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[AUDIO LOGO] JESSICA LEVIN MARTINEZ: Cornell University is located on the traditional homelands of the Guyohkohnyoh the Guyohkohnyoh members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, an alliance of six sovereign nations with a historic and contemporary presence on this land. The Confederacy precedes the establishment of Cornell University, New York State, and the United States of America. We acknowledge the painful history of Guyohkohnyoh dispossession and honor the ongoing connection of Guyohkohnyoh people, past and present, to these lands and waters.
Hello, and good afternoon. My name is Jessica Levin Martinez. I'm the Richard J. Schwartz Director of this Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. And I want to warmly welcome all, both in the room and online, to this discussion on politics, art, and free expression.
And this year at the Johnson Museum, we have a number of exhibitions, installations, and programs over the course of this year that consider together questions of free expression. And just next week, opening on September 28, we have Fashioning the Bounds of Free Speech. This is a collaboration with Human Ecology.
And the show explores fashion and art as forms of symbolic speech and expressive conduct that shape the limits and possibilities of freedom of expression in the United States. So some work will be on display here. Most will be on display at the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection in the Human Ecology Building. So I hope to see you there.
And after this program, I invite those of you here with us today to view the exhibition, The Poetic World of Persian Art, curated by Sharifa "Elja" Sharifi, my dear colleague and one of our speakers today. It's just down the hall. You'll see poetry, painting, calligraphy, all highlighting epics of powerful Persian kings and heroes and their romantic love stories. That's on through January 7.
So now, it is with pleasure that I introduce to you our moderator, Rachel Beatty Riedl, director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies. She's a professor in the Department of Government and the Cornell Jed E. Brooks School of Public Policy.
She is a leading scholar of institutional development in new democracies and also on authoritarian regime legacies in Africa. She is also one of this campus's leading advocates for the arts, and we are just so grateful for her friendship. And I'm glad to introduce her here. Rachel.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: Thank you so much to Jessica and for all of the team members at the Johnson Museum for this wonderful collaboration. It's incredibly exciting for us. And welcome to all of you who are here today to share our learning opportunities around freedom of expression, politics, and art.
On behalf of Wendy Wolford and the vice provost's Office for International Affairs, I'd like to express how much this particular moment, this particular event, and this particular constellation of amazing speakers and artists means to us. Because it combines our twin priorities of freedom of expression and the learning that that allows and international engagement.
As Martha Pollack shared in her statement to kick off this thematic year of freedom of expression at Cornell, quote, "Free expression is the bedrock of democracy, just as academic freedom is the bedrock of higher education. These twin freedoms are at the heart of our core values and have always been fundamental to Cornell's excellence and its identity."
As you know, Cornell's founding mission of any person, any study has always provided this kind of principled ethos to foster the exchange of ideas, the potential for new thoughts and innovation, the capacity to dream and imagine different possibilities of justice, of freedom, of thriving. And these things require the ability to think and to speak freely, to exchange and to learn, to push boundaries and to be changed by those inputs, those experiences, those expressions, in whatever forms they may take.
In particular, democracy, the practice of democracy, allows that kind of freedom of exchange. It allows that learning. And it allows that cycle of input, feedback, and governance responsiveness. And that's why I'm so particularly honored to be a part of this panel today.
The theme also has particular significance for international research and teaching for members of Cornell's international community. Cultural humility, or the desire to learn from people from different backgrounds and life worlds, and respect for cultural, historical, and social difference should always be compatible with this commitment to Cornell's core values because it is necessary to create space for truly free expression and scholarship.
We cannot have freedom of expression if we don't allow ourselves the openness to all of these different types of inputs and international perspectives, in particular. Our students, staff, and scholars at Cornell come from 129 countries and have connections to many more.
Cornell's commitment to freedom of expression is indispensable for academic work and provides a safe haven for scholars and artists from around the world, as you'll hear from today. These are the scholars and artists who will be sharing their perspectives with us, their thinking, their boundary-expanding work, and what it means to speak out and make art for change.
So we're so honored to hear from them today. And we're going to begin with Pedro Molina, who is a Nicaraguan political cartoonist and visiting critic with the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. Thank you, Pedro.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: Thank you. Trying to peer around all the tech here. See if this works, then. OK. I'm sorry. Give me a second.
It's the one that you have over there, right? Yeah, I'm sorry. It's not showing the notes. Maybe.
SPEAKER: And hit Play.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: No. [? All ready. ?] Thank you. OK, that's it. Oh, what's up? OK.
There we go.
SPEAKER: PEDRO X. MOLINA: Thank you. Sorry. I needed my notes. Because I can't, even when I have been here for almost five years now, I still don't trust my English, so I gotta have my notes. Anyway, good afternoon. Many thanks to Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art and Global Cornell for providing this space to reflect on the role of art in the defense and exercise of freedom of expression.
So let's start. As already mentioned, my name is Pedro Molina. I am from Nicaragua. And I am a cartoonist. That means that I make a living criticizing the world around me, or rather, those who make the world around us such a horribly troubled place.
For those of you who may not know, Nicaragua is this little country right in the middle of Central America that is currently under a dictatorship. I was born there in the middle of a civil war that restricted us and put us all in dangers-- so much, actually, that one night, my parents woke me up to tell me that we had to leave. Thus, my family and I were forced into what would be my first exile.
Like any 10-year-old, on the day we left, I was very sad to leave my grandparents, my house, and my friends. We experienced, for several years, the vicissitudes and frustrations of hundreds of thousands of people who are forced, in different parts of the world, to leave their homes. Several years later, when the war in my country was finally over, we were able to go back.
So during those years of frustration and loneliness due to war and exile, I had dedicated myself to drawing as a hobby. So when I came home and finished my basic studies, I was very clear I wanted to do something related to art for the rest of my life. But artwork is very big, right? Did I want to become a painter or maybe a superhero comic book artist--
[LAUGHTER]
--or maybe work as an animator for television shows? The thing is that my life experiences, marked by war and exile, led me to wonder, why do wars, inequality, and injustice exist? That led me to question the exercise of power in all its facets and made me want to comment on it. All that led me to the world of journalism and editorial cartoons.
So I decided to become a cartoonist. Since then, I've worked in traditional newspapers, magazines, and digital media. There are always some people who congratulate me for my work and others who get angry. It's normal when you do this kind of work.
Unfortunately, Nicaragua fell back into dictatorship. In the last few years the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has robbed, kidnapped, repressed, and murdered my people without pause or mercy. As an independent journalist, I have denounced and criticized that horror in my cartoons.
The dictatorship has persecuted independent journalists and taken over the facilities of several media outlets, including confidencial.digital, a news site that published my cartoons. Our newsroom was confiscated and looted. That forced many independent journalists to leave the country, including me, who, once again, was forced into exile, where I continue to do my job, doing my regular cartoons for confidencial.digital, the same medium that was confiscated and looted, now operating from exile. This is the face of the dictator of Nicaragua, if you are wondering who that guy is. And of course, it has to do with the problem of political prisoners in Nicaragua.
So I keep doing my cartoons about Nicaragua, but also dedicating myself to other projects, like this one, called Remembering is Resisting. Now, let me tell you what is it about. At some point, I decided to start drawing the victims of the repression in my country, telling their names and circumstances in which they were killed and sharing those pieces in social media.
After the first three or four drawings were published, I started receiving messages from families of the victims from all around the country who wanted me to include their loved ones in my drawings. So a personal project became a collaborative one.
And it started to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow until we decided to put together a book with all the drawings created over these years and distribute it in digital format because, due to censorship, it is the only way to circulate this type of work within Nicaragua. You can take a quick look at the book here. It is also available to download for free on confidencial website. It's in Spanish. I'm sorry we don't have an English version yet.
So the book includes the drawings of the victims that I have been able to draw of the repression in my country. But it also includes something else. You will find little comments below most of the drawings, and those comments come from the family of the victims that were reacting to the drawing of their loved ones. And that makes the book, I think, extra special for me.
So like I was saying, I keep drawing about what is happening in my country but also about what is happening in the rest of Latin America-- for example, about how the threat of authoritarianism and corruption has expanded in the region-- and, of course, about what is happening in the rest of the world, like the ongoing Putin war against Ukraine and the dangerous consequences of his madness, or what is happening in Afghanistan and the reasons why it's happening, or the protests of women in Iran, where just this week, the regime approved the hijab bill to reinforce their control over women, but, also, about what is happening in this country that has welcomed me and for which I cannot help worrying when I notice that many harmful political behaviors that we have already seen and experienced in Latin America are beginning to be seen here, as well.
Yesterday, I got an invitation for an exhibition in Europe. The exhibition is like this panel, about the importance of art and freedom of expression. The primary requirement is to send a piece that could never have been published in my country-- not easy. I have to choose one among the approximately 1,643 cartoons that I have made since I was forced into exile in December 2018.
Almost five years after I was forced to leave, the number of Nicaraguan exiles amounts to hundreds of thousands. The number of murdered people has increased. The number of journalists expelled from the country has tripled. The misfortune is greater. And to top it off, there is not a single newspaper or independent media outlet standing within the country that can publish any of this. All of them have been silenced, closed, and/or confiscated.
I have learned that, although it was not something natural for me-- as you can find out by listening to me right now-- now, in addition to drawing about the abuses that I've witnessed, I have to go out there and talk about them. I feel the responsibility to say what millions of Nicaraguans cannot say out of fear or because they are political prisoners or because they were forcibly exiled and now have to focus on finding what to eat or how to feed their families.
For me, art is important because, personally, it is the most effective way that I have found to communicate with the rest of the world but, also, because it can be used to break the walls of censorship and ignorance and draw attention to difficult situations that many people around the world face.
This very same week, I am part of Silenced Voices, another exhibition of Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan artists against repression. If, by any chance, you are in New York City after today, you are invited to check it out in person. It's in Blue Gallery, 222 East 46th Street.
Art is what allows people, like those who are watching us and listening to us today, to connect with a reality that perhaps they did not as much. And maybe it motivates them to do something about it, even if it is just drawing attention to these situations, which, seeing how the bad guys try to silence or ignore them is not a small thing.
This is also why it's so important to support artists, especially those in situations of persecution or exile. Help them. Help us to keep being the voice of those who have been forced to silence, and spread the word. Thank you for your attention.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: Thank you so much, Pedro. That kicks us off beautifully, both in terms of what we have seen and what you have said. Next, I would like to introduce Sharifa "Elja" Sharifi, our Afghan visiting scholar and the 2022-2023 Artist Protection Fund Fellow at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Thank you, Elja.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: Hope I can figure [? this out. ?] Hello, everyone. I'm delighted to be here, and it's an honor for me to speak to you today. Thank you so much for coming. I also thank Global Cornell and the Johnson Museum of Art for providing for me this great opportunity. I'm going to speak about the lack of freedom of expression in Afghanistan before and after Taliban.
Art is always influenced by the environment. And what the artist creates is the result of their close relationship with that environment. Art is reflective of political and social affairs, knowingly or unknowingly, overtly or covertly. Each artwork, even the most abstract work, is the product of social or political situation.
When it comes to freedom of expression in art in Afghanistan, it should be noted that censorship of art existed in Afghanistan before and after periods of Taliban rule. Throughout the history of our country, freedom of expression for artists has been censored. Religious extremists have often dominated Afghan society, restricting artistic expression as a violation of Islamic law. Even during periods when the government did not oppose the curation of art, religious extremists still managed to prevent the work of artists.
As for my background, I studied at the Herod University Art School, where I later served as a faculty member, and there were no government restrictions for artists at that time. In many cases, artists even created works that openly criticized the problems of the government and society, but traditional Afghan society prevented the free creation of works of art.
For example, I remember, one day, when we arrived at class, we were horrified to find that all our portrait paintings had been slashed by some of the extremist students from the Shariah school in the next building. This is just one example of the many physical assaults on our art.
As visual artists, we were never allowed to show all that we had in our mind. I also remember when, one of my male classmates painted a picture of a woman whose dress was a bit low-cut. It was a beautiful painting, but it was strongly criticized by the head of the painting department, who asked the student to paint all the bare part of the woman's chest. This was an incredibly sad moment for the artists and all of us.
Another example is about Miss Saqia Ehrar, an instructor at the art school who was also interested in erotic painting, but her work was not allowed into the exhibition. I picked this picture, which is Ms. Ehrar's interview with BBC News. And this painting was not allowed to show in that exhibition. And she said in that interview that I have more erotic paintings, but I'm not allowed to show that at all.
Art in Afghanistan is currently under threat, censored, and restricted than any other era. War and poor economy have always been obstacles to the progress of artistic activities in Afghanistan. Current Taliban rule is ensuring that extremism has brought art to the abyss of destruction, even more than during the war. Afghan artists fear that because of this oppressive regime, art and culture will decline and be lost forever.
The concern about the destruction of culture and art comes from the dark past of the Taliban government, a group bent on destroying the cultural and artistic background of Afghanistan in the name of Islam. After the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, this extremist group once again started opposing all forms of art.
They proclaimed music, cinematography, sculpting, and painting portraits and the human body as haram, which means forbidden by Islamic law. In a directive issued on January 15, 2023, writing love poems and love songs also became strictly prohibited by the Taliban.
Afghanistan has become a cemetery of art. The current situation is terrible for all artists, but it is much worse for women artists. Women must cover themselves, and they are not allowed to leave their own homes without a mahram, which means a husband, brother, son, or father. So you can imagine how challenging it is for women to create their art.
For example, a few days ago, the Taliban locked up the Behzad Art Gallery, one of the most important galleries in Herat. Why? Because two teenage girls were learning to paint in the gallery. Can you believe it? The gallery was reopened but with the stipulation that girls and women are not allowed to enter the building at all.
It should be mentioned that, in general, the history of art in Afghanistan has never experienced a period during which the artists could freely display their ideas and concerns. There has always been an obstacle, sometimes from the ruling government and sometimes from an extremely patriarchal and traditional society and religion-based government.
As an artist who lived in Afghanistan for many years, I never had the freedom to publish my work as I wished, and I was not allowed to talk about the concerns of women in general. Even asking about this subject in the community was considered wrong and sometimes even a social crime.
While I grew up in a well-educated family, but tradition is rooted in the thoughts and hearts of all Afghan families, unfortunately. Sadly, then, I even hid some of my paintings from my own family. Finally, freedom of expression is one of the most basic rights of artists. If that freedom is denied, the art world will be destroyed.
Now I'm going to show you examples of my work that I was not allowed to display before the Taliban most recently came to power. My work is mostly about women and their daily concerns. I have several goals for my work. The first is to express women's full humanity and to break down taboos.
In this painting, a woman is looking sad and depressed under a blanket. She is sad because she cannot be herself. She is supposed to stay home, get married at a young age, do housework, and have children. She is not supposed to follow her own passions.
This painting is not only about smoking. It's also about breaking the rules. This Afghan woman is wearing traditional Afghan clothing, as well as a burqa. There is a tension between the wearing of the burqa, a symbol of traditional, oppressive society, and smoking, which is symbol of defiance. This woman isn't thinking about what the other people think about her but, instead, she is doing what she wants.
The second goal of my work is to protest to invisibility of Afghan women. It's a crime in Afghanistan for women to even be seen. If a woman is seen without wearing a scarf, she is considered a criminal and sometimes is even stoned. It's also a crime for a woman to appear without her hijab. But why should a woman be embarrassed by her body? Why can't we wear what we want? Women want and deserve to be seen and respected.
The title of these two paintings is My Body is Not a Crime. I had to paint these and other nudes in secret. My family was supportive of my art, but they weren't comfortable with my choosing to paint women's bodies. I had more than 200 drawings hidden in my family's home.
I could not even take the risk of keeping photos of my artwork in my phone for fear of the Taliban checking my phone when I left the country. Fortunately, I was able to save some of these photos in my Instagram account.
After the Taliban returned, one of my teachers, a man, burned all of the nude paintings he had held in his gallery, even though he was never allowed to show them. To him, it was like killing his children.
The third purpose of my work is to show that women have desires, including sexual desires. Women in my country are not allowed to have desires. They are not allowed to be sexual beings. It is a crime for a man and a woman to be seen together if they are not married. Women are banned from many things, including being in love, in a relationship, or loving a person.
The fourth goal of my artwork focuses on political and social criticism, which includes Afghan women's hopes and dreams for freedom. This painting's title is Hopeful Eyes. I started this painting some time after arriving in Ithaca while I was thinking about all the women of my land who have lost their most basic and fundamental rights-- the right to work and pursue an education. They are not even allowed to leave the house alone.
My message to these women in this paintings is that if the Taliban and their followers have taken everything from you, your eyes are the gateway to awareness and knowledge. You can still read books with your eyes in the corners of houses and watch the movement of pen on paper and learn to write. These eyes are waiting and hoping for a change in the current situation.
Here, I painted my sister, a 15-year-old girl, as a symbol of all Afghan girls among lotus flowers. [? Astra ?] is not allowed to go to school, according to the strict rules of the Taliban. But she and all the other girls hope that this cruel situation will end soon, and they can enjoy this most natural right.
The lotus flower is a symbol of hope in Hindu legend. An inspiration of the lotus flower is a reminder that even in the darkest moments of the life, there is always the possibility of growth, renewal, and transformation. I wish that all the girls of my land can overcome this difficult condition like the lotus flowers endure and, one day, sing the song of freedom.
Vampires in Afghanistan. This is a work in progress, but this is a work from vampire series that I am currently working on. Sometime after the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, they ordered that all women, even women who work as news anchors on television, must cover their entire body and face.
A woman presenter who had to read the news with her face covered could not bear this challenging and embarrassing situation, and tears flowed from her eyes while trying to read the news. It was a very sad moment for me, so I decided to draw her painful experience. I believe that the Taliban and all who support them are vampires who drink the blood of Afghan women. Thank you for your attention.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: Thank you so much, Elja, for sharing your work with us. It's an honor to be able to witness it with you. Last but not least, I'd like to introduce Khadija Monis, the class of 2024, an undergraduate student here at Cornell University, who is also a poet and artist. Khadija.
KHADIJA MONIS: Wow. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on this beautiful afternoon. I'm deeply honored to be able to share some of my poetry with you. I'm a little bit nervous, standing here, talking about my poetry after 10 years. So please bear with me.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
Thank you. A little bit of introduction about myself. Who am I? I am a member of Hazara people from Afghanistan, and I'm a poet. I write poetry in Hazaragi and Dari, two languages native to Afghanistan. I was inspired by my elder brother, a great poet himself.
My poetry is rooted in my innermost feelings, heavily influenced by the society I have grown in. It focuses on life, nature, love, pain, women. My poems often carry criticism-- authoritarianism and oppression in the society-- freedom of expression, and self-defense.
The first poem I'm going to read for you is about women. This poem was written in 2015, on March 19, 2015. So there was an incident in that day in Afghanistan. A woman, Farkhunda Malikzada, a 27-years-old woman, was attacked in Islamic [? sharia ?] after being falsely accused of burning a copy of holy Quran.
She was stoned to death. Her body was run over by car, set on fire, and dumped into the river. This incidents didn't occur solely because it was an Islamic conservative society. Her status as a woman, perceived as having less physical strength, added to her vulnerability. She wasn't given a chance to defend herself.
This poem addresses a woman's feeling about the limitations she experiences in a patriarchal society. The woman in this poem talks to men in the society. She says, you are able to fly because I am polishing your wings. You are singing because I am building your songs, and you are destroying me from the root.
In this poem, she is not requesting, she's not begging, she's not asking for anything from men. Rather, this poem shares how a woman gives her power, her creativity, her talent, open-mindedness, wisdom, and her soul in support of men to achieve their goals for a hopeful future, even when her own are being tramped upon.
The poem talks about separation, oppression, violence, and criticism she experiences due to her existence, the limitations she has in a patriarchal society, a society whose enculturation has impacted generations. She feels herself limited in a box of men's limited mindset.
As you might not understand the words, I would like you to close your eyes and listen to the rhythms, lyrics, and the musicality of the poem when I'm reciting it for you. Women.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Thank you very much. And the next one-- this is the second poetry I am going to recite for you, but before--
So this poetry was written by a woman who was about to leave her homeland tomorrow, like a day before she left her homeland. So this poem expresses the feeling of a woman returning to her homeland and her society after more than 15 years. She was a child when she left her home, and then she returned after more than 15 years, and she was again compelled to leave her country. So she returned to her home searching for a hopeful future. Suddenly, everything turns into a nightmare.
She expresses her disappointment with seeing that her society lost the freedom they had before. She sees the grim side of her society and the streets filled with hopelessness, with hopeless people. She's talking how her society vanished, extinguished. She describes it as an irreplaceable damage. She is talking about her broken heart due to leaving her family and her homeland again to be able to search for life.
You can close your eyes. I can read it for you, and then you can focus on the last word, which sounds "shoo-ed." In English, it means "happened." And she is emphasizing on what happened. It is about That Street, [NON-ENGLISH].
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for listening to me.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: Thank you so much to each of our presenters and for sharing your work with us. Now we're going to be able to open this up to question and answer from the audience. And I thought maybe I could just kick it off with one quick question while you, maybe, are thinking about them. And then I'll open it up to all of you. But I was so moved by a few of the common threads that our presenters shared in their comments and in their reflections and how it shapes their art.
The first, as Pedro mentioned, was a sense of responsibility, a sense of the need to shed light on the conditions, to draw attention to the situations, to communicate that to external audiences and to internal audiences, as well. Because those who would try to silence these types of freedoms, these expressions, are seeking to concentrate their own power. And they do so by silencing others, by limiting others, repressing and seeking to censor. And in doing so, it's really antithetical to expression.
The second is, as Elja mentioned, the way in which art is always influenced by one's environment. So these challenges also continue to shape their own imaginings of different futures, of what they seek to express, what they seek to critique.
The third is about contestations and the way in which control over what is seen and heard, what is experienced, what is even thought, is always at the core of these contestations between art and expression and those who would limit it. The goal of the artist, as we've seen in Elja's paintings, is to show the true humanity, in this case, of a subject that is marginalized in a particular context, to break down taboos, to show examples of defiance. It's also, as we saw in Khadija's poetry, to share beauty and hope and different possibilities.
And so in this way, to me, it calls to mind the work of James Scott, whose scholarship was on weapons of the weak. And I think it's very relevant here. Because the weapons of the weak that he describes are in the context of authoritarian, repressive control, the opposite of democracy and freedom of expression.
And in this way, the only possibilities for resistance available are those of, truly, the smallest, almost imperceptible forms of resistance, those that would be imperceptible to those who rule. So it may be for the laborer to break their tool on purpose, to work slowly, counterproductively-- foot dragging.
And it's so striking. Because these acts of brave resistance are the opposite of weak. Of course, that's the play on the title. Their struggle is based on incredible strength and sacrifice. And they are expected to aggregate to something greater. And when I hear and see the work of these artists, we have the sense of strength, of imagining, of sacrifice, and, also, the aggregation of something greater, these ability to express and to hope and imagine different futures.
So I was just wondering, to make it a question-- [LAUGHS]-- I was wondering, for all of you, how you might see those acts of resistance come through, how they've shaped your experiences, either here in Ithaca, since you've left, or even in your work before you came to the US? Pedro, I'm going to start with you.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: Well, as you were mentioning about these little acts of resistance, I think I just try, honestly, with my work. Of course, I'm trying to inform people, to make them think. After all, this is a panel about art. But I am the bastard child of journalism and art. So I am comfortable being that way, by the way.
Half of my work has to do with the information, facts, and half of it, it has to do about reflecting on those facts and then sharing with the people what we think. It's worth sharing about how they affect us and make you think. Part of my work is to give back to people what I have received from them.
When you were talking about these little acts of resistance, I was remembering some of the way of protest that Nicaraguan people have been trying to come up with because of the rep-- at first, it was everybody was on the streets, protesting-- everybody. Thousands of people were protesting on the streets, where the killings started to happen.
And a lot of people was put in jail. And they went after journalists and after politicians and after priests and after pretty much everybody who will have a voice to do something. Then people had to come up with different ways of protesting. One of them, I remember, it was that-- I don't even know who had this idea, but it was so powerful for me. It was very simple.
They were buying blue and white balloons. And they were inflating them at home. And then they were releasing these balloons into the streets very early in the morning as a way of protest. Because they couldn't go into the streets. So they were releasing these balloons as a way of protest. White and blue are the colors of our national flag.
So it was very funny. Because you will see the paramilitaries of the regime, of Ortega-Murillo regime, with their AK-47s and with their [? masks, ?] [? helmets, ?] and everything, trying to step into the balloons to explode the balloons in the streets. And it was so funny. I don't know if people knew this, that they were using humor to make fun of these people, to make them look as petty as they are, as ridiculous as they are.
And humor is a very liberating thing. If you are able to laugh at something, you are losing the fear to that, what is hurting you. So it seems so simple. But it's, at the same time, so powerful. So that kind of thing, that little thing-- this is just one of the many things that Nicaraguans have been trying to come up in way of protest.
And of course, with every little thing, the regime will just try to stop everything. So at this point, nobody-- we have people who have been put in jail because they were waving the national flag on the streets, just because of that.
So anyway, even then, people try to come up with ideas, either online or whatever, stickers or something that you can use. And for me, it's just me, that I am outside, that I have this place. This is a space where I can see more, when I can say more, when I can do more.
I feel called to do that in order to give back something of what I have received for these other people who are not artists, if you want to say that. They're just regular people that are doing whatever they can. So I think it's part of my duty, in that way, to do whatever I can. And it's part of the communion with the people, in that way.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: Is it possible to [INAUDIBLE]?
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: You see your work, in some senses, as an act of resistance. And how has it shaped the transformation of your own work? Even as you've moved and migrated and are in a new context, how do you see the tie between resistance and the responsibility that Pedro mentioned, as well, to shine light and to have these opportunities for acts of expression and freedom of expression?
SHARIFA SHARIFI: First, I hope I could understand your question real and correctly. And then-- should I turn this on? I don't know. Anyway, for me, as I mentioned, when I was in Afghanistan, of course, as an artist, I was working there. But it was really hard to display or show whatever you want to say as a woman. Because, unfortunately, in Afghanistan, women are always restricted, even from our own family.
But the experience of migration and coming here, I can say it changed all of my life. Maybe unfortunately, I don't have enough time or chance to create more art. But the opportunity to come here and start researching, especially research about Persian painting and what is my culture, what is my interest, help me so much.
Because when I left my country, especially at that time that Herat fought I just thought, everything is finished. I imagined myself as like a dead walking, and there is nothing more for me to continue. There is no life at all again.
But as I mentioned, especially in the lotus flower painting, no one knows about the future. And sometimes our future just change for a blind of an eye. So I think this transformation was kind of sad and disappointing for a moment for me.
But it helped me to continue my life. It helped me to continue my art. It helped me to thinking again as a human being. It helped me to think, yes, I'm alive. I can continue. And I can, again, believe to my ability.
And I really want to transfer this ability to other women, especially women who are in Afghanistan, women who are, unfortunately, like people who are in the cage. Sorry. It's hard to say in English the exact words. But I think it's our responsibility.
Yes, we are out of our country, but it's not that, OK, I'm safe now, but I don't care what's happening there. I think it's our responsibility to transfer whatever we find here-- our knowledge, our art, everything-- to Afghan women. That's what I think.
And I really appreciate all the help and support that people did here for me, from the community of Cornell University, from the museum, my very wonderful supervisor, Ellen Avril, my all friends. Thank you so much.
KHADIJA MONIS: Thank you very much for asking this question. So I have mixed feelings-- very honored opportunity and very privileged to be here and to be able to write whatever I can and whatever I feel. But at the same time, I feel sad. I feel more responsible. And part of my family still lives there, and I cannot publish what I want. And this is mixed of feelings.
I'm very privileged. I can continue my education. I can do my work as an artist. I can write it. But still, I don't have the full freedom to express myself and to be able to share what I want. So there are still threats. There are still risks involved with my art. And that's what I feel.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: Thank you so much. Now, we'll open it to the audience for any questions you would like to pose to our artists. Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I have a question for-- oh, sorry. So I have two questions. I have a question for Pedro. I was just very touched by your art. As a member of the political science department at the government department at Cornell, it was so well informed about so many different political issues. And I understand that you work at the nexus of journalism and art. But I was just curious to hear more about your process of synthesizing all of this existing knowledge and then turning it into art.
Because as a student, for instance, as a TA, I take in so much information about the world, and I try to teach it to students. But I've never really thought about showing it this way. And it's so creative, and it conveys so much with one image. And so I was just curious to hear more about that.
And then, for our Afghan artists, I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you find strength to engage in your art when it can be so difficult. I mean, even Elja is becoming emotional. And I can't even imagine how difficult it can be because engaging in your art is, in itself, a resistance, so just where you draw that strength from every day. If it's not too personal, I would love to hear more about that.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: Thank you.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: OK. How do I work, or how I come up with these ideas, and how do I simplify things? Honestly, I have no idea. No, for me, it's very natural. Like I was saying, since I was very little, my first window from the world was cartooning. It was reading the cartoons in the newspapers and comic strips.
And in a sense, I think I was very lucky. Because Latin American comic strips, Latin American cartoons, even when they are not political stuff, they are always talking about social or political issues. I don't know.
Maybe people who know a little more about Latin America over here will know that if I tell you that I grew up reading Mafalda, which is a comic strip from Argentina, from Quino, it makes me think about a lot of things that were happening in the world. Because Mafalda was not only about having a joke or something. It was about talking about more serious issues.
So for me, it was a very easy way to try to understand things, try to understand the world, try to understand what was happening around me. So that's why, actually, I got into cartooning. Because I thought, this is a very powerful way of communicating with everybody.
And when I started doing it myself, I realized that what happened with many of us is that we are, all the time, thinking about many, many things. And we think we know what is the best approach to everything. And we have it here in our head.
But when we sit down to actually write it down, because we need to do a paper about it or write a poem or do a cartoon about it, it force you to really focus on it and to really question yourself. Where do I stand about this? And then you find out, OK, so here's where I stand. How can I narrow it down in order to communicate it to people?
Because that's another thing. I have nothing against art that is just pure expression of the artist to the world. But the art that interested in personally more is the art that is opening a bridge with the person who is looking at our work. I mean, there is communication around it. And that's what I'm always looking for.
So here is what I think. Here is the way I present it. And I hope that the person that is seeing it is going to put something on their part to make this work, to think about it, to maybe say, oh, I never thought about this in this angle, and maybe do something about it. So that's the way I approach it.
But it's very spontaneous, very natural. It's just thinking, sitting down, and trying to define, what do you think about a specific topic and finding a way to present it to the world with your talents. It could be cartoon. It could be painting. It could be writing. It doesn't matter, but just sitting down and do something.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: So may I repeat your question in Persian? Or--
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: [SPEAKING PERSIAN]
AUDIENCE: So I was curious, how do you come to the decision? But I don't want [INAUDIBLE] you guys. How do you decide what's put in your art?
So his is very political. Yours is also [INAUDIBLE]. So how do you decide what goes into the art? And then how do you have the strength to do it? Where do you get all of this [NON-ENGLISH] to do what you do every day?
SHARIFA SHARIFI: OK. Thank you for your question. I'm sorry that I always get emotional. I hate this, but it always happens. For me, as I was living in Afghanistan, of course, even before Taliban, there were, as I told you, there were no restrictions from the government, but I always saw very extremist people around me.
And that was my question. Because it was really hard to being a woman in Afghanistan. We are always, unfortunately, oppressed. We are restricted. And that was my question. And sometimes I really couldn't ask this question in public or generally because it was really crime to even ask about that. So I decided, yes, I was a student in Herat art school.
But at that time, I started to think about my questions and my concerns and start to paint it. And I started start to ask my question through my art. And I didn't care if it's important for people or not. It was important for me. Because that was really my question. And I started to paint.
Unfortunately, I never be encouraged on that community. Because even sometimes people blame me. Oh, my god, what do you mean? Why are you always try to show women nude bodies? But they never try to understand what is behind this painting, what message this painting has. So that was the reason that I started.
Actually, I really wanted to start protest through my art for women. Because I don't know, but I always try to-- I love to work for women in Afghanistan because they are really, really, really oppressed from everything, as all of you know. And what was the other part of your question?
AUDIENCE: [NON-ENGLISH].
SHARIFA SHARIFI: If I can say this is a power. So I think because I am a woman, because I know all women in Afghanistan. Try not to make me, again, emotional.
[LAUGHS]
But yeah, I love to do that. And I think I will always do that, because freedom is our dream. Thank you for your question.
KHADIJA MONIS: Thank you very much, [NON-ENGLISH]. It was a wonderful question. So how do I put it together and how do I get the strength for my work is my strength is my feelings. Honestly, if I feel about something, and I create it in words, and I put it on the paper. And that comes from that.
And a part of it is blessing. And that is the ability that is gifted to me, that I can put the words together and write it, create it. I don't push myself to do something. I just need the feelings. There are some moments when I create 20 lines, 30 lines in one hour. Does it bother me? Yes. I cry with every single word I write.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: And I cry with your poetry.
KHADIJA MONIS: Because I feel it-- thank you-- because I feel it. It is not because I only write sad poetries. I also write happy ones. And I also write about my loved ones. And I also write about nature, beauty, and about Cornell when I wrote. So it just comes from when I feel about something.
Even if I'm sitting in front of the water, if I feel that beauty, I create it. And that's my-- maybe it is genetically. My mom was also a poet. She was never been able to go to school. But her poems were spoken. And later, I understood that I was born from a poet mother. And part of it might be genetic. And so yes.
And for the time, how do I put together, is my poems usually is a story. From the beginning to the end, it tells a story. It is like a chain. It starts and then ends. It doesn't matter what the title, is, it is love, nature, but it is always a story. And it is always happening because of something touches me. Thank you so much.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: Can I say something before-- I found Khadija's poem very sad, unfortunately. And yes, you started that, and you started the tears. But I was thinking, unfortunately, always, what women in Afghanistan want to talk about when they are writing about, when they have painting or any kind of expression, it's always, unfortunately, sad.
So this is the situation. And we cannot change it. But I always think why it is like that. It's like that our world is combining with that sadness now. Even when the artist is reciting a poem, it's always sad. Even a painter paints something, it's sad.
Yes, that's the condition. I hope, one day, it change. But yeah, I want to just ask Khadija, how did you write that sadness? Is it something from the community or your personal life, maybe?
KHADIJA MONIS: The poetry I shared with you guys today, I also mentioned that one of them was because of an accident happened. A woman was killed. And that touched me emotionally. I was living in Islamabad, Pakistan. And then I was watching the news. So I filled my body in that situation, and I wrote that.
So the next one was just before-- the day I left Afghanistan. I left Afghanistan for the US for the last time. So I born in Afghanistan. But when I was a kid, my family moved to Pakistan. After 15 years, we returned back to Afghanistan, hoping for the beautiful future, ambitious, and doing a lot of works, had a lot of dreams, plans.
And then, suddenly, it was those days when I went to the street two times because I had a dental problem. So I went [INAUDIBLE] to the street and then came back. I felt that hopelessness. I felt that dead bodies are moving around the street. And I was searching for leaving the country. So I wrote that poetry just that moment. So those were the circumstances that just created that poetry.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: Thank you.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: We have a question here. And then we'll move to-- we'll gather three questions, and then we'll open it up to our panel.
AUDIENCE: I have a question for Pedro. I came from China, a place ruled by the Communist Party. And the party also suppressed many forms of artistic expressions. And this question troubles me a lot. What's your opinion, considering the relationship between humor and sarcasm and its effects in challenging the totalitarian government? Because there are many things that are quite absurd that is happening in China. And frankly, it's quite funny.
An example that rings a bell is an event that happens this July in China. It's called the "mouse head duck neck event." In China, the cafeterias of large university is closely connected to certain government agencies. And one day, a student took a photo of a dish that is served in that cafeteria. And the content in that dish resembles too much to a mouse head.
But the cafeteria claims that this is not a mouse head. This is a duck neck. And there's a long list of department that gives their certifications telling everybody that this is a duck neck, not a mouse head.
But later on, this gets so much attention from the internet because it just resembles so much with a mouse head. And the government has to respond to this overwhelming wave of attentions. And they sent this specimen for further examinations. And they yield a result that, in conclusion, this is a mouse head. And they create this comical feature in China called the mouse-headed duck. They give a name to a new species.
This is very interesting to me, because it shows how humor actually makes a difference in that situation. But however, what's happening more in China is that humor sometimes signifies a state of inactivity, where people couldn't do anything, in fact. They just make fun of the situations, sort of to make themselves feel better. So I want to hear what you think about how humor could be applied in order to make a real difference.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: OK. Yeah.
AUDIENCE: In the US and other democracies, we're all-- not all but many places-- are tending towards extremism. And it happens over the years, in cycles, whatever you want. Whatever causes it, I don't know, but it happens. How do we express ourselves without offending the other side and respecting the opinions of others? And how might democracy work as a first step in your countries?
AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. Actually, I don't have any specific question. It was remarkable job done by artists. I really appreciate it. And it is a very nice job. Actually, the job done by the Afghan artist, it brings me back to all the problem and misery that we left it. And I supposed that not remember that. I want to forget that.
And I remembered the faculty of art and fine of Kabul University. They did a lot of job. They did very nice job. For eight years, I was dean of the Faculty of Environment in Kabul University. Actually, I wanted that. The job was very nice. I don't know it will remain or not. But as I know, the faculty was closed completely.
And the final job that the dean of faculty of fine art and I, we decided to make a joint project about the environmental graphic. And we want to draw the environment. And there was a lot of job to bring the environment in the drawing and artist on the art.
Actually, it was not done. It was the-- job we were to do, and it was remained forever. And unfortunately, everything was. And all the faculty is closed. And the 15 members of the faculty they're in France. This only the thing that I remember. And we would like to do our best to revive that, to return back that. Thanks. Thanks for all your job.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: I'm so impressed with your presentation. And I know you guys are role model for us. And I'm really curious to know from Elja and Khadija to know how you want to motivate Afghan girls through your art. Because the way that you express their emotion, it's not only about you two. It's about a nation, woman, that they are suffering. And we all are together in this. so how you are expressing those emotions for women that they are not able to.
Because the way that you have the chance or the talent to share those feelings, thousands of Afghan women are not having those ability or freedom to share. So how you will give strength to those Afghan women that know, however the situation is difficult, still, you can find one kind of power to get out of that. And how do you feel-- I don't want to make you emotional. [LAUGHS]
But I'm really curious to know how. Because I know you're so powerful. The strength that you have, I'm sure nobody else can have. So let me know how you feel when you put your emotion, thoughts, fairness, unfairness of life that way that you experience and how you feel about, oh, now I feel released that I have expel all those negativity, all those fairness, into my art and how you can motivate women.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: OK, thank you.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: So we'll maybe stop, but we'll go in the same order with Pedro and then move our way down. But I think, building on that last question, one thing that really strikes me, both for Elja and Khadija, in terms of your responses, too, earlier, was the way in which the process-- and Pedro, too-- the process of making the art.
Of course, it's also an internal process of managing emotion, asking questions, finding new answers, focusing yourself to understand where you stand on an issue or, in a sense, Khadija, the way you described it, too, almost a kind of therapeutic process, even to let your emotions come through. And so I wonder if that builds on the question around how it can speak to others to also share that for where they're at in their own lives. But let me turn it to Pedro.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: Well, I don't know if you want to go first, just to connect with this question. And then I can address you more later, just to not break the--
SHARIFA SHARIFI: I think you can start.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: Well, it doesn't matter. But if you want to go first, that's fine.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: OK. So, I'm going to go to [? Diana. ?] I think you asked, how can I transfer this art to Afghan girls and women, or how can I inspire? That's a good question. And this is my question, also.
It's really hard in this situation. And before that, I was in the society and community, that I could at least go communicate with my students with my colleagues and my friends. But here, the only way that I have to connect with them and communicate with them is my social accounts. And the only way that I have-- I put, sometimes, my hours and even my thoughts in my social accounts. But sometimes even this is hard. Because always, my family call me. Please, think about us. Please, be careful.
It's really hard. Sometimes I think, OK, now I'm here. But it is still hard to make art. I was talking with my mother. OK, I'm here, but I think I still cannot express myself because I need to think about and all of other people.
But in any opportunity that I get, I try to talk with Afghan girls. For example, there is a wonderful teacher in Princeton High School that he invited me to his class. He teaches Afghan girls online around the world. And they are mostly in Afghanistan. Some were in Pakistan and Iran.
So for example, at that class, I really tried my best to inspire them. And as my experience, I told them, believe me, it will change one day. We don't know when, but it will change one day. And that's the only way that I can.
And sometimes I have some interviews with some news channels. And anything, I try to-- not very openly because of the safety, we need to think about our families-- but I still try to talk with my people. And sometimes my students, my friends, just text me. And sometimes they call me and cry. And it's hard for me to not cry with them.
But yeah, I really try my best to just help them as my experience that it really will change. You have to be strong, and you have to stay hopeful. We all hope that everything changes one day. And it be. It will change.
And thank you so much, Mr. [INAUDIBLE]. I really was impressed with your experience. I know what you say, especially about the art schools in Afghanistan. I have so many colleagues that, every day, say something sad about art. And I think, unfortunately, I can say this is the situation of death of art in Afghanistan. And as I told you, Afghanistan now is the cemetery of art.
There is no freedom for expression. And all Afghan artists are in a very, very bad economy situation. They cannot think about art. They need to think about what we should eat. They need to think about bread. So that's the problem for now. And thank you so much for sharing your experience.
KHADIJA MONIS: Thank you very much, [? Diana ?] [? Jong. ?] It was a very heavy name, a role model, for my generation. I'm really feeling honored that you are telling me that. At the same time, it is a huge responsibility to be artist and to be able to create something and then, at the same time, inspire somebody.
When somebody is living in a dark moment-- there is no door, no windows, no air-- and you are telling the person about the beautiful sunrise and sunset, it's very hard, even if you-- I believe in the power of words, in my poetry, in my poems. I believe that it is very strong.
It can also-- has been growing. Reading poems from other poets, I have been inspired. And I believe in the power of words. But at the same time, I believe to be practical. At this moment, a person is living in a prison. You are talking about beautiful waterfall? It doesn't make sense for the person.
So what I am doing right now is I'm thinking about writing them. And maybe, at this moment, I really cannot see any way of inspiring them. They need freedom. They need the door to be open. They need school to be and go.
And if I tell them there is beautiful picture, future, in my poetry, so what is going to-- doesn't make any sense. So it is very overwhelming and very-- I cannot put my emotions in words, how much heavy is that.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: OK. So I'm going to focus in two things-- first, emotion in art, when you're working. Again, I'm going back to being the bastard child of journalism and art. In journalism, the idea is that you have to be objective. You have to work with the facts. And you have to care about them and everything.
And it has to be that way, right? I agree with that. But in my particular spot, as an editorial cartoonist, I can take the facts, and I can think about them and criticize them or offer another angle. And then, that's when your personal experience gets into it. And, of course, everything that it has to do with you, with yourself, which it means your emotions, too.
So remember when I was doing this project, when I was drawing these victims that I was telling you about, when people were sending me these pictures, people who were saying, oh, I am the mother of this person, and he was killed this way, and here is his picture, will you be so kind to include it in your project, this is a very personal connection. And it's very emotional for you.
And I remember, as I was drawing-- I was doing these drawings, drawing the faces and learning about who these people were, sometimes I was crying while I was drawing. It was very therapeutic. It's like, what they are suffering is also your suffering. So again, it's all about connection for me. That's the secret of art, if you can get that connection.
And when people connect with something that I do on my end and then they write to me and say, you know, this is just what I was thinking, how can you guess what I was thinking, no. I wasn't guessing. The thing is that I'm just like you. I'm a regular Nicaraguan, just like you. So the things that are affecting you are also affecting me. The thing that makes you angry, they also makes me angry.
And so I'm just trying to express myself in the way that I can. And one of the ways that I can do that is with my drawing and with humor. And now I go to that part.
Humor is a very powerful tool, actually, to fight against authoritarianism if you want to use it that way. Because, of course, I'm not talking about the dirty jokes that kids can say in school or anything. I'm talking about making a conscious effort to use humor as a tool to talk about what is happening around you.
And it's very effective in authoritarianism because these people who are in power, they just don't understand humor. And they are afraid of everything they don't understand. So that's why they go after the artists. That's way they go after the cartoonists, after the people who make satire on YouTube or something like that. Because they don't get it, and they are afraid of it.
But the good thing about humor is that you can take-- these people who are in power, they always see themselves, almost, as gods. And if you live in countries like mine, they dress themselves in these clothes of power. They see themselves as gods, basically.
So when you use humor to show the rest of the population that these people are not gods that are living up on the clouds, but you can bring them down to Earth with humor, and saying, this guy, he farts just like any of us, for example. It seems like a silly thing, honestly.
But for people who have been living under oppression, this is this feeling that, I can laugh at this guy. And if you can laugh at them, you can defeat them. You lose the fear that you have. And then you can come up with some other ideas to face the problem that you are facing.
And the story that you were telling, it's a great story to start with. Because in these societies, what happens is that, ironically, is that many of the things that these regimes do, they are actually very ridiculous, very funny. And you can use them to prove how ridiculous this system is.
Just to give an example, in Nicaragua, we have a two-head dictatorship, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. Rosario Murillo, she has a very insane fixation with the work of Gustav Klimt, the painter. So at some point, she decided she was going to do a metal sculpture of the Tree of Life, just this bit of Tree of Life, just like painted in one of his paintings with the spirals. It was a yellow tree with the spirals.
So she had the idea, oh, I'm going to put down this huge metallical structure of the Tree of Life. And she put this one gigantous thing in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. And she put out one of these things. It was huge. And it was full metal. And it has lights. And it has-- it needed some power to function and everything.
That thing cost $20,000-- $25,000, sorry. So with $25,000 in a country like Nicaragua, you can build a house, a new house, for a family of four. So it was ridiculous to be spending money doing something like this.
So she put out one of these things. And everybody was making fun of it. And everybody was complaining about them. And then she said, oh, you hate them? I'm going to put out hundreds more. And she has filled the country with these horrible things.
And they became a symbol of the dictatorship. So when the protests began in 2018, one of the first things that people was doing was chopping down these metal structures with saw hands. The anger that you had to have in you to make those things-- but it was a wonderful thing to see that people-- because humor, you can use it to talk about this.
But then, when reality becomes absurd, then the voice of logic is what is important. And people were saying, this is absurd. This is stupid. And we are fighting against these two. So it's very important. It's a very important element if you want to use it to fight against authoritarianism. Yeah, sorry. I forget the other one. It was about democracy or--
AUDIENCE: If you all could put [INAUDIBLE] democracy [INAUDIBLE] once they adopt it.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: Yeah. I illustrate-- I remember there was a strategy about this specific thing, how to take the power off the extremes and try to-- everybody to get along. And I illustrated this proposal from-- I don't know if it was a professor. Somebody from Europe wrote it. And somebody asked me to illustrate it. And it was about this strategy of stop giving the microphones to the extremes, and focus on the people who are suffering in the middle.
So this is-- in this particular point, the media has a very important role to play. Because what you are asking is stop giving interviews and microphones and TV airtime to the extremes. Focus more on the people who are actually in the middle.
Focus on the people who are suffering from these speeches but also about people inside the same parties that have these extremes that are critical of those extremes and trying to get back the sense of civility about discussions. You can think different from me, but we can talk about it.
So it's about giving more attention to the people who are in the middle, who are really affected by the issues that these extremes are talking when, most of the time, they don't know what they are talking about. People who are talking about censoring books in school libraries, they don't know nothing about it. So let's talk to the people who are actually in the libraries, the students who are going there, and try to drive the discussion about that, not about the guy who is asking outside with a sign-- you have to ban this and this and this.
So that's one of the strategies, trying to focus more on the people who are not in the extremes. They do have their positions but are quite open to discuss them with knowledge, not just with screaming, like the people who are in the extremes.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: I couldn't agree more with the desire to focus on expertise, to speak to those who run the libraries, to speak to those who make the art, to be able to understand and to share that knowledge. So thank you so much, each of you, for sharing your art, your work, your emotions, your expertise, with us and having that, also, to diffuse your powerful messages. Thank you so much.
KHADIJA MONIS: Thank you.
SHARIFA SHARIFI: Thank you.
RACHEL BEATTY RIEDL: Thank you.
PEDRO X. MOLINA: Thank you.
JESSICA LEVIN MARTINEZ: Awesome.
Artistic freedom is a fundamental democratic right. Creative expression, from poetry to street art, theater, and literature, is often at the vanguard of political resistance and change, and so artists are some of the first to be silenced. In this panel, speakers discuss their own experiences as artists in authoritarian contexts where their ability to produce art was violently suppressed.These artists have all found haven at Cornell. Their art speaks to the trauma of authoritarianism and the hope for change.
Sharifa “Elja” Sharifi is an Afghan visiting scholar and a 2022–23 Institute of International Education Artist Protection Fund Fellow at the Johnson Museum.
Pedro X. Molina is a Nicaraguan political cartoonist and visiting critic with the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.
Khadija Monis ’24 is an Afghan student, poet, and artist.
Moderator Rachel Beatty Riedl is the director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and a John S. Knight Professor of International Studies.
The event was sponsored by the Johnson Museum and Global Cornell as part of the university’s theme this year, “The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell.”
