Silvia Vari is a Ph.D. student in Italian Studies at the University of Warwick, where she is trying to unravel the role that the aesthetic and formal affordances of graphic narratives may embody and convey the transitional experiences of migrant subjects. Juggling between academia and the protean world of comics, an objective of her work as academic lies in the importance of creating (and maintaining) a stimulating dialogue between these two worlds.
Guests
Malina Suliman (Afghanistan)
Malina Suliman, a graffiti artist, metalworker, and painter, was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1990. As a child, she and her family were forced to flee her home province to live in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Her work is considered to challenge traditional Muslim culture like the burqa. According to Suliman, “The burqa is a way of controlling, but in the name of respect. Every culture or religion gives a different name for the burqa. It is honor, culture, and religion. Really, it just controls the woman and keeps her inside.” Malina’s work has gained the attention of the Taliban and traditional Muslims, resulting in having received threats from the Taliban towards Suliman and her family. The artist was subject to physical threats, rocks have been thrown at her as she conducts her work. Not only does Malina worry about the Taliban, but her family who disagrees with her decision to create art. Creating art that displays the human body like Malina’s motif, the skeleton in a burqa, is seen as idol worship. To the Taliban and other traditional Muslims, Malina’s artwork is un-Islamic and Suliman’s parents were embarrassed. Suliman spends her time holding art exhibits around the world.
Daniela Zuluaga (Colombia)
Daniela Zuluaga is a writer and an alternative publisher from Colombia. She is a member of Casa Barullo, which is a zine collective that plays around with the idea of a house made of stories. Currently, she is studying cultural management at the Universitat de Barcelona. She loves how fanzines and other kinds of self-made or artisanal publications are powerful tools for connecting creators among them and with their reading community. She believes that these practices are critical and constitute an alternative to mass-production publishing.
Matrijaršija (Serbia)
Represented by Paloma Luz Diaz, Matrijaršija (pronounced: mah-tree-yar-shee-ya) is currently a patchwork of various individual and collective living art phenomena from Belgrade, Serbia, the region and the whole of Europe. During its nine years of existence it had become a center of congregation for various authors who joined its non-structured network, as well as acknowledging and encouraging particular existential and working practices, which more and more are coalescing into a specific type of custodianship and preservation of the semi-public status of this type of art and the thriving network in which it exists. The creative output of Matrijaršija is dedicated to recognizing the codes of social roles and structures, in order to allow for their recombination (art and exhibition practices combined with turbo-folk music; urban, intellectual art combined with other fringe territories – music, politics, the media world, the politics and religion of the media world).
Joe Kessler (UK)
Joe Kessler is a cartoonist who lives and works in London. He is the author of Windowpane and The Gull Yettin and is a founder and Art Director of Breakdown Press.