Category: Activism

Invited to Witness: Jennifer Lynn Kelly on Solidarity Tourism E16

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Colin talks with Jennifer Lynn Kelly, author of “Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine” to learn about the promise and pitfalls of solidarity tourism. On the one hand, solidarity tourism can be used to imagine and build a just future. On the other hand, it often recreates or reinforces structures of colonial inequality.

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Please check out Invited to Witness, available [here]

Kelly also talked in depth about the following:

Sophia Azeb: “Who Will We Be When We Are Free?” The Funambulist.

Dean Spade: “Impossibility Now: A Trans Politics Manifesto.”

Tanya Habjouqa: “Occupied Pleasures.”

Sophia Stamatopolou-Robbins: “The Joys and Dangers of Solidarity in Palestine: Prosthetic Engagement in an Age of Reparations.” The New Centennial Review.

And Colin mentioned:

Dina Matar and Venetia Porter eds. “Archiving Gaza in the Present.”

In our conversation, Kelly was diligent to note several people who have supported her work. Since not all of those shoutouts made it into the final edit, we’ll note that she credited Barbara Harlow, Ann Laura Stoller, and Ella Shohat.

 

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Social Death: on the social mediatization of atrocity E12

~ Bad-Art-Pod

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Reflecting on current events, Mariel and Colin discuss the proliferation of atrocity images on social media. What is at stake when these images are treated as a tool of political mobilization?

References:

Sontag, Susan. 2003. Regarding the Pain of Others.

Eubanks, W. Ralph. 2025. Emmett Till Then and Now. in Bulletin by Monument Lab.

Hernandez, Joe. 2021. “Read this powerful statement from Darnella Frazier, who filmed George Floyd’s murder.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/1000475344/read-this-powerful-statement-from-darnella-frazier-who-filmed-george-floyds-murd

Jackson, Jenn. 2022. “The Militancy of (Black) Memory ” SAQ. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-9825933

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Header image based on photo by Gary Coronado: https://tinyurl.com/kdzxt5k

Pod logo based on photo by Ted Timmons, Edited by Colin McLaughlin-Alcock

Creative Commons License: https://tinyurl.com/y9dj772p

Banksy in Palestine E03

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The internationally famous graffiti artist, Banksy, has made 3 trips to Palestine, where he has attempted to use graffiti art to build solidarity with the Palestinian cause. What are the possibilities and limits of this form of artistic solidarity?

 

References:

Dan Brooks “Banksy and the Problem with Sarcastic Art.” NYT. Sept 10 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/magazine/banksy-and-the-problem-with-sarcastic-art.html

Amahl Bishara. “Backstories: U.S. News Production and Palestinian Politics.” 2012. https://www.sup.org/books/middle-east-studies/back-stories

Shuruq Harb: “Don’t Confuse Me With The Monkey: On Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel.” Ocula. July 21 2017. https://ocula.com/magazine/spotlights/dont-confuse-me-with-the-monkey-on-banksys-wa/

Jennifer Lynn Kelly. “Invited To Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine.” 2023. https://www.dukeupress.edu/invited-to-witness

Channel 4 News. “Banksy documentary: Welcome to the Banksy art hotel in Bethlehem.” 2017.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMS6Ds3qryY&ab_channel=Channel4News

BanksyFilm. “Make this the year YOU discover a new destination.” 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e2dShY8jIo&ab_channel=banksyfilm

The Guardian. “After Banksy: The Parkour Guide to Gaza.” 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuHsRm5FBvA&ab_channel=TheGuardian

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Episode Photo By Maureen from Buffalo, USA – West Bank wall at Kalandia, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118005802

Cover Photo by Ted Timmons, Edited by Colin McLaughlin-Alcock Creative Commons License: https://tinyurl.com/y9dj772p

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Memorialize The Movement: Preserving Art From the George Floyd Uprising with Leesa Kelly and Amira McLendon. E02.

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Colin interviews Leesa Kelly and Amira McLendon of Memorialize the Movement about their experiences as Black activists working to preserve art from the 2020 uprising in Minneapolis. Kelly and McLendon offer insight into the racial politics of art preservation.

Links and References:

Memorialize the Movement: https://www.memorializethemovement.com/

Art and Artifact: Murals from the Minneapolis Uprising: https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517918989/art-and-artifact/

Preservation for the People Podcast: https://blackartconservators.com/podcast/

Monument Lab’s National Monument Audit: https://monumentlab.com/audit

Jenn M. Jackson: “The Militancy of (Black) Memory: Theorizing Black-Led Movements as Disjunctures in the Normativity of White Ignorance.” https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-9825933

 

Cover Photo by Ted Timmons, Edited by Colin McLaughlin-Alcock

Creative Commons License: https://tinyurl.com/y9dj772p

 

Music from #Uppbeat

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