ABOLITIONIST DREAMS
Jackie Wang in conversation with Nasrin Himada
Tuesday 2 April, 2019, 7:30–9:30 PM
In partnership with the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre
Hosted by the Toronto Media Arts Centre
32 Lisgar St, Toronto, ON  M6J 0C9

This conversation draws on Jackie Wang’s various works that inspire abolitionist dreams. “The profession of the poet is dreaming. The profession of the jailer is to contain. The poet is the one who makes the light. The guard is the one who takes it.” From her recent book, Carceral Capitalism, Wang references the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, as she reflects on the profession of dreaming, and the freedom felt through the dreamwork of abolition. Together, let’s imagine a world that does not yet exist.

To reserve a spot please RSVP via the eventbrite. Seating is limited.
Any seats not claimed by 7:15 PM will be released to standby.
The space is fully accessible. Details about accessibility at the Toronto Media Arts Centre can be found here.

Jackie Wang is a black studies scholar, poet, multimedia artist, and Ph.D. candidate in African and African American Studies and History at Harvard University, specializing in race and the political economy of prisons and police in the US. She recently published a book titled Carceral Capitalism (Semiotext(e) / MIT Press) on the racial, economic, political, legal, and technological dimensions of the US carceral state. Her interest in this topic is rooted in her experience of having an imprisoned brother who was sentenced to juvenile life without parole as a teenager. She is the recent recipient of a fellowship at the Schlesinger Library, where she conducted research on the life and legacy of Angela Davis. She has also published a number of punk zines including On Being Hard Femme, and a collection of dream poems titled Tiny Spelunker of the Oneiro-Womb (Capricious).

Nasrin Himada is a Palestinian writer and curator based in Tio’tia:ke (Montréal), in Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Their writing on contemporary art has appeared in Canadian Art, C Magazine, Critical Signals, The Funambulist, Fuse Magazine, and MICE Magazine, among others.