Image from Lou Blumberg’s interview with Simeen Anjum: A woman at the PSU protest encampment writing a placard with a piece of coal. The placard says “Inquilab Zindabad” in Hindi (Simeen’s first language), a popular protest slogan that translates to “Long Live the Revolution.” (May 2024)
The world always seems to be in a hurry, but this period feels particularly intense. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, another conflict erupted on our planet. After 75 years of Israeli occupation of Palestine, the kidnapping of Israelis by Hamas led Israel to wage a genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza. Many innocent Palestinians have lost their lives in these attacks, and the violence continues. Demonstrations opposing Israel’s actions against Palestine have broken out across American universities, including a significant protest at Portland State University where students and community members collectively grieved and were violently dispersed by Portland Police. The library has been damaged by some protestors and remains closed; it will stay closed until the fall semester. There’s little I can say, but even in sorrow, we are alive. I hope you find moments of peace.
-Midori Yamanaka
The Social Forms of Art (SoFA) Journal is a publication dedicated to supporting, documenting and contextualising social forms of art and its related fields and disciplines. Each issue of the Journal takes an eclectic look at the ways in which artists are engaging with communities, institutions and the public. The Journal supports and discusses projects that offer critique, commentary and context for a field that is active and expanding.
Created within the Portland State University Art & Social Practice Masters In Fine Arts. Program, SoFA Journal is now fully online.
Conversations on Everything is an expanding collection of interviews produced as part of SoFA Journal. Through the potent format of casual interviews as artistic research, insight is harvested from artists, curators, people of other fields and everyday humans. These conversations study social forms of art as a field that lives between and within both art and life.
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