Living proof of a radical collective imaginary lies within the art and cinema of our social movements. This roundtable explores how contemporary Asian diasporic artists, organizers and filmmakers are using their respective mediums to build communities, resist dominant ideologies, and demand more liveable futures. It is guided by the political lessons of our elders and ancestors in the Asian American and Civil Rights movements, and the parallel Third Cinema and L.A. Rebellion movements of the 60s-80s.

Panelists include contemporary Asian diasporic movement artists, filmmakers, and scholars who will share first-hand accounts of their community arts-organizing in the form of guerilla street art, mobile cinemas, printmaking, and community-based murals. By sharing examples from the U.S. and transnationally in Mexico and the Philippines, our roundtable opens discussion of: what is the role of the Asian diasporic artist or storyteller when liberatory futures demand building coalitions across cultures, generations, ethnicities and continents? How might artists, organizers, and scholars work across borders to collectively create the futures we dream? How can this collaborative work be sustained for generations to come?

Diane Fujino will explore the ways art, music, and culture works to advance movements for liberation and justice with a focus on the 1960s-80s Black Liberation and Asian American movements. By emphasizing the importance of radical imagination and participatory pedagogies, we see how art linked to activism propels not only community-based art making, but art-based community making.

Jess X. Snow will present on how rest, imagination and constellations of care between friends and collaborators sustains the long term work of building coalitions, afro-asian solidarities and abolitionist futures. They will read a poem and share lessons learned from their own filmmaking and art practices—specifically how their process leading a mural project honoring Ruth Wilson Gilmore supported a collective vision for an abolitionist future in New Haven.

A.E. Hunt will present old and new modes of film distribution and exhibition built outside of the Hollywood Studio system, focusing on the four-walling practices of Oscar Mischeaux and Haile Gerima, “Third Cinema” movements, and current radical cinema collectives, both nomadic and brick-and-mortar. He will illustrate how people have been organizing outside of Hollywood and the linear, hierarchical q&as of state-of-the-art cinema in community spaces, often paired with teach-ins, skill-shares, or fundraising.

Kill Joy will present about political posters and social movements with a focus on community-building through mural painting, printmaking and puppet world making. She will share lessons learned on the ground about the power of collaboration, especially with people who do not identify as “artists”, and how such collaborations can bridge transnational communities particularly between the Philippines, Mexico and the US.

Saiyare Refaei will present about their use of community art to work collaboratively within the Pacific Northwest to activate spaces and solidarity for building bridges between movements. They will share how local abolitionist art activations have protested the immigrant detention center and illegal liquid natural gas facility in the port of Tacoma and imagine more liberated futures.