a collective research project
Laiba Raja, Helen Emily Davy, Peixin Liu, Anvi Bhatnagar.
Other Cinemas, Crossbones Graveyard, James Wilson, A
Special thanks to our tutor John Slyce and all those who graciously invited us into their space to learn.
This toolkit brings together essays, workshops, research, talks, and collective making. It situates the reader within our time in the AcrossRCA Social Justice module, which ran from November to March (2024/25).
Rather than distilling social justice into a single theme, our collective chose to critically engage with our own practices, using reflection and conversation as methods of inquiry. Through this process, we questioned what social justice means to each of us, acknowledging that our perspectives are shaped by different contexts and cultural backgrounds. Instead of reducing our voices into a singular narrative, we sought to hold space for multiplicity and tension.
This project weaves together the practices of coresearchers exploring themes of hauntology, alternative education, textiles and much more. Looking beyond the RCA, we examined how other collectives engage in social practice. In a world that pushes for atomised futures within a neoliberal education system, we turned away from institutional boundaries, choosing to learn and engage with other spaces.
Case studies include visits to Other Cinemas in Metroland, Kilburn, and Crossbones Graveyard in Bermondsey, engaging with alternative education spaces like A Particular Reality in Goldsmiths and attending lectures “Who should we remember? and unexpectedly meeting at national demonstrations!
We conducted several workshops outlined in this text, ranging from tye and dye workshops, votive offerings and collective drawing and dreaming practices.
This toolkit is not a guide on what to do or what not to do when encountering this module. Instead, we hope it encourages future RCA students to cultivate collective practices that extend beyond the university. We have also included a reading list.
On the first day of our class, Trump won the election and became president of the United States. This outcome was unsurprising but still a stark reminder of the world we live in—where right-wing ideology infiltrates policy, governance, and institutions. Understanding social justice requires acknowledging these broader systems and the ways we exist within them. But social justice is also the work of the everyday—it takes shape through community, and conversation.
Each member of the collective was drawn to different social and institutional systems— alternative education, hauntology, textile preservation and craft, photography, and protest movements. Conversations became our primary space of critical engagement, raising fundamental
questions: How do we weave these varied perspectives together? Do they even need to be connected through an overarching title? Should they even be consolidated at all? Where does this work belong?
We experimented with a more open-ended approach, one that reflected the polyvocality within our collective, and framed this project as a process publication—an approach that emerged organically from the way we spent our time together.
While this document contains our reflections on social justice—shaped by dialogues with my tutor and the collective—I believe it is equally important to hold space for ongoing inquiry: How does one materialise what social justice means in a university output and grading setting? What context am I working within? And what did I learn through our collective knowledge exchange?
Since the project began in November, much has changed—both in my thinking and in the world. A ceasefire in Palestine was briefly negotiated, only to be repeatedly violated. In the UK, the government is pushing austerity-driven welfare reforms, proposing cuts to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and disability benefits. Hostile immigration policies are intensifying, with deportation schemes targeting asylum seekers and migrant communities.
Anti-trans legislation is on the rise through proposed restrictions on genderaffirming care, legal recognition and protection against discrimination.
I hope this publication reflects our time thinking and making within this module—both individually and as part of a collective.
Laiba Raja
Peixin Liu
This is a letter addressed to no one in particular. If you have time, please read it; if not, thank you nonetheless for opening it.
During my studies in the UK, I experienced many epiphanies. The “Across RCA” program gave me my first formal opportunity to collaborate with students from different disciplines on thematic explorations, which reminded me of my past. I began studying art at five years old, spending my childhood in extracurricular training classes. At that time, I believed I possessed exceptional artistic talent and developed a deep love for painting. My earliest memory of collaborative creation was working with other children on a large mural - an experience that proved to be both my first and last group artistic endeavor. When entering high school, I resolutely chose to become an art student, convinced that years of persistent practice would guarantee my admission to a prestigious art university. Yet reality proved cruel.
Upon becoming a formal art student in high school, I found myself trapped in mechanical training. I vividly remember my hands perpetually stained with pencil dust, painting from 6 AM until 4 AM, repeating standardized techniques to produce what teachers
deemed “correct” works. Predictably, I failed. The combined pressures of exams and physical exhaustion made me question my path: “Do I still love painting? What truly constitutes art?” Through this regimented training, I was taught to judge art as right or wrong, had my unique style suppressed, and witnessed passionate classmates declare “I hate art.” Lost and confused, I began doubting the meaning of my persistence. Having clearly lost this competition, I desperately sought answers, which led me to enroll in a normal university’s art education program. My motivation wasn’t merely academic - I needed to understand systemic flaws in art education, having seen too many bright-eyed students lose their spark.
When I assumed the teacher’s role hoping for answers, reality proved my naivety. University courses taught classroom management rather than student guidance. All my teaching skills came from internships and jobs, training me to become an enforcer rather than an educator. Facing younger versions of myself in the classroom, I witnessed how they lose themselves. When students asked, “Teacher, why should I continue? I’m exhausted and hate drawing these,” I could only offer empty comfort, powerless against systemic cruelty.
My admission to the Royal Art College through relentless effort proved I wasn’t an unqualified art student - my talent and ideas finally gained recognition. Yet this made me mourn for countless families who can’t afford such second chances. Teaching at a study
abroad agency revealed new hope: guiding untrained high school students to develop critical thinking through artistic methods. I watched their initial flickers of interest blaze into passionate flames, realizing that integrating Western pedagogical approaches could reform China’s art education system. While applying for doctoral programs, my research paper interviewing teachers, students and artists uncovered disturbing truths. An artist’s blunt statement - “University art students don’t deserve to be called artists; art schools just help them avoid starvation after graduation” - still infuriates me, reflecting society’s prevalent prejudice. Eighty percent of people believe art students choose this path due to poor academic performance, viewing it merely as a diploma shortcut. This systemic discrimination, existing throughout Chinese society, fuels my dedication to social justice research.
My mission extends beyond reforming selection systems - I aim to make artistic talents visible and valued globally. Many say an individual can’t change anything, but I choose to try regardless. My pursuit of overseas graduate and doctoral studies stems from China’s lack of researchers in this field. Even if I fail, I’ll have no regrets. If possible, I hope to make a difference - even if just a tiny bit.
Peixin Liu
My experience in art education has sparked my deep concern for social justice issues. I conducted interviews with students from diverse cultural backgrounds and majors studying at the RCA, and we all shared insights regarding social justice within the realm of art education.
As a student with a strong interest in social issues, I am fond of expressing my perspectives through various media. I also place great value on the interactivity during the creation of artworks, as communicating with others is of utmost importance to me.
In this workshop students chose a piece of paper that represented them and transfered all their negative emotions onto it. When the students felt relieved, we wrote responses to these three questions.
1.Why did you choose to be an artist in the beginning?
2.Why do you suddenly feel negative?
3.What do you think good art education should be like?
Workshop conducted by Laiba Raja at the Stuart Hall Building during the Student Occupation for Palestine.
This dialogue and drawing based workshop focused on fostering care for students sharing their work in crit spaces. Students and staff came together to explore ways of creating environments where students work could be discussed with consideration, moving away from forms of critical engagement that often deny students the agency to defend their work in these spaces.
Laiba Raja
About a month ago, I was on the phone with my friend, reading from the zine that accompanies her exhibition. I was not well versed with the Malayan “Emergency,” nor did I know much about the national curriculum in Britain. I had spent the first 18 years of my life in Lahore, Pakistan. Although, it can be said that I was on the peripheries of the British Education system since my school had adopted the Cambridge International Examination curriculum. My formative years were spent learning in the post-colony with knowledge imparted and assessed by the Empire. But that didn’t warrant knowing much about schools in Britain. Naturally, I had many questions about what she had written. She answered patiently and I made connections to her writing from my own personal and colonial educational histories.
In the major cities of Pakistan, schools are given syllabi by the Cambridge International Examination Board (CIE). Schools in the public sector are vetted by the Military and private schools by the CIE Board. God, it’s really all hopeless. When my mother, who herself is a pedagogue, had to choose a path for me, she thought learning English might be better than internalising military propaganda. There were many reasons for this decision. English is the language of social mobility in Pakistan. Grammar schools were fashionable at the time. The location of the school was near my house and my cousin was already enrolled there, so transportation was sorted.
In our conversations, my friend mentioned that teachers from Malaysia were imported and exported from Britain for “training” and to inculcate European values in the colonies. The same colonial control maintains itself in Pakistan’s education sector. “Men proficient in eastern tongues could not deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the entire literature of India.” Says Macaulay, a colonial administrator upon delivering a speech to reform education in India, during the British Raj in 1835. From the current Cambridge Exam Systems to a time when our learning was in the hands of the colonisers, our history continues to shape us to this day. If you ever caught talking in Urdu, on school grounds, there would be a 500 rupees fine to pay. I don’t know where that money went but it did alter my living in this world. I am still trying to rewire my brain to not think in English.
Somehow as my friend and I progressed in the conversation, we derailed from the text and started sharing our experiences of school. We both went to an all-girls school. Surprisingly, not so surprisingly, really– they were both grammar schools. I told her that when she comes to Lahore, I will take her there! We made a plan to go to hers in the summer.
My school was a very informal, chaotic and depending on the time of day– completely unrecognisable space. It was someone’s house built up over the years. Off-white walls with barbed wire, a terracotta tiled rooftop with stationed gunmen and a barren garden with white benches. It was a Yoga Centre for our principal and her friends for their evening meditation; A cinema for binge-watching Naruto when substitute teachers wouldn’t show up to class; The
Taliban’s “Red Zone” when drone strikes and bomb blasts were a part of everyday Lahore; a club for a 10 minute dance break during lunch with speakers blasting Britany Spears and Madonna; And a wedding hall, for marriage ceremonies when teachers would be at political rallies in different cities. I remember making many paper rings by ripping out pages from my notebook to give my multiple wives during the years.
The school was a feminist space, one of its kind in Lahore. The teachers who laid the foundations of the school belonged to a group of thinkers known as the Women’s Action Forum (WAF). Made primarily of educators and activists, critical of the Islamic Dictatorship in the 1970s reinforcing regressive laws. These activists were on the streets burning head coverings in protest, organising political campaigns and resisting Islamic fundamentalism. The school’s principal was one of the founding members of the WAF. She had hired her friends who shared the same political beliefs to teach and train us. At the time, I didn’t know what that contribution to our education meant but it felt important to align myself with them. To be part of history, to be made into the shape of these women, to mirror their image, and to become the bones of the school.
There was a lack of men in my educational experience. Living in the conservative city of Lahore, the responsibilities of raising me were undertaken by the women. My grandmother taught me how to read. My mother and her sister were my caretakers. My Islamic education was completed in an after-school all-women’s school. I spent seventeen years alongside girls. I recall there being one man in an administrative position. He was a finance and
accounts manager but got fired for embezzling money from our tuition fees. There were men of course; the snipers hiding on the rooftops looking out for suicide bombers, the guard who called out our names on a microphone when our parents came to pick us up, the security running around with baseball bats during daily terrorist drills, the kathak teacher who complained we smelled bad and needed deodorant. He made us take off our shoes before entering the class! Lahore is so hot! There was barely any electricity! We sweat? I tell Francesca.
There was something otherworldly about being at school. Strangely, It was a space where gender didn’t matter. I was untethered from my familial and social responsibilities. Not a daughter, a granddaughter or an elder sister. I was simply a student and encouraged to think of myself as just that. In school, we were raised without worrying that our voices didn’t need to be loud in order to be heard. There were strict rules, though. No one was allowed to wear tinted lip balm, nail polish, or have untied hair. If the geography teacher ever caught us with one unopened button, we would get an hour-long lecture on modesty. That didn’t stop us. The first stirrings of desire or questions around my sexuality were confessed to girls. Seniors, who had buzz cuts and blazers would accumulate many fangirls. We confessed our crushes to them, and in turn, they gave us language to articulate those desires. “There was a bit of a lesbian problem in our school,” I tell my friend. “Our sports teacher would give us detention if we hugged on the baseball field during her classes. No wonder the Taliban put us in their red zone—we were all so gay!”
When we had to act out scenes from Romeo and Juliet in our English Literature classes, I would play the male character because of my “broad shoulders” and “ tall height” as my sixth-grade teacher remarked. When we would make up plays for our theatre class, I would always play Mr. Darcy. I would assume these roles without question, not because someone had to play a male character but because we were free to express ourselves however we liked. This uncheckedness got us into trouble sometimes. During a theatre festival hosted by our school, my friends and I did a rendition of Romeo and Juliet in Punjabi. Other schools from Lahore were invited to be part of the lineup of performances. Fourteen year old teenagers who could not understand the scope of this Shakespearian tragedy interpreted the play through a comedic lens. Local textures were added personalising the characters and situating them in Lahore. I played the Muslim equivalent of Friar Lawrence (Maulvi Sahib). Our principal was so horrified at our performance. We did not know the language well enough to be this ambitious. I’m sure she lifted the ban on speaking Urdu that night.
As much as it was a space of play, queerness and joy. There was still fracture, I see the effects of this education in my thinking. I can quote Othello and Hamlet but struggle with my own literature. Yes, I learned to read texts from all across the world. No doubt, I became proficient in speaking the language. But I find it difficult to contend with, how grammar schools in Lahore taught English and gave precedence to the language. Now, when I converse with my white tutors, I feel jarred, knowing so much about Virginia Woolf’s essays, The Yellow Wallpaper, Byron, Whitman, Keats and Shakespeare. I have no desire to know
the thoughts and feelings of white people. Yet, here I am. Knowing and Feeling. And writing. Am I, “Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” Just what Macaulay wanted. How did this become my language? Did my school play a part in cementing “the superiority of the Europeans becoming absolutely immeasurable?” Or was it at the mercy of these larger colonial histories we are irrevocably tethered to? And who should I blame for the way I turned out?
It isn’t entirely the school’s fault. Most students would not take Urdu seriously as a subject. Our teachers, who were nearing their early seventies had to climb five flights of stairs to teach uninterested children. The school tried solving this issue, the ban on speaking the language was lifted but ultimately could not give Urdu the same status as English. At a state level, Lahore was not ready to embrace a new system of education our principal wanted to introduce. One time, the teachers experimented with making Comparative Religion a mandatory subject. This decision made headlines, the media had a field day. Our school ended up on News Channels with talk show hosts blaming our principal for disrespecting cultural values and manipulating children to stray from their religion. It was really tough to be a pedagogue, to be on various watchlists and to be surveilled by the state.
I don’t want to romanticise my school experience. Being in class with our teachers was terrifying, they were strict pedagogues. I remember how our English Literature teacher taught us Shakespeare’s, “Twelfth Night” which turned into a tragedy because we were too afraid to laugh at the dick jokes in class. I am still her student. She recognised a soft
voice within me and sharpened her knife. I didn’t think I would write about her today, but this is what a school does. It creates a ripple. I go out and back in. I seek refuge in her classroom. To this day, I tell my friends, “Sometimes I have dreams of walking in circles around campus, in our presentday bodies and souls.”
Macaulay concluded his speech by saying, “The natives are desirous to be taught English.” Maybe it isn’t the desire to know English but making the best out of the cards that were given to us. The school tried. You could speak Urdu on school grounds after some time. We were too young to comprehend what Ishq-e-Haqiqi or Ishq-e-Majazi were. Both, Sufi concepts taught in Urdu class about worldly and godly love. Which we might not have understood theoretically but did practice. It’s been many years now since I have been back to school. Sometimes when I sleep, I find myself sitting in the classroom. I walk with my friends in the barren gardens, hand in hand, hyper-vigilant of the sports teacher still. Bunking class to sit in the library or kiss in the bathroom stalls. Chatting loudly about everything and nothing. I can’t quite make out the language of our conversations. Maybe it is English, hopefully, it is in Urdu. The barbed wire is still there. The barricades too. We watch Naruto from the projector in class, ignoring the men holding the guns.
Other Cinemas is a Brent-based project that hosts a monthly film night dedicated to showcasing films by Black and Brown filmmakers. Since I had been engaging with the space for some time, I invited the collective to Other Cinemas to watch The Missing Picture by Rithy Panh.
The film club, Majlis, operates by screening a film first, followed by a discussion. These films explore themes of genocide, state violence, and the intersections of personal and political narratives. Since engaging with Other Cinemas, I am hoping to share a film of my own selection—Heroic Bodies by Sara Sulimen— scheduled for screening in May 2025. Majlis is a space for meeting artists, filmmakers, and students who believe in the transformative power of educational cinema.
Laiba Raja
A monthly vigil for the ‘Outcast Dead’ in Southwark honouring those past and present who fall by the wayside of official or sanctioned memorials, such as sex workers or unbaptised stillborn babies. At the Crossbones Graveyard, we joined a vigil to remember and honour the forgotten. We tied red ribbons to the gate and made offerings to the spirits through poetry, collective singing, and readings. Although it was my first time attending a space like this, I recited “I Am Going to Start Living Like a Mystic” by Edward Hirsch.
“Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall.
The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field, each a station in a pilgrimage—silent, pondering.
I shall begin scouring the sky for signs as if my whole future were constellated upon it.
I will walk home alone with the deep alone, a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries.”
This workshop was developed from the tradition of making devotional objects, known as votive offerings or ex-votos. Votive offerings have been made across the globe from antiquity to the present day, and are most often associated with healing or protecting the body from disease and injury. They have also been used in memorial practices and other religious rituals. They offer a more democratised memorial practice than more institutional modes such as statues or large scale memorials, and can be made with readily available tools and materials.
Following our visit to Crossbones Graveyard’s monthly ritual, which features an array of offerings from ribbons to songs to poured-out gin libations, I held a workshop where we could create our own offerings. The materials used were domestic - pencils, scissors, and the leftover tubes from tomato paste.
Participants were invited to first draw and then emboss into flattened tubes their designs. The offerings materialise different ideas of protection and justice, and how workshop participants visualise these concepts.
Helen Emily Davy
Peixin Liu
The reason why I painted this poster is that my interviewees said that the unfairness in art education haunted them like a ghost. Some described the “ghost” as looking like a red ribbon, some as a mirror, some as a pair of weathered hands, and others as a little figure dancing in the foam. After participating in the Crossbone event, I got a lot of inspiration. Instead of depicting the “ghost” in a terrifying way, I hope to express what these “ghosts” look like in a positive and humorous manner.
Helen Emily Davy
In the artistic subfield I’ve found myself in, Haunting is all but a given. Nearly 5 years spent following the thread through histories of assimilation, equivocation, dehumanisation, humiliation, evacuation, and annihilation. So many hours sifting through paperwork stamped with swastikas, exhaustive lists of ‘aryanised’ property, letters drenched in desperation and hope. Spectres, phantoms, and revenants at every turn. At their most conventional, they are understood to leap forward and into the spaces we inhabit.
Standing at one head of Vienna’s Ringstraße in the winter of 2021, waiting for a thin enough patch of the weekly ‘querdenker’ rally that I could dart across the great boulevard to my studio, I felt the revenant. As if I was the one that had slipped out of time into the childhood of my grandfather, my body hanging in some limbo state not only between then and now but both, all three, concurrently. It wasn’t until the carnival-costumed Doctor Death, faux syringe in hand and twisted pastiche of a yellow star proclaiming ‘ungeimpft’ (‘unvaccinated’) on his lapel, barked something in my face that I came flooding back to myself.
More recently, I have been ruminating on my position and my relationship to modes of discussion around Holocaust memory. I first heard myself described as a ‘Third Generation artist’ at a conference in the spring of 2024 and I felt a certain sense of unease at this moniker. I am still untangling the ways in which my identity, my relationship to my heritage, and what responsibility I owe to this history has
developed in the past 5 years. I am certain though that this sense of responsibility has been thrown into even sharper contrast in the past 17 months of genocide in Gaza.
Some months after the conference I read online the account of two artists who had been removed from an exhibition of Third Generation artists in Vienna due to their participation in a cultural boycott of Israel. Other examples of institutional silencing, defunding, and revoking abound, including the pulling of work by the artist Candice Breitz and the cancellation of Masha Gessen’s Hannah Arendt prize. I have often found myself asking - what does it mean to research and make artistic work around such history, when that same history is being used by some to justify genocide in our
own time? How do we respond when the traumas of the past are used as chilling revenants to enact brutality now? How do we counter different methods of censorship when our personal and artistic ethics are deemed dangerous and unacceptable?
In the essay ‘Rethinking Holocaust Memory After October 7’, the Holocaust scholar Marianne Hirsch revisits the concept of postmemory popularised in her 2012 book ‘The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust’. Hirsch stresses the importance of distinction between memory and postmemory, and warns against the dangers inherent in a framework where past familial trauma can be co opted into a persecution of those deemed ‘other’ in the current moment. Instead, Hirsch urges “practices and discourses of accountability, justice, care, mutual aid, and repair”. She writes “Let us use our painful inheritance in the interests of justice and solidarity with Palestinians whose lives are being destroyed. Violent histories can be simplified in their aftermath. It is up to us to ensure that this moment will be remembered and transmitted as one not only of devastation, but also of activist solidarity and coresistance—leaving a space for hope.”
I must remember that on that day on the Ringstraße, despite my uncanny out of body feeling, my feet remained grounded in the 2020s, not the 1930s. It is today’s world I operate within, and today’s political realities. In January 2025, I gave a presentation at my former sixth form college for Holocaust Memorial Day. As I wrote my notes, I was toggling between news articles showing the ongoing discussions around a long overdue ceasefire in Gaza, footage of the world’s richest man Sieg Heiling at the presidential inauguration,
twice, and discussions by the far right FPÖ party around forming a coalition government in Austria. I spoke to the students about the necessity of active confrontations with the past, and the use of artistic practice to build solidarity in the present. ‘Never Again’ must mean ‘Never Again For Anyone’, or else it is empty. My desire to honour in my work ancestors who survived so much must be interwoven with today’s struggles against persecution and for a more liberated and just world.
Anvi Bhatanagar
Healing Wounds explores the spectral presence of displaced art through textile practice, using colors deeply rooted in my culture—indigo (Blue) and turmeric (Yellow)—symbols of both exploitation and cultural resilience. By engaging with hauntology, this work reflects on how learning from past injustices is crucial to protecting the future, understanding how past cultures were damaged in order to effectively restore them. The ghosts of history are not just to be remembered but actively confronted, as they continue to shape our identities and struggles for social justice. This piece envisions a path toward reclamation and healing, where materiality and memory intertwine, offering a vision of resistance and restoration.
“Thinking through making” provides a deeper, more reflective space for conversations and learning. For this project, I organized workshops with my teammates to explore how they envision healing through tie and dye using turmeric on cotton. These workshops allowed us to not only engage with the material but also critically reflect on the histories embedded in these craft practices. The hands-on approach became a shared space for learning, where we could collectively explore how the act of making can help reclaim and heal cultural narratives that have been displaced or forgotten over time.
Due to its deep connection to India’s colonial history and the struggle for independence. In the Champaran region, indigo production was tied to exploitative labor practices during British colonial rule, and the Champaran revolt became a symbol of resistance. Today, indigo is often viewed merely as a color, yet its historical context—representing the pain and injustice of colonialism—is vital to understanding its true significance. During this workshop, indigo serves as a reminder of the need to confront past struggles in order to protect the future.
In contrast to indigo, turmeric symbolizes healing, hope, and resilience. Known for its vibrant yellow color, turmeric has long been associated with restoration and rejuvenation, both culturally and medicinally. By incorporating turmeric, I represent the strength and hope necessary for healing from past wounds. It embodies the resilience of culture and the possibility of renewal, making it a symbol of cultural restoration for the future.
Why Tie and Dye
Tie and dye, as a resist dyeing technique, is inherently a form of resistance. Arts and crafts have endured through history because they resisted oppressive forces. The process of tying and dyeing reflects survival, and through these patterns, we reclaim the narratives that have been displaced by history.
“Dyeing ghosts into the present, to see what we lost and heal what we broke.”
The workshop, held at the textiles studio at Kensington Campus, focused on tie-dye using turmeric on cotton. Through hands-on experimentation, we uncovered personal histories, learning about tartans unique to families and the exploitation of children in textile mills. Inspired by the diverse backgrounds of my teammates, these discussions deepened our understanding of struggles for cultural identity and independence, connecting past injustices with the present and the need to reclaim lost histories.
“How can a simple color carry so much history? Imagine how much silence surrounds us, embedded in every shade we overlook.”
– A reflection on Toni Morrison’s notion that “All histories are narratives of silences.”
Laiba Raja is an interdisciplinary artist, poet, and researcher whose practice engages with anti-racist education, language and hybridity. Through her work, she builds dialogue with voices that are often erased.
She is deeply involved in community-based work. She collaborates with Compass Collective and Breadwinners, supporting young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds, and volunteers with Aurat March, a feminist collective in Lahore, Pakistan. She is also a member of A Particular Reality, an inter-institutional anti-racist collective based at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Anvi Bhatnagar is a textile storyteller who grounds her designs in context, blending everyday experiences with her cultural roots to create pieces that spark new connections. Her design process is rooted in embedded practice and meaningful conversations, where she explored the intersection of craft, history, and identity. Maintaining an ethical approach, ensuring her work respects and reflects the cultural and historical significance of the materials she uses. By researching subtle symbolism and engaging hands-on with materials, she unearths deeper narratives that inform her practice. Anvi seeks to delve into both the heritage and future of this revitalizing world, refining her ideas, designs, and skills with every step.
Helen Emily Davy (b. 1996) is an artist from Manchester, UK. Her past research and artistic work has dealt with topics such as Anatomical Venuses in relation the body as a gendered and performative spectacle, early photography of hysteric patients and the relations of truth and image, and the practice(s) of Spiritualism with regard to ideas of communication and consensus reality.
She is also in an ongoing collaboration with Austrian artist Katharina Mayrhofer looking at their respective Jewish and Austrian family heritages and the restitution of stolen property, which was presented at the 2022 Zeitgeschichte-Tage in Braunau-am-Inn and is in preparation for a contextual exhibition in London in summer 2025.
Peixin Liu graduated from a normal college in China as an undergraduate, majoring in art education, and now I am a student majoring in RCA printing. I like to explore different creative media and combine them to express my discussion on social issues. Personally, I pay attention to issues related to social justice, such as social justice in art education. This is related to my experience as an art student. Over the years, I have seen all kinds of unfair phenomena encountered by art students in society. This work also expresses my yearning for fairness and justice in art education.
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Mishra, Pankaj. “The Shoah after Gaza.” London Review of Books, vol. 46, no. 6,
21 Mar. 2024, https://www.lrb.co.uk/thepaper/v46/n06/pankaj-mishra/the-shoahafter-gaza.
Rites of Return: Diaspora Poetics and the Politics of Memory, 2011, ed. Marianne Hirsch and Nancy K Miller
Anti-fascism/Art/Theory, volume 33, issue 3 of Third Text journal, 2019
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