Diaspora People’s Month 2020
Week 4: Politics
On Wednesday, July 22 at 7PM, SAMASAMA x SCL will hold a discussion featuring Artist, Organizer, Chinatown Art Studio Founder, 411 Collective co-founder, and an integral part of SAMASAMA since inception, Shani Shih, Artist, Activist and co-founder of, 411 Collective MONOLITH, and Haitian-American artist and educator Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre’s offering—a live tour studio chat alongside Curator of Digital and Emerging Media at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Adriel Luis.
Read about the artists and their reflections on diaspora below, and browse works for sale as part of the Diaspora People’s Month Gallery.
Shani Shih is a community advocate and multidisciplinary visual artist based in Washington DC. As an artist, Shani works primarily in painting, illustration, street art and murals, and draws heavy influence from hip-hop and graffiti. Through her creations she aims to speak to visceral emotional and bodily experience in a violent social world, and communicate shared human stories of suffering, endurance, and hope.
As a working tenant organizer, founder of Chinatown Art Studio and co-founder of 411 Collective, Shani is dedicated to supporting political art action as a catalyst for cultural transformation and systems change, as well as community empowerment through the arts.
Monolith is an artist-activist and organizer based in Washington DC working through the visual language of Graffiti, Streetart and Design. The tradition of his art stems from Hip Hop culture, and is influenced by pop culture and social justice. In 2016, he co-created the BernTheSystem art show and co-founded the 411 collective.
Since 2016, visual artist Charles Jean-Pierre and curator Adriel Luis have cultivated their friendship through collaborations for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s series of Culture Labs. Pierre’s Black (w)Holes for CTRL+ALT: A Culture Lab on Imagined Futures in New York City (2016) and The Commissary / Ua Mau Ke Ea with Dr. Keanu Sai for ʻAe Kai: A Culture Lab on Convergence in Honolulu (2017) reflected on how Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands are interconnected through diaspora, colonization, artistic expression, and borders. In this virtual studio visit, Pierre and Luis reconnect to discuss how their creativity has been affected by recent civil unrest, quarantine, and shifted relationships with travel.
