 Founded in 1994 and co-led for 25 years with some radical and very tender comrades, some of whom I think are here today. My pronouns are she and her and I'm speaking to you from my rent stabilized apartment, which if I didn't have it there would have been no foundry theater to run with my tender comrades for 25 years. So I'm speaking to you from this apartment, this blessed apartment on land that was not so blessedly taken from the Lenape people, who had a trade route once about three blocks from here and it was once called Brede Weg. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but Brede Weg is now called Broadway. So in the tradition of the Foundry and with the words of Grace Lee Boggs, I want to welcome everyone to this moment on the clock of the world as we emerge from lockdown and look up for next, not as a return to normal because normal has been exposed blessedly, painfully, and globally as not what we meant at all. That normal is not what we mean to rebuild yet again and again with or for each other. And for me exposing normal has been an incredibly inspiring provocation because it has meant that I'm finding increasing numbers of my liberal colleagues in the theater embracing and demanding radical new contexts for their work and for the world in which it is situated. Seeing growing numbers of dedicated artists in political working groups like animating activism or creating new futures or anti-capitalism for artists or single-payer healthcare organizing in the Actors Equity Union, would anyone have ever guessed? This makes me, I could go on and on. Basically, more and more of my liberal colleagues are recognizing that radical changes into fearful things rather that it's necessary and that fills me with so much hope. It makes me want to live longer than I'm probably going to be allowed to. So it's the timeliness of these changes coupled with the radical and fearless vision of theater and film director Milo Rao that provoked me to organize the new solidarity events. And if you've not yet seen the new gospel is unforgettable film, unforgettable film, you still have to midnight to screen it from this same webpage. And so here we are, this gathering. Remarkable theater artists, remarkable artists and organizers of every stripe co-hosts from across the country and you who've joined us who I wish more than anything I could see live. I think we're gathered together to share the fullness of this change which itself is never a landing place. The word tells you there can't be a landing place with change. It's change. But perhaps to discover an ecology of future, a living and changing ecology of the future we mean. And at the very least, let's explore what next instead of normal might be. So I also need to announce to you that we've had a sudden change of players in our group for this conversation. Yvonne Sennier who plays Jesus in the new gospel couldn't be with us this afternoon because his wife went into labor a couple of hours ago. Which I take as an auspicious simultaneity. So one of the disciples from Milos film, an activist named Hervé Fayet who plays Peter in the new gospel, is joining us from Senegal to hold the place of Yvonne. He jumped in just a couple of hours ago and we welcome him with all our heart. Before I pass this over to our illustrious moderator, I want to thank how around very much for all the technical support they've given to the shenanigans of our events. And I also want to thank Frank Heckscher for introducing me to Milos and also for supporting the new solidarity. It means a lot. And so now I'm going to hand the screen over to a beloved comrade and an amazing playwright named Vicky Grice who's moderating. And I thank you so much for your time, your very precious time, and your attention. I can't wait to see you in person again. Okay, let's go. Thank you, Melanie, for your fierce commitment to radical politics, to art making, and to assembly, even in this virtual world. And giving us this opportunity to have this conversation about solidarity with others in the United States and across the world. My name is Virginia Grice. She, her, her pronouns. I'm the Mellon Foundation playwright and residents at Garamilla Theater in Dallas, Texas. A research fellow at Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University. And a member of Atolodad Productions, one of tonight's national co-hosts for this event. I'm calling in from Texas, where I always say the deep south meets the west meets the borderlands. I'm in Cedar Park, the little north of Austin, Texas. The Tancawa, the Apache, these letters of the Pueblo, the Lipan Apache tribe, the Texas band of Yaqui Indians, the Garwin Deccan, the Alabama Khashada tribe, if Texas, the Kikaboo tribe, Cariso and Como Crudo, Tiguapueblo, Caddo, Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita, Chickasaw, and Waco peoples, all connected to this land. And before we begin this conversation, I want to acknowledge the land we collectively occupy. The following acknowledgement of what to keep in mind as we participate in this digital space is written by Adrienne Wong of Spiderweb Show. And with Adrienne's encouragement has been slightly edited and to mark this occasion. Since our activities are shared digitally to the internet, let's take a moment to consider the legacy of colonization embedded within the technology, structure and ways of thinking we use every day. We are using equipment and high-speed internet not available in many indigenous communities. Even the technologies that are central to much of the art we make leave significant carbon footprints contributing to changing climates that disproportionately affect indigenous peoples worldwide. I invite you to join us in acknowledging all of this as well as our shared responsibility to make good of this time and for each of us to consider our roles in reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship. I want to thank the panelists and everyone today who's watching and before the panelists share their stories a few words from the Foundry. Over this past year, there's been a significant increase in the number of artists and theaters participating in local and national social justice campaign. While this is inspiring, it also offers the opportunity to look at the historical challenges of and the future aspirations for relationships between art, its institutions, and social justice movements. What do sustainable relationships look like? How do artistic expression become part of movements in new and provocative ways? How do we engage and share radical imagination? And how do we consider art and artists in the ecology of changing the world? The new gospel holds some of these inquiries as does the visionary work of the artists and organizers, assembled for this conversation. If everybody could please join me in this virtual space of Zoom, please, by turning on your cameras. Thank you so much for being here. Again, I'm going to continue to express my gratitude. And I wanted to give a note to the audience that this evening's conversation will have translation to it. So there may be moments in which we pause and listen to other languages. One of the things that Milo did in it was prepare a manifesto for what he believes the new theater looks like. And one of the statements in the manifesto is that all productions should have at least two languages in it. And so this is a panel that will have at least two languages in it. And so I just wanted to make folks aware of that. And I actually want to use the manifesto as a structure of sorts for today's conversation. We're going to have some questions from me, and then we're going to have a moment where everybody can ask questions of each other. And so one of the first points of Milo's 10-point manifesto is that theater is not just about portraying the world anymore, it's about changing it. And I often say that the very foundation of theater is imagining and building new worlds together. And so by way of introduction, I want to ask all the panelists, what is the world you're building with your work? How do you see yourself and your work in the ecology of change and social justice? How do you build solidarity between art and movements? And so those are a couple of questions that you may want to tackle in your introduction with yourself and of yourself. And I would love to start with Dred Scott. And Dred Scott, when you're done, if you don't mind choosing somebody else to speak. Oh, I didn't know I was going to get to go first or be selected to go first. So I am Dred Scott. I make revolutionary art to propel history forward. I am a professional troublemaker. And I guess the question of what am I doing with my art? How does it build change? I mean, I can't stand the world the way it is. There's a tiny handful of people that controls the great wealth and knowledge that humanity as a whole has created, and it doesn't have to be that way. And I'll pause for a second for translation and continue the thought after that. It's translated in the synchronically for everybody. It's when he speaks, he translates conceptively. Okay, great. So I will then continue. I will try and speak more fluidly. And so with a lot of my work, which I'm principally a visual artist, and I, you know, my work shows in galleries and museums, but also on street corners, with and without permission. But all of it is trying to get an audience to confront a lot of the co hearing ideals, largely of American society, but the world and a project I did recently called slave rebellion reenactment reenacted the largest rebellion of enslaved people in the history of the United States. There were 350 black and indigenous people who marched for two days, covering 24 miles, chanting on to New Orleans, freedom or death, we're going to end slavery, join us. It was reenacting a rebellion that happened in 1811. And the aims and goals of that rebellion were to seize all of Orleans territory. And which is modern day Louisiana and set up an African Republic in the new world that would have outlawed slavery. It was the most radical vision of freedom and emancipation in the continent of the US at the time. And bringing that into the present where it wasn't just about the past, it was actually about the past commingling with the present. We brought an army of the enslaved into a major metropolitan US city. I mean, they were prop weapons, they were, you know, prop muskets and machetes and sabers and sickles. But it was a really destabilizing vision for those who want America to continue it as it is. And it was a very inspiring and liberating vision for those that were both embodying the freedom and emancipation that was in this, but also people who saw it. And so this was a project that was really trying to sort of reenvision how change has happened historically and posit how it might happen in the future. And so going back to this question of I can't stand the world the way it is, there's a tiny handful of people that controls the wealth and knowledge that humanity as a whole has created. In brief, we need a revolution, we need to get rid of capitalism. It is a disaster for humanity and it's causing tremendous harm. And how that happens and what the forces were up against, those are big questions. And as an artist, I mean, I have some sort of thoughts on that, but I think it's a much broader question than what does the art do? Does it just envision this? Or does it contribute to people sort of making this new world? And there are plenty of activists that are actually trying to bring forward a movement for revolution, both in this country and elsewhere, that I hope that these ideas are helping to deepen people's questioning of how that change could happen and what needs to happen. Because in America, one of the big barriers, there's people are too damn enamored with thinking like Americans and trying to improve America as opposed to, well, from day one, its conception and foundations are rotten to the core and we need to move beyond that. And so I will pick, I don't know anything about Carlton Turner. So I'd love to hear what Carlton has to say. Thank you, Dredd. I was just watching parts of your reenactment the other night on POV, Neutral Ground, and saw a lot of people that I know. My name is Carlton Turner. He, him, his pronouns, I live and work in Utica, Mississippi, which is on the land of the Quapaw, the Natchez, the Yazoo, and the Choctaw Chickasaw people. My family has been in this community for eight generations. As long as there's been a Utica, there's been people from my family here working in agricultural capacity. And every generation since that first generation to be here has been part of of tilling and having an intimate relationship with the land. The work that I do here is through what we call the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production. And kind of like the tagline is we're trying to produce the culture that we want to be a part of. Much of what Dredd said about the ills of capitalism and the kind of core of this American society is at the core of the work that we're trying to try to reimagine in our community. I live in a community that was built on agricultural production. At one point it had multiple cotton mills. It had lumber and timber yards. It had textile operations. It had many farms and plantations. My family came here from Charleston, South Carolina from Albany, Georgia, you know, many places, you know, throughout the South came to Mississippi to advance the capitalism through the cotton trading industry living close to the river. That's been a hallmark and a gigantic part of my understanding about the community that I come from. This community now has no, you know, a community that when I grew up and I'm 46 years old produced about 85% of its own food because agriculture was at the center of its identity. This community at this point doesn't have a grocery store and has no access to fresh food or fresh produce and has to travel 40 miles round trip to the nearest grocery store. And so I think about change in the hyper local stance and how do we change the material conditions of our community? How do we shift the way that our community understands this role in food and food production and how does that food production connect to its cultural identity? And so we question all of these ideas around economics, around community design, around education, around the history of our region, of our area. And those are the places in which we're trying to reconstruct the social fabric of the community because so much of that has been lost with the loss of spaces and places. When you lose a shirt factory that employs 100 women, you don't just lose an economic engine in the community. You lose an information technology because there's a communication that happens in that space that doesn't happen anywhere else. When you lose a high school, you don't just lose that center of education. You're also losing a social space that connected the community across so many different facets. In many ways, it was a neutral ground. It was the space where people run into each other and talk to each other about things that are important to the community's development. And when you no longer have those spaces, you see the deterioration of the community advance a much more rapid pace. So I think our work with the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production is about rebuilding that social infrastructure, rebuilding the ability to have conversations, to have many of these conversations that are not present in the current design of the community. So I was really struck by the movie. It was both fascinating. It was both heartbreaking and also just reaffirming so many of the cultural norms that exist, especially the kind of like European African paradigms that were represented in that film that exists here in my community. And we talk about the South. You have to talk about that Black-White paradigm, that power shift and that power dynamics. So I'm just going to share that. It's really beautiful to be here. Thank you for the invitation, Melanie. And thank you for the opportunity to be a part of this conversation. I'm going to pass it over to my family, Toshi. Hello. I'm really happy to be here. I am Toshi Regan. I'm talking to you from Brooklyn, New York. I'm on the land of the Muncie Lenape. And I think I missed the question, but I think it has something to do with how you are connecting art or your art to the struggles that we all might be facing. And I always have a hard time with, you know, what do you do with your art? Because I actually don't consider what I do art in a certain way because the tradition of singing in my family didn't come from a performative place. And so I come from a singing family on both sides of my family. My father is from Nashville and my mother's from Albany, Georgia. And yes, I heard you. I was like, oh, we more related than I thought we was. And I don't remember a time when somebody in my family wasn't singing to me. And this is how I learned who I was. And this is how I learned who we were and who we are. And this is how I learned where I was. And this is how I learned who to be careful of. This is how I learned the conditions of the community that I was in. This is how I learned my language. This is how I learned about other people around the world who I had not met yet. It's the whole thing and everything I do comes from that place. And it's it is really interesting. For me, it's always been hard for me to separate that the more performative aspects of my career from that place. Because the same the same thing I felt like when people were singing to me, they were never lying to me. And that when I heard the voice of my people, it felt like to me they couldn't lie, like it was impossible for them to to sing what they were singing and tell a lie about themselves or their condition at the same time. These are people who, you know, Carlton talks about that that world in the south where you grow up and you are really, really separate from the aspects of life that you need to be alive. And so that everything you do is about gaining those aspects. And it's just, you know, water, food, you know, and then it's like the way that you can educate and the different levels of education that you might need in order to to fight the battles that you now realize that you're alive, you need to fight. And in my family, it's a very much based on an oral tradition. So my grandparents who were absolutely brilliant didn't have much like school education. My grandfather, you know, managed school up to the sixth grade, my grandmother up to the eighth grade. And they just got, they were just really smart people. And they got going with life. And they just had an incredible visionary understanding of what the possibilities of life could be for their family. And by the time I arrived, I was the first generation who did not pick cotton. And so I was the, I'm the, the, you know, I'm their first grandchild on that side of my family, the Albany side. And I'm the first one that they knew was not going to pick cotton. I'm the, I'm the, I'm the like, you know, it's called myself, like this wonderful like beam of light that reflected back to them that they had done what they set out to do. And so I think about those kinds of relationships, those, it doesn't have to be your family that you were born into, but those kinds of connections, those kinds of, of building up from those kinds of places, the place where you know that you are not actually being seen as the incredible bright star contributing being to the planet earth, that you are being called out your name, that you are being displaced as the human being that you are and that you are not getting to have the, the, the, the respect that breathing beings on planet earth should have for their existence. And I just, I got a very clear message. It was almost like how dare anybody try to say I don't belong. It's, it was just so clear to me. And so I, I didn't, you know, I, I sang since I was three years old, I always been musical. I thought I would do something else. And I end up being a musician. It's still the thing when somebody says, you know, what do you do? I say I'm a musician. But of course, I have, I have grown that seed into other possibilities and other ways of, of communicating. And I consider myself a congregational artist. I don't do many things alone. I still try to be like my grandparents were like just like they had a lot of kids. So it's like a group of somebody's making something happen. And, and I really just consider what I just said piggybacking on what has been said before. So I don't feel necessary to cover the same ground. That gave you more of a personal statement that I feel like if you, probably as we go on on this conversation, you will, you will start to see these that, that how we are kind of together in, in our, in our being alive in our work. And I hope I didn't say I will pass to her per day and did my best with your name brother. You can hear me? Yes, we can hear you. So, so I see that the, the subject is very, very, very important, very interesting because I see myself, I see myself in, in, in the argument. I believe that change is a non. And I think that our role to all of us who want change is, is to seek to realize this change, that is to say, to behave outside of our being, to join the objective of change. Because change, social justice are things that we live on every day. So it is not enough only to feel this change in us, but to be able to change what has come in reality. I translate. I'm, by the way, Milo Rao, I'm in the south of France on the countryside and that's why you can't see me because my connection is a bit weak. And I will translate for Erwe. He says, he sees absolutely his place in this discussion and it's, it's very interesting to take part in it. And he thinks that the change is not only something we should observing, but it's something that should come out of us and we should, yeah, we should take part in it. We will take now the example of the Casa San Cara that's the institution he leads in South Italy. You can see it in the film too. And this was founded because out of the situation of the farm workers, of the African farm workers in the, in the Italian agriculture in the south, they are living as slaves without any rights, without names, without documents. And that's why they created this institution he will explain now. The social injustice that made us know that if we want change, we must even start to put the heels on this change because change will never come from the oppressor. The change must be born to crush us the chains that Yeah, so I had some technical problems to understand. He says that the situation came to a point of social injustice that they understood that they had to take the initiative and to start to implement the change. The change also needs real activity, very concrete activity. It's not enough just to dream. Because we also arrived at a time when we were forbidden even to dream. But we tried to go beyond simple dreams to make such a change that we felt, that we wanted. Which is above all simply a social dissent situation, to get out of the situation, to get out of the situation, to really become the protagonists of the change. Yeah, and the situation came to a point that even dreaming about change was somehow forbidden and became impossible. And that's why they took this initiative of the Casa Sankara that we will explain a bit more in detail now. It's all simply leaders who can push reality to reach the change they aspire to. For us, on our first steps, we have chosen to really walk on this path to realize what we want. And we have arrived because today we have Casa Sankara that has hired more than 500 people to give them the opportunity to sign up as human beings, as people who are part of society. We have a group of Thomas Sankara, a very known African leader and politician, and they created Casa Sankara, an institution where they could house until now 1,600 people, 1,600 refugees. I think we all have a very, very important role. The change we want is in us. But if we are a little more aware of the members of our community, that we do not only serve the anger or violence, if we are a little more aware or able to take the change, then we have this great responsibility to really be a reference point for our community. Yeah, and he repeats that taking real measures, real change is very important. Hervé, maybe you can explain a little more in detail what you do concretely in Casa Sankara because it's so inspiring. Ok, so we have had the experience of seeing ghettoes, of seeing people we know who live in the ghetto with a mafia system with organized criminalism that reduced people to slavery. That's the Capolaro system. So you have to imagine in South Italy there's the system of Capolaro, people living in slavery reduced to live in so called ghettoes, so wild camps under the law of the mafia without any rights. And that's the situation in which they created the Casa Sankara. He said, we got up without waiting for any solution to the problems in our place, but we did not go to the authorities to tell them that this situation can change, but only if there is a positive will that can accompany our charging needs. So what they did, they created the Casa Sankara together with some politicians with the Italian government in the south. That's why we managed to find a structure that was abandoned, that we managed to transform today and become Casa Sankara and take more than 500 people. There are families of children living there. Is this reality giving the opportunity to these people to enter the society and become the protagonist of life? So they found this abandoned structure. You can, by the way, see the new gospel, the Casa Sankara, they created it. And at this very moment, 500 people is living their families, children are born there, all the rights. And if I can add this, this was also the reason why we were asking Hervé to play Petrus, the guy who creates the church in the Bible. Since the majority of the people who are in the country, in Casa Sankara, have always done agricultural activities. We have put on foot a project of agriculture and which allowed us last year to put on the Italian market a product of tomato conserves, which is called Viacolpa, which today makes Casa Sankara proud. And it's not only housing people, they also start to be sustainable and to function, to produce tomatoes and to put these tomatoes on the market to be a functioning system. So today, we have the opportunity to put on the market a product, the same title of the people who have lived in slavery, who today see our product more expensive than theirs, because this product has respected the human dignity and the rights of people to say that maybe it was this conserved attribute. So, and that's how was realized the very beautiful situation that today they are freed by the same product that was the reason of their slavery, the tomato. So they are on the market with the same product that was the reason of their slavery and that's how they liberated themselves. So they turn the situation around. So I would say that change is possible and we still have the right to dream, what can happen with the boats in Italy that are found in one day or another, in the boats that are scattered, destroyed, etc. Even the boats, they don't leave them standing. So we have the impression that we have even lost the right to dream. So we have a very great responsibility. We, who for Aion, we can be front as activists to light the way for our brothers, who today count a lot, a lot, a lot on our determination to be able to change the course of life. And that's as a conclusion what makes him think that change is possible. And he thinks that everybody who understood that becomes a kind of a leader, like Thomas Sankara was a leader for them in the older times. And when these young guys arrive with the boats in Italy from Africa and they're reduced to slaves, it's up to them to Erwe and his friends and other activists to tell them that they can change their life and that it is another system is possible. Yes. Okay, so that was it. Thanks a lot. Merci beaucoup for the moment. Christina, would you mind introducing yourself? Sure. I'm eavesdropping on Erwe's conversation right now. All right, thank you. Wonderful to be in your company. Hi everyone. I'm Christina Wong. I am usually her pronouns and I am on the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Tongva, Chumash, Keach, and Gabrielino people, which has been renamed by settlers as Korea town in Los Angeles. And I was, I think it's interesting as I, about 12 years ago, I wrote an artist statement that specifically said my goal is not to fix the wrongs of the world with easy answers, but to make a point of reflection in my work. And I've since updated that statement to say, okay, we can't afford to just reflect anymore. We need to like fix some stuff. And I, and art is just not this hermetically sealed experience that you go into and then you have this, I don't think we have that privilege anymore. Or I actually don't, I kind of question that we ever had the privilege to just experience art and serve this neutral white space or black box and then proceed about our lives. And why do I say this? A lot of my work looks like one person shows where I play a character named Christina Wong, that's my name and I'm often based on sort of things I've done in my real life. I have this sort of martyr complex which plays out in these characters that I play and these shows I set out to like fix this, do this, fix this. And, and inevitably it's, it's much more complicated and becomes a whole thing and that that's sort of I think the running theme and a lot of my pieces and in my life is that I, I always underestimate how complicated things will be. So, a few years ago I, I found myself unable to satirize myself as a character, satirize myself as sort of a naive activist character and I say this because I actually had a reality TV pilot, which I pitched while Obama was still president. And this, and true TV bought this pilot, and the premise of this television show was that I was going to sort of prank people to care about social justice. The election didn't turn out the way, at least me and my little head bubble had thought it was going to happen and nothing about this character made sense. I felt like I realized very quickly I was a liability to everything I cared about that that satire had died because literally live in this in living satire that that to, to, to make it on top of like it's almost so hard to, to out prank what feels like a giant prank that's being placed upon us which is our realities, right. And, and I was like, Oh my God, as a performance artist that used to do these crazy wacky things. I feel like I'm out of a job. I feel like artists and politicians have switched jobs. They're now the ones who are creating shock and spectacle. And, and we're the ones as artists who are left trying to create social change to fix this. So if anyone's observed just like watching late night during the pandemic how, how I feel like comedians like are the most earnest people that I can actually trust to hear the news and commentary from. And so I decided to run for public office, and then I thought that would be my, my new project. And so it was called Christina Wong for public office I had no idea what the hell I was doing because I always thought I was too Googleable to like run for anything. But you know, nothing seems to matter because much worse people have been elected. And I ran into small elections, it's a very expensive process to to run, especially in a city like LA. And I ended up winning a seat on my neighborhood council with 72 votes total if you count the vote for the cast for myself. And a lot of that was because I basically waved people down outside the gym, where there was an election, and beg them to go in and check my name off. And, and, and use what Spanish I've retained from high school and my restaurant Korean to like, I'm not, I'm not Korean but like, you know, like it was, it was like, this is how people get elected folks right. I mean, smile outside of polling place. And, and I've created work about this I created a rally show called Christina Wong for public office like so the seal, which I just took down. This is my, my elected seal it's all folded up, but you've got like tampons and stuff instead of. Yeah, so that's my seal. I'll get back to stuff I've so but yeah I mean it was like I, I serve. I'm like, I'm shocked when I'm on my neighborhood council that I'm the only performance artists on this neighborhood council because everyone so crazy. And, and I'm like how are you not how is that a bit. How are you like this all the time. And, and like how am I how am I not actually sitting inside this long boring, durational dystopic piece about our lives. This is actually, oh no this is a real life. And I've definitely seen sort of the limits of government and it's frustrating, it's frustrating to get anything done on a local level. And I, I'm really understanding where artists can help fill in the gap for that. So basically I was set to tour Christina Wong for public office, all last year before the pandemic. And I had sewn all these beautiful sets, and of course the pandemic hit, and all artists were deemed not essential. I was just like, Oh God, this is like the most relevant timely show of my life that was going to get people out to vote that would get people thinking about the political process. And now I can't even tour it, because everyone will die at my rally not that that stopped some politicians in America from holding rallies right. And I was sort of sitting with this thought how non essential I was as an artist and I started sewing masks, because we had a mask shortage in hospitals right. And, and I was, I had sewn vagina costumes I've sewn, you know, the set and stuff but I've never sewn medical equipment. And that exploded like a very naively offered to the world. I'll like let me sew you a mask if you're immunocompromised. And I would like to also say the sewing skills I have come from my grandparents and my mother who came to my grandparents came to America and they work in the garment industry. And, and that was a survival skill that they brought with them. So, I was getting very terrifying messages from people who were nurses and doctors who needed masks. And I started a group on Facebook to see if I could get some help and I called it on to sewing squad. I was not realizing our acronym was ass. And we are still sewing and distributing masks 16 months later and I sort of describe us as like, Oh, this is what it would look like if a performance artist brand FEMA, which is our for the translator or federal emergency. I mean, I don't we don't even know what what does FEMA stand for Carlton do you know. Anyway, but yeah. Yes, aka where aka where where's FEMA where is FEMA frickin been this last year because basically we went from sewing a few masks to doing relief vans headed to the Navajo nation to doing relief drives to standing rock these. And we transitioned in about a month from sewing just for medical workers to all these communities in America that just don't have access to running water to living wage. So that was farm workers that was undocumented immigrants that was migrants at the southern border seeking asylum. These were very poor communities of color in fence line communities that had high toxic ways. And like it's all the communities that we were sewing for. If you look at all of them what they have in common is they were all communities that had like systemically historically born the brunt of systemic racism and structural violence and anyway, I as an artist I feel like this was I didn't intend for this to be a project that started as very patriotic and then began to feel very political. And I feel like so much of how this group of strangers nationally. There are 800 aunties all over the country has kept going this long, some have retired and some stopped and is that we have this whole system of care that were that were very explicit about this being political work there were a lot of sewing groups were like oh this isn't about politics it's just about sewing and like no it's not like we're doing this because the government failed failed us. And, but, but I think a lot of it is because there are a lot of artists in our group, and we have. We, we understood in the beginning that like capitalism failed us that like we couldn't buy our way out of the situation of this pandemic and people kept donating money to me thinking this would make a so faster. There weren't even materials to buy. What happened is we had to had to locate people who could so we had to build strong communities. We had to build a supportive community, and that was because a lot of the people sewing in our group. They have ways to make money. I'm not doing this because they were hoping to make money from this but because of the community that it gave them to be part of this community in this very crisis time right to feel like you have purpose and connection and can support other people who need your support. This has been our staying power as a group, and, and very much I think this whole pandemic, this project. I've also done projects with undocumented immigrants and formerly incarcerated Asian Pacific Islander Americans and I'm very much like feeling that this kind of work that I do as an artist has to be the shift it's not just something pretty to look at or entertaining but it's like. I love this. The artist statement that your company put out. Because I have questions about how it gets financed, but that's maybe that's me in America asking that question. But yeah, below. Could you introduce yourself. Hey, sorry. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us here. Again, I'm unfortunately invisible because my, my, my connection is too weak. So, yeah, so I'm here in south of France, on the countryside between France and Italy, and in the very west of France or in the very east of Italy, and in the very south of Europe and I think most of perhaps what I can say about about how we, how we try to make changes is in the film, because I think you can only work through I don't know how. I mean, for me it was very inspiring, but for example, Carlton Turner said just in the beginning of this conversation that he was talking about social institutions and what they, what they are and and we talked about his institution, the he created as a, as a kind of a place where people practice change in a kind of in a whole economy, so to say. And yeah, so that's, that's why for me that's it's quite interesting project and the, yeah, so perhaps but I would like I would just give the perhaps to go a bit deeper I would, I would like to give to ask back to explain a bit more. I think it could be interesting what the film and the revolt of dignity and the Casa Zankara how this work together for him, how, how, how this worked for his community and what was, what was the outcome. So before Irving speaks I wanted to just point out that parallel to the filming of the of the film the new gospel that there was an entire political campaign called the revolt of dignity. And that was that that that happened alongside and then became part of the film as well as pointing out to viewers that may have seen the film I may not have seen the film. Yes, there were technical problems that I really didn't understand. Can you repeat it? Excuse me. I said that the revolt of dignity was at a very intense moment during the film's realization because at that moment we have become aware of our great responsibility in front of our community. Yeah, he says that the revolt of dignity which was a kind of a network or connection, a political campaign for the rights of refugees and documentation of refugees, uniting 40 organizations and also the Casa Zankara was a very intense moment but also a moment of becoming conscious of the important role they have to play in this change. Because this moment there is not a moment that has been repeated as actors who play in the film. These are moments that we have lived and these moments have allowed us to put the points on the walls to say exactly what we want and what we expect from the integration policies. And this was also a moment of strong politizations, a moment when they understood okay we can directly say to the political authorities what we need and that we need it now, so a moment of change. Hervé, on me demande aussi dans le chat, comment c'était d'être dans le film aussi comme même comme acteur, alors toi comme activiste, ce mélange d'acteur, d'activisme, c'était comment? I asked him because I'm asking in the chat to go a bit deeper into how it was mixing art and activism because he's not only in the film as the leader of the Casa Zankara, he's also in the film in the role of Saint Peter. C'est moi qui ai même musulman, alors c'est encore un autre niveau. Je dirais que moi-même j'ai été surpris par ma personne de découvrir comment toutes ces choses-là sont liées, que à la fin je ne me suis pas senti comme un acteur, mais comme un acteur d'une réalité que moi je suis entre le vide, une réalité rare. So he says that in the end he was surprised of himself and he didn't have the impression that he was playing as an actor in it, he was more kind of realizing the reality, the situation he was in inside the project he says. Donc la chose n'était pas que si j'étais musulman ou si j'appartenais à Casa Zankara ou si j'étais un cultivateur, un travailleur, il s'agissait de parler de la condition humaine et ça, ça va au-delà des appartements. And he insists saying even if he's muslim and his part, if he wouldn't be muslim or is he muslim, if he is muslim as he is or if he is part of the Casa Zankara or if he would only be a simple farm worker, it is a film about human condition and that's for him the central point. Quand il s'agit de condition humaine tu crois que les appartements tombent tous parce qu'on met la dignité de la personne devant de la scène et c'est ça qui compte. Yeah and when it's about the human condition about the dignity of the human being then your individual face or individual where you come from etc is not important anymore. And for him the film was two things on the one hand it was for him like a wake up call to say okay we have to go we have to go somehow public we have to fight for for our situation. On the other hand he drew the film he also understood that it was not only the problem of his community in this in this part of Italy but it's a universal problem, the situation they are in. So and for them this this film project was a was a starting point to change the community to now they produce agricultural products like like tomatoes what he said before they produce clothes so all the things were kind of started through this new connection connections that were built through this to this revolt and the and the and the production of the film. Depuis l'heure les personnes viennent de partout pour connaître la réalité des casés central et ça nous permet aussi d'aggrandir notre chant d'activité et ensemble de savoir qu'il est possible de rêver ensemble et quand nous sommes ensemble pour écrire l'histoire la plupart du temps on réussit à régler nos objectifs. So what happens after the distribution of the film, which is distributed in cinemas in almost whole Europe. That people from everywhere now come to cause a Zankara to to see what happens there and it became an example to to, yeah, of the possibility of change and how to dream together he says. I think that the. That's it, he says. Thank you so much. Because I really do think that the film is such an incredible example of how we build solidarity between art and movements, and how artistic expression becomes part of movements, and more provocative ways than just being. You know, sort of the decoration or the entertainment and in a protest and so it becomes this way of like, how do we begin to define our worlds and what they look like and. The way as Toshi was was saying in the beginning, our art in our activism or art organizing they're not separate there, they are a way of life, they're a way that we move in the world. The second point of Milo's manifesto is that theater is not a product. It's a, it's a production process. It's a process. And so I'm curious. Actually, I'm going to hand this question to you. I'm curious as to a folks to talk a little bit more about how their processes mirror worlds that we imagine. So just think about the work that you've done, most recently Toshi with with the adaptation or the response to Octavia Butler's book, and, and, and all the multiple ways in which you developed it so that there's podcasts and there's conversations about, you know, all sorts of things that are happening and they look different in every community that you go to and so as you take parable of the sewer, you really continue to grow community and so I would love for you to talk about that a little bit more. Thank you. Um, I think with this particular work Octavia, the butler's parable of the sewer and parable of the talents, which are these novels that Octavia Butler wrote. So the first book was the parable the sewer and the second book was the parable the talents and they and really quickly they emanate from a community right outside of Los Angeles and they take place in the year 2000 start in the year 2024. And she was like researching, probably in the late 80s, early 90s, they came out, I think, 93 and then one came out nine, the second one came out 97, and it was supposed to be a third one called parable of the trickster. And, and I think, you know, this this, this is a work that basically, you know, when I read it. You didn't it never got on in like New York Times best sellers list or something like that. But it is a very it has traveled so well over time like it is taught. You know, all over the US and multiple schools and it's become a manifesto in itself. People use it in multiple kinds of ways. A lot of people use it in terms of, of, you know, doing revolutionary work organizations use it and other, you know, Adrienne Marie Brown has written a lot about the strategy and other texts that are reflective of this work and so we, my mother and I Bernice Johnson Regan, we were, we've been working on getting this to inside of theaters or theaters outside, whatever theaters we can get it for 20 years. And, and Octavia's work, it's very surprising but Octavia's work hadn't come off of the pages. So we're the first to take her work off the pages which were really proud of and the reason why we're proud of it is because we know we sit inside of a community of people, scholars, artists, medicine people, like you name it, food justice practitioners, all kinds of people who are interested in looking at the humans trajectory on planet Earth and our collaboration with life on Earth and the planet herself, or the planet itself. And then seeing ourselves inside of the larger universe. And this manifests in so many ways we don't even have time to talk about it. But what I knew right away was that I wasn't going to be doing like a traditional theatrical thing of like, let me raise a million dollars and then let me like workshop for five years and then let me do shows let's have one on, you know, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and a matinee on Saturday and whatever that structure is I was like that's not going to happen. And, and it really didn't it is it. I knew it was going to be a tool inside of the communities that it landed in and that part of my job would be showing up and asking people who wanted to work on a path and that is my question I show up, you know I try to show up a year before the show gets gets anywhere, and I try to have some resources when I come so I'm like actually supporting community as I come in and, and I asked people, do you all want to work on a path and usually this is work they're already doing so I'm trying not to say do something new unless they want to it is, it is completely different everywhere we go and the actual centering of the performance it's never been the same twice. It's always changed and sometimes I, I change I take out songs I put in other ones. Some communities have insisted that they need to be actually a part of it. And so we have figured out ways for that to happen. Some communities have taken over the theatrical space and decided that the whole thing from when somebody walks in to when they leave has to be a ritual of some kind. Every, everywhere we go, it is different and this idea of United States and and the border lines of states and cities and things like that and the, the limitations of, of language and access, we have been able to like using this work bring bring different people together, government, people, libraries, schools, people, people, and do do things that are of service, and of I think reflection of who people are in these spaces, and that take and that, and that, again, I think it's want to strongly that I don't ask people to create new work with me, like I'm not, I'm not like going in and saying can y'all do something for me I'm actually being like y'all know Octavia, I know Octavia, what can we do with this here or you've already been working on on this and some people have never heard of the book but everybody knows the conditions, everybody knows what what this story is saying and and you know this story looks out of future that we're already in because here we are very close. And the reason why Octavia now has hit the New York Times best sellers list and now there are multiple television shows and movies is because her trajectory was so on point from from writing 30 years ago. She named everything that was going to happen and she didn't think it was magic she was like, if you can get over your fear, you can ask yourself the question what's next. And then you can say what's going to happen next, and that that's a gift that being able to be to put your fear down and ask the question what is next will help you create the solutions will help you create. Even if all you're creating is your safe passage through a very dangerous things. She considered that very necessary. And so what we're doing when we go to these communities is we're embracing the what's next that everybody already knows, and we're supporting that knowledge and we're supporting the solutions that come out of it. And even if the solutions are like we will survive through this so we can get to the next thing we're supporting that. So somewhere in there we all sing together and we tell the story. And we are in a theater and tickets are sold and I could tell a whole other story about how innovative. These, these for different presenters have taken to this because the people who have presented it, because it's not everybody. I didn't make a, you know, perfect piece coming out of the box. I practically debuted it workshopping it. And I insisted it had to debut in 2017, because I was like we are late, and we have to have these conversations and I got a lot of support and love. You know, some brilliant people to carry on because I actually also produce it and I have never produced theater in my life. So it just, it is, it's that same energy that people are talking about on this panel that you're doing something you've never done, but you have such an incredible, you know, understanding and knowledge of who you are, and what, and where you can be. And, you know, the, it is so, it was so important for us to do this in so many ways. I'll stop here because I'll start talking about the generational conversations and I'll start talking about all of the, the ways that people have taken a book that's not for children, but pulled the, the aspects out of it that they know children can identify with. And so we end up having a conversation with a very full expansion of people everywhere we go. And it is a, it is a continuous thing, I don't even do like outreach stuff where you come in for two days and then you do something magical to keep, I'm like, I'm coming now and then I'm going to be back in three months and I'm going to come back. And we've had to adapt to COVID. And that's been interesting because we, we got shut down like everybody else, but we tried to keep the path going. Thank you Toshi. A very similar question, Dredd. I would love for you to also talk about process, particularly with the slave vote rebellion, slave revolt rebellion, and, and what you learn through that process and what, what you think others may have learned through that process. I definitely want to talk about process a bit and I also want to bookmark kind of a question to come back to Toshi and Milo and air bay a little bit about. Well, I'll put part of the question out and then I'll finish, I'll come back to it after talking about process because it somewhat relates but Toshi. One of the things and I've read the parable of the talents more recently than parable of the sewer but one of the things is that that a there's a sharp critique of evangelical Christianity within the books and how it's being applied in American public. But also there's an invention of a new religion, of which I believe she, Tavia Butler says, God has changed. And so, and, and with with sort of taking a book and applying it, making work out of it with community but then it in a way it's similar to to the New Gospel or the. Sorry, I'm terrible name but with Milo where you're sort of taking the story of Jesus, and then trying to apply that to migrant workers. And then, but that were the two different and once taking like okay let's try and reclaim the Christian story and the other is the Christian story is the problem we need a whole different religion or all different story. So I want to come. So that's sort of where I would like to talk a little bit about but I'm, but I will answer the question of community and process to slave rebellion reenactment. What I took and was trying to tell was, there was this rebellion that happened in 1811, where enslaved people realized the only way they could actually get free was not to escape and not to just endure slavery, which a lot of people did not to just escape individually not even to escape collectively inform maroon colonies which many people did but they had to overthrow the system of enslavement and set up a new society where slavery would be outlawed that was a really radical vision. And I wanted to sort of tell that story and talk with people and collect and say, present to people in the in the community because this happened. The rebellion happened in 1811 out in New Orleans and outside of New Orleans and I'm living New York which is an international audience is over 1000 miles away. And so I was not part of the community that that existed there and so I went down and was talking with people and it was a community engaged performance. And we were just a bunch of actors we actually over the process of about six and a half years. I talked with people and, and, and there was conversations with 21st century people about why this 19th century history of freedom and emancipation matters and collectively we built this reenactment. And one of the things that that, you know, of the, the process was in 1811 a man named Charles belongs who was one of the key leaders of this rebellion. He went from plantation to plantation because he had relative freedom of movement. And he recruited people who became his lieutenants and they in turn recruited other people. And so under the threat of death and death of friends and family people clandestinely organized and plotted this rebellion. And using that as a map, I was like, Okay, I will talk with a relative handful of people I will have people introduce me to the people who need to be part of this. I will talk with them and then they will in turn recruit other people and so it was a long, mostly word of mouth, mostly not on the internet process of like having one on one conversations with why we should do this reenactment and how it was going to be done from that past. And how does that apply in the present and how do people in the present become ambassadors for freedom. And what does that tell us today. And what what is this realization that the only way to get free is by overthrowing a system of enslavement. What does that tell us today, I mean because a lot of my radical friends, we're looking at what we want change, but it's like, but and then there's the but we can't do x y and z and these people who are facing really tremendously harsh conditions of enslavement said well, we actually have to figure out and we we know the problems were enslaved the solution is to end slavery, and to overthrow the system of enslavement how do we do the heavy work to figure out how we could successfully launch a rebellion, and and overthrow the system of slavery and so if they could do that in 1811 and work with maroon communities to pass messages and work with other people to organize and plot and march as a disciplined army and figure out how we could seize the people on the gates of New Orleans to have weapons so the people when they got down out of the plantations could seize the city. What what does that teach us about how we can organize a reenactment and artwork today. And so this question of building with community and actually reaching out to all sorts of people to make the costumes to figure out more about the story to learn about who needed to participate to reach out to different communities because there was spontaneously we had okay ties amongst various sections of black community but I knew that indigenous people, particularly the home of people were participant in 1811 and I wonder well how do we meet people like that today. And so we had to, you know, given the divisions that exist within us society it's sort of hard to just spontaneous if you just work where you already know you're not going to have the alignment of people that you want and, and so we had to meet and invite people in and then they were complicated conversation because at a time of sort of, you know, I mean this is, you know, prior to George Floyd but black lives matter was in the house and some people were like, man why are these like you know native people here this is a black thing is like no it's about getting free and historically there were indigenous people that were supportive of it. We want to welcome that but we also has implications for the present. So, coming back to this question of both religion and community I would love for Milo and Toshi to talk about sort of, you know, how that how you take these historic text one being, you know, a several hundred and arguably several thousand year old text and the other 30 year old text and bring it to community and say well what can we mine from that and then within that it's like what what does it mean I mean how does one look at a time when there's a rise in religious fundamentalism that is causing tremendous harm be it Christian fundamentalism or Islamic fundamentalism or, you know, Hindu fundamentalism. How do we actually at that time, talk about, you know what what does religion mean and what does it mean to take these texts and then try and bring life into them in a different way. And yeah, so you're muted, you're muted. I was thinking of Milo go first. But I would just say, you know, the way I looked at the, you know, this is a great question. And, you know, there's, when we did the opera and we were tracking the conditions, you know, we use spirituals. And there's there's a lot of spirituals in our work. And you know this, the spirituals are the songs that, you know, our ancestors made while they were, you know, enduring slavery, getting out of slavery running away from slavery they're very full of information full of details full of, you know, directions by the stars pool of coded messaging to escape. And so we thought that that would be a really, that would apply any and one of the things is that like, even though her work is 30 years old, we, I just saw like the young person that starts this new religion is 15 years old. And her father is, is 55 years old. And he's a Baptist minister. And so I was able to use, you know, my own family my mother, dad, as my grandfather is a Baptist minister. So out of his mouth came the spirituals at the beginning of the show and then where where so we wanted to like old, you know, our ancestors old text, and not necessarily the Bible but our ancestors creation of sacred text out of what was available for them. And so I always say like, you know, they took this scripture and made something that could be applied to their wellness and and they used it to tell the stories they needed to tell in order to either survive or get free, or both at the same time. And so it fits really well inside of this story, because the same thing is happening in this story. A new, a new, you know, spirit of 15 year old girl is defining a text in order to like, survive a situation that is just so out of control and few people survive. And she's saying she's using like she's making her own, she's making her own scripture and these parables. And what she sees is that change is the one thing that will always happen. Change is is the one thing that we're, we, we have to live with. And she says you can shape change and through shaping change, you shape God. And so it just didn't feel so far away from spirituals to me, you know, spirituals are adaptable spirituals existed before existed inside of slavery they existed outside of of slavery and they, and they became adaptable to the situations where people were like having to risk their lives and they told you everything you needed. And I think Octavia intentionally did that same thing with young Lauren Alamina, who I think she aligned with Jesus, you know, here are two like entities inside of, you know, a horrific situation, who are not supposed to to even, you know, think about creating movement, and they both do. So it was, it was easy for us to, to, you know, mind the spirituals but then, because we're moving through time and we're telling an Afro futuristic story. One of the things we tried to do is have the music shift out of shift. I find spirituals foundational to everything, but we wanted to shift sonically through the generations of sonic transportation by black people in this country. So that the further we go in the story, the more that Lauren Alamina finds her voice, the music starts to meet the times that we're in right now. And the messaging starts to meet the times that we're in right now. And so that, that kind of, you know, we get away without having the conflict be a sonic conflict because it all makes sense to me that that our people use the text of the Bible to tell a story is not a conflict to me. However, when it is time for Lauren Alamina to wake up her community and say we got to go she is going to fight her father, the minister on his text, she's going to she's going to say, you know, actually that's not going to work here. And even the sacred text of we shall not be moved. You know, which is an anthem of the civil rights movement. She is like that doesn't work anymore. Not only are we going to be moved, but it's a matter of how we are going to be moved. And it is up for us to make a determination about that. And so I think Octavia is very aggressively saying, I have this whole world. And out of the whole world of all of this. What is the story I can tell that gives us the most access to like what I want to call our whole beings like the wings on our back that we can see, you know, the other parts of our brain that we don't use to acknowledge our fear and move instead of sitting denial to believe what we know. And she used everything she had in order to kind of move us towards that. Milo do we still have you to speak to this question. It's very interesting to have a Marxist director. And what what yeah I would really like to thank you. What exactly is the question. Well the question I sort of asked was to talk about using. I mean it was about religion and using sort of text to create new work. And so in the case of Toshi she she created a work out of the the parable of the solar and the parable of the talents Octavia Butler work which part of the work has a very sharp critique of Christian fundamentalism, but also the creation of a new religion in which the creators in community create religion part of the basis of which is God has changed but you could shape change. And then you use the Bible as as the creation foundation for creating a new work in the, the, you know, the Jesus in your work that is connecting with with migrant laborers is different than at least how fundamentalist Christians are using the Bible right now, which I think that there's a we're all making work at a time when religious fundamentalism is causing great harm. But then how you're choosing to, to, to, you know, sort of try and look at bringing new life in a different approach to that is something I wanted to just sort of talk about because we're one book was like okay we have to throw out this Christian Christianity because it's causing harm. So the basis that you said no we can actually take Christianity, and look at how it might apply today and, and particularly as a Marxist, what, how are you thinking about, about that and what, what, why one might need religion because as Marx, you know said is like religion is the opiate of the masses but he also said it's the heart of a heartless world which was paraphrasing from the Bible. And so, yeah, just talking about religion art and foundational text for creating new work. Yeah, I thank you a lot for for explaining. I have the impression somehow you have to be a Marxist to understand the Bible and especially New Testament, because there's a big problem and we already discussed yesterday about it that this book was, as you know appropriated by an institution that is the church. And I think we, and perhaps it's for all myths and texts we have to re-appropriate it and I think it's very important to see who does re-appropriate these texts and strangely, when you when you read the New Testament, it's a book about a revolt against the Roman occupation at that moment and the elites that are collaborating, the economical elites that are collaborating at that moment with the Roman Empire. And, and strangely this book, this revolt against the government of the system you could say was then appropriated by the system as a story to kind of give metaphors of how you could make a spiritual life inside the system and going along with it without changing it. So it became a kind of, as you said it, the opium, this focus as Marx says, the opium of the people. And that's exactly what it became. And that's why it is necessary to re-appropriate it and to kind of find again the foundations of it and the revolutionary input of this book. And that's what we, what we, what we, and I mean many people that re-read the book in the, in the, for example, the whole theology of the liberation, what we tried with this book. And of course another axis we have to it is one axis or another perspective we have on that book is a universal one. So kind of a Paulinian lecture of it. Erwe is an example, but I think most of the apostles or of the actors, activists playing the film are non-believers or Muslims or, for example, now my personally I'm an atheist. I was raised as a Catholic, but then as a, as a, I became atheist and others are, most of them are Muslims, for example, are believers. Yvonne Sarnier is a, he's a Catholic believer, but we have all kind of people. And I think the last point of view, what is for me quite interesting when you really look inside the book, I can't, then you, it's difficult to understand how it could become this propaganda book of the mega machine of the capitalist movement. The machine of the capitalist mega machine that was invading the whole world, because it's a book about failure. It's a book about the problems of revolt, it's a book even about solidarity, the beauty of solidarity, but also the problems of solidarity. Because the problem that Jesus has is that he's denied by by Peter, for example, that's the role that have a place a very beautiful metaphor about friendship under the pressure of the state and you have to chew the story so you have a very, very clear story about the problems of a little revolutionary group and how this little group functions under the pressure of the system. So that's what's happening in the book. And of course, when you look at how we staged it and we had a lot of discussions about it, of course, a lot of the transcendential side that is very important in the interpretation of the church is out. And in my view, for example, there is no resurrection in our book for us. The resurrection is what you can see in the end credits is the distribution of the tomatoes is the re-installment but the real re-installment of dignity in the in, for example, the castle of the house of dignity is is this kind of a message that becomes reality and not a transcendental payoff that is is very important in the lecture of the Bible that would not realize it, the revolutionary input of the Bible but would try to kind of export it somewhere after death, you know, so that's that's this So we did a we did a quite a Marxist lecture of the book. I think one, one thing that this is quite important to to say that we also try to do a structural lecture of it and I think every was was mentioning it when he was saying but one thing that we wanted to make understand and I think that's what art always does and that what perhaps religion does is you have to realize it in a very concrete context and the more concrete the context is the more you understand universalism of the of the message and how structurally these for example one really touching thing for me was that a lot of people in the film sometimes don't know if they are in the documentary part or in the fictional part because the words of the Bible are somehow so real because the system didn't change in the 2000 last years, you know, for example in the very beginning when Ivan Sanjay goes to this first refugee camp, there's a woman coming to him and saying his I think it's in the in the in the first minute. I am the mother and the father of a child. And then he says, Aha, if it's like this and if the child is born in Italy, you have right to papers. And of course this is of course a metaphor metaphoric scene for the birth of Jesus, but you don't feel it because it seems like documentary. You're living in the exactly same problems of documentation of regularization of in slavery of all the things that are described in the Bible. And it's my interest in the book, not the transcendental interest of course they are moments of of beauty of cinematography of the beauty of solidarity the beauty of the landscape. Can I ask a question. But I saw some nodding at the moment where you had described that some people could not tell if they're in the documentary or the film. And one of the moments that strikes me is when the Italian, I think he's the labor organizer he says I'm not trying to make a movie here. And, and I love that moment because that is a tension that has sometimes happened when I have worked in communities like they're, they, they ultimately are working on the activist movement. I've come to do a theater project with them, but maybe I've pushed too hard and push someone emotionally to a place they don't want to go, or now they're feeling like there's their subject and not a subject of a documentary that describes those, those tensions and I would love for the other artists on the panel to also chime in like especially dread like when I heard about your project I was like, I wonder how many people were completely triggered by that and I have I heard a few stories about people who just were like, what's happening when they watch the slave rebellion like go by their front doors so I'm wondering how, how, how do we deal with those tensions as, as artists. You know, at what point do we go okay okay I'll back off making the art part so you can do your job. I mean, we, of course, in the film we underlined these tensions, because, again, for me the New Testament is a book about exactly the same tensions that you describe and for example if you take this trade unionist. And for him this revolted that it was problematic because of course, what we try to do was to bring together the problems of the of the Italian farm workers, which were represented by journey far base who is a is a kind of a old style trade unionist. The problems with you know this this older Italian guy. And on the other hand you have the, you have the sex workers you have the farm workers from all kind of every country's living in the south of Italy, and of course only if they unite. The need would work out. For example, we works together with the Italian government, for example, so all this kind of of Solidarity's are quite difficult. And, and that's what you can see in the film in in in in many moments as, for example, of course when you have a relationship with Italy, for example, what the film was doing. I think the balance in between the classic trade unionism represented by Johnny Fabris was always on the side of the white farm workers. And perhaps the project of the revolted it was the first one pushed a bit by the film, where the balance went more to the refugee organizations and it was the first first time that for example, I mean, this kind of conflict was was provoked when the Italian people came to the homes, and then only even some years invited to talk and not Johnny Fabris and for 20 years it was of course the other way around that the white trade unionists would talk and, and the others would listen and this was at that time that it turns around in this context that this conflict came up. And I think that's the, it's, it's much less between art and activism in that time it's in that in that scene it's more about the tensions that you can can have in a in a kind of a of a social fight between the different groups in it. Yeah. And I think that that gets at the heart of, of, you know, this work and representation who, who gets to be the voice dictating and making demands about what change needs to be and it goes back to, for me, thinking about this community based work, this, this work that isn't that is about, as I was talking to Melanie about this, you know, when she was inviting me to be a part of this panel I was like, you know, you know, I'm not so much in interested in performance anymore, like, I'm interested in the embodiment. How do we, how do we live the values that we're that we're trying to lift the things that we talk about that are important to us, the things that we want to see in the world, how do we live that versus just performing it and just creating it as a spectacle or as a moment. How do we embody that and take that with us into every aspect of our lives. And I've got I've gotten put off with performing, because performing doesn't give space for that to live it creates a moment. That's ethereal and it just kind of evaporates, but the embodiment is what we need to actually bring about the type of transformation that we're seeking in our words. It's not necessarily aspirational, but the performance always falls short of bringing about the type of the transformation that that I feel like, you know, I'm interested in seeing in this point in my life in my career. I say that and then I want to kind of pivot a little bit because I feel like one part of the movie that really that I was challenged with was this this moment in which this this white guy who was who was auditioning for the role of one of the people who would beat Jesus, like was given the space to really get into the role and go into that role. It was so into it and it was too much. It was like, where did this come from. Yeah, yeah. Exercise is this way did this. Yeah, that was. No, no, no, no, yeah. And I was also challenged in how much space that was given within the moment of kind of like the as the kind of tension was rising with with the movie. How much space that was given to this white man to vent in this in this role. So I'd love to hear more about that moment because it, it didn't trigger me but it actually made me ask a lot of questions about why, why was that space given so much. And thanks, thanks for the question. I just hear from, I will answer to it. I just hear from everybody that he has to leave. So perhaps every one to say last last goodbye and statement before you have to leave. Yes, the word is to you. I just announced that you have to, that you have to leave. Milo, I'm sorry that I have to leave the meeting, but it's really with a, I wanted to be until the end. But unfortunately, did you hear me? Yes, yes, I hear you. Okay, unfortunately, I have to, I have to leave the meeting, I have to go and take my wife. So, have you been able to really have love to stay until the end but he has to leave? I didn't really understand the reason you have to take your child or what was it? You have to take your child or what was it? And yeah, I guess he says goodbye. Goodbye. Have a very good tour. Thank you, Edvi for your participation in the panel. And I really want to leave space to answer that question because it is such a pivotal moment in the film. And I just want to let people know that we're at a place of beginning to wrap up. And so Milo, I don't want to cut you short, but if you could answer that question I think would be really great. Yeah, I will try to be short. It's interesting, we discussed the same question yesterday in the discussion too. And yeah, so for me, the interesting thing is in this question about this young guy performing this torture. When you give the space of improvisation to somebody in South Italy, he's by the way a leftist, I know him a bit, or I knew him a bit through the project. Why does he have access to all this, to all these rhetorics? Why is this there? Why is, as we were formulating it yesterday, is the system talking through us? Why are we so able to do that? So you could, and that's why all this scene has this length to show this structure of violence, it goes on and goes on and goes on, and it goes on since hundreds of years actually. And in South Italy it goes on every day, every day, it's the reality of the structural violence that is acted out every day against half a million of people living there as slaves without paper. So it's really, it's just the reality these countries living in Italy, and big parts of Europe by the way, and I think big parts of our civilization. And that was the depiction you could say true embodiment or true improvisation or true theater or improvisation or however of something that is there and speaking through this young guy at this very moment, through the Roman soldiers or so to say. I don't know if this is an answer but that's what I think happens in that moment. I'm interested, Milo, like how, how much like Ivan and the community had input, I'm sure you had like so much more footage than we saw, and how much do they have this goes with Carlton's question like so much of that clip is in the movie and how much other besides being performing in this and being documented, are they in the editing process, or looking at like sort of what the final presentation or there is no final right is what you describe in your missions but at least in this thing we've experienced. How do you work with community in that way. You know, I think this film is is it premiered in September at the Venice Film Festival, because it was the first festival in Europe that that happened again. And it was also the first time we presented that film and in the public but of course we presented it several times before. I remember that even Sanje, when we when we had this premiere last September on the on the festival he said okay this is one evening we are fighting since 20 years and we will fight for 20 years. And every day we are in connection because we are I mean this film became a tool for the distribution of tomatoes and a film is a film, and it's an important tool but it's only one step in a in a much bigger process that it's going on since many years and it helps of course a lot. It helps a lot to to raise money to distribute tomatoes to kind of bring these people out of slavery into a kind of a state of citizenship and that's what the this film is used for and that's why this film is made for besides the fact that it is a is an art piece but for me that's only in I mean in the case of that film of course I'm a filmmaker too but it's it's that's not the most important part for me in that in that example. Can you say what the most important part is for you. No, for me the most important part is again we have in in South Italy we have half a million of people that is true European law without any regularization without name if these people die you will even not yet see it because they are completely put into illegality into criminality and they're then exploited by the mafia to produce all this. All these products and the important thing is to use film to change the system to hack the economic that's exactly what we said in the beginning through this film. To make access to fundings and to networks of distribution to tomatoes to use exactly the tool of slavery the tomato to liberate themselves by producing tomatoes themselves through the networks created by the revolt of dignity drew the film. So it's kind of like using film money film funding to change whole distribution systems hacked economy, and I think that's what we have to do in this very moment. We have to I think it was said in the beginning of this discussion to really create new institutions new ways of producing new ways of distributing new ways. And, and, yeah, ways of dignity to produce films and to produce just products like tomato tomatoes and to to link these these these ways of distribution of art and of classical economics and that's what we try to do in this film since many years and that's a product project that's ongoing we are in 150, as we discussed yesterday enterprises today in 150 places we sell these tomatoes now perhaps in a year it's 200 places 300 places. We have now several hundred of people brought out of slavery through the production of these tomatoes through the film distribution, and perhaps it will be more and more so it's it's one step after the other. Thank you so much Milo and you know in closing one of the things that I wanted to say is as I watched this film I couldn't help but think of farm workers in the United States. And I couldn't help but think of the recent Supreme Court ruling that happened last month in the US that limits unions abilities to organize in the fields. And I think that if they step on to, they step on to the land that that's a taking of the land and so it used to be that people could go and do union organizing in the fields and that's no longer true because private unions are more important than the people that are providing us our nourishment in this moment. And so one of the things that's been so inspiring about this conversation and the call that Melanie has given us is how do we see and how do we see solidarity, so that we do have the Indians and the Africans in the slave revolt so that we do have the taking of our own land so that our communities that we're having that that we learn from the the struggle to inform the art that the art informs the activism. And how do we, as we continue to move the work in different places, build communities in all of the examples that everyone has shown today and the work that they do. And so with this, a whole nother panel in this conversation that Carlton has brought up in terms of embodiment. What does it mean to embody the work of justice what does it mean to embody the work of change. What does it mean to embody solidarity, and what does it mean for us to go beyond solidarity to imagine, not only just imagine a new world, but to overthrow the systems in order to create it. And so I thank you, everybody for being here today and sharing with us, and a special thank you to how around in the single center and our national team of co host, Milo and all of our brilliant people. But also I want to give thanks and gratitude to Melanie Joseph and David Bruin for organizing and producing this whole series of events, which I hope is the continuation of a conversation that we've been having a very long time. And that we will continue to have, and that we have the opportunity, Melanie in your lifetime to see changes that you never thought possible. And so thank you, everybody for your work and if you have not seen the motherfucking film, you need to see it. It's beautiful. It's, it's, it's, it's arresting the acting is incredible. And, you know, I really encourage everybody to see it. Before midnight tonight. So, gracias everybody thank you very much for your work and for being here today and thank you everybody for listening with such care as we work through different languages and translations and cultures and all of those things and I really cannot wait to be in the room with all of y'all. One day. I hope that that can happen. Gracias, thank you. Thanks so much everyone we're off live. Thanks everybody.