Gaza
Maya Al Khaldi and Sarouna
In this podcast, singer and composer Maya Al-Khaldi and Qanun player, DJ and producer Sarouna talk about the Palestinian music scenes and about their own musical approaches and artistic practices. They question the electronic music genre from a decolonial point of view and talk about the issues around fusion and the exoticization of cultural expression. Folklore emerges as a complex and often disputed concept. The conversation touches on the tensions between the archive and lived experience, the challenges of non-existent or inaccessible archives, and the importance of preserving cultural heritage. They also reflect on the crucial need for collective mourning as Palestinians and talk about the weight of imposed guilt, and about resilience. Sarouna’s thoughtfully captured field recordings of everyday moments in Palestine are woven through the podcast.
Philip Rizk
Lara and Stephen Sheehi
In this podcast, Lebanese writers, researchers and activists Lara and Stephen Sheehi walk us through the day-to-day reality of psychoanalysis under occupation, Zionist psy-ops and (anti)oppressive praxis. They talk about psychological warfare and about Sumud—or the reverie of resistance—, and discuss the worldliness of our subjectivities in a world that is not the same for everyone.
Ramón Grosfoguel
In this podcast, Puerto Rican sociologist and activist Ramón Grosfoguel guides us through centuries of obscurantism in Europe: from Christopher Columbus’s meeting with Queen Isabella in Granada on 11 January 1492 to the debate between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepulveda that laid the groundwork for the biological and culturalist racism that persists to this day. In doing so, he dismantles the Doctrine of Discovery and the universalist and ahistorical assumptions of Eurocentrism and modernity that still abound in academia.
Haig Aivazian
Through media such as lectures, performance, video, drawing, installation, and sculpture, Haig Aivazian’s multifaceted works intricately blend the personal and the geopolitical as well as micro and macro narratives. They uncover or perhaps even fabricate complex threads, timelines and visual networks with multiple layers of meaning and ambiguity. His stories are intended to puzzle, reveal intangible connections, and evoke a sense of ghostly friction among conflicting ideas. In this podcast, we talk to Haig Aivazian about counter-propaganda, sports, blackouts, Palestine, fugitivity and what he calls “the dumping grounds of democracy”.