jay’ Alghraiz. Moh had learned to breakdance at the age of 14, when living in Saudi Arabia, and taught his brothers the basics when he returned to Gaza.
They practiced in their bedroom, in the street, or wherever they could find space – and soon found a crew of dancers to join them in finding a new way to feel free in occupied territory.
They dance to express themselves, to resist cultural stereotypes, and to break the boundaries they find themselves in. Most importantly, they bring breakdancing to kids living in the refugee camps and other war-affected areas of Gaza – so they, too, can find a different kind of freedom.
“Camps Breakerz Crew challenges the wrong impressions of the people of Palestine, since that is mostly what the media focuses on. We don’t teach dancing only, but also life and how to live freely in an open-air prison like Gaza. Imagination through dancing takes our students and ourselves beyond the borders, to reach far away.”
Their moves aren’t just an impressive feat of acrobatics. Their choreography is designed to express how oppression and conflict feels, creating a way of communicating a collective experience of war – and a way out.
“We dance for Palestinian unity, for ending division. We also danced for Women’s International Day, to show the importance of women in our community. We dance for breaking the siege on Gaza, by visualising the Israeli walls around the strip, and to spread awareness amongst our audience.”
Cataki: Tinder for Brazil's street recyclers
In São Paulo, people are using the Cataki app to swipe right on cleaner streets, protecting the environment, and improving the lives of some of the city’s poorest residents.
Just like the Tinder dating app, Cataki is all about matching people – in this case, matching local waste collectors (or ‘catadores’ as they’re known in Brazil) with people who have recyclable waste that they want to get rid of. Cataki literally means ‘collect here’ (cata-aqui).
It all started with Pimp My Carroça in 2012. ‘ARTivist’ (Thiago) Mundano brought together a group of people who occupied Anhangabaú, in the centre of São Paulo, to protest the rights of catadores.
Because, as Pimp My Carroça’s Head of Communications João Ferro explains, “catadores perform a public environmental service and are conveniently ignored by public authorities, the private sector, and civil society. We believe that they deserve not only respect and admiration, but also an adequate income for the service rendered.”
Forty catadores, 300 volunteers and 54 artists attended and ‘pimped out’ the handmade carts workers use to collect trash –covering them in all kinds of colourful fish, faces, flowers and important messages. They went on to involve over 1,600 volunteers in 42 cities around the world, who have now pimped a whopping 851 carts.
Five years later, in 2017, the project evolved even further: what if catadores could more easily find the waste they’re looking to collect – and people with unwanted trash could more easily get rid of it?
Sounds of Palestine: Palestine’s instruments of peace
In Bethlehem’s refugee camps, it can be hard to escape the noise of raids, bombs and snipers. But Sounds of Palestine is bringing back the music, by giving free music lessons to kids as young as three – to create an orchestra with a difference.
Music gives children a new language, which they can use to meet and communicate with others, and makes them feel part of a bigger family. It gives them something stable and special in their life, even when everything else seems to fall apart.
Sounds of Palestine started in 2012, when its founder – who prefers to remain anonymous – was inspired by El Sistema, the free ‘Music for Social Change’ programme in Venezuela.
El Sistema’s creator, José Antonio Abreu believed that music “is an agent of social development in the highest sense, because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion”.
It helps kids develop as people, not just as musicians – an opportunity that Sounds of Palestine wanted to bring to children living under military occupation in the West Bank.
Sounds of Palestine started offering lessons in kindergartens in Bethlehem’s al-Azzeh and Aida refugee camps. After the first year, they welcomed a new group of budding three and four year old musicians, and continued teaching the previous year’s class as they progressed to first grade.
It has grown this way year by year, and expanded to nearby Dheisheh refugee camp and local villages, so that 250 children aged 3-15 are now getting musical at least twice a week.
And it’s no wonder it’s a hit – Sounds of Palestine is the only music education available in Palestine that’s long-term, completely free, and includes healthy food as well as transport to and from class.
More here. And more from the excellent Atlas of the Future.