{ "article": { "title" : "Design for Black Indigenous Futures", "author" : "maya finoh, Oumoula McKenzie", "category" : "interviews", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/design-black-indigenous-futures", "date" : "2025-02-04 15:33:00 -0500", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/oumoula-mcKenzie-thumb.jpg", "excerpt" : "maya finoh: It is a pleasure to be in conversation with you! How would you describe yourself, the work you do, your lineage/ community, and some of your main values/principles?", "content" : "maya finoh: It is a pleasure to be in conversation with you! How would you describe yourself, the work you do, your lineage/ community, and some of your main values/principles?OUMOULA MCKENZIE: My name is Oumoula Nanaiyu Mckenzie and I’m a Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara (Anangu), Warumungu, and Warlmanpa artist from central Australia. I grew up in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), and I use my art to try to empower my community and speak on the challenges that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples face.maya: How did you get into graphic design as a medium? What about it is appealing and/or useful to you? Why have you chosen it as a vehicle for your inherently political artwork?OUMOULA: I was working for an organisation that was providing services to my communities in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands during the build-up to the 2023 Indigenous Voice referendum, a poll that would make an Indigenous voice in Parliament enshrined in the constitution. A lot of the information that was coming from the Voice campaign was designed by academics for academics, which was very difficult to translate because, for a lot of my people, English is a second or third language. A friend of mine was working for the same organization at the time and she showed me Procreate on her iPad which I instantly loved!I then used my art to help translate the information from the campaign to help members within the programs we were delivering to have a better understanding of the campaign and local governance. I realised there was some success with this method so I started posting my art on social media to hopefully have the same positive effect on the broader Black community.maya: You’ve described your art as a tool to “share commentary on issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.” Can you tell me a bit more about what these particular issues are? And what Black resistance to these issues exists today?OUMOULA: The issues that Indigenous Australians face are very complex with multiple layers that affect our quality of life. Not only is there a constant struggle in trying to establish political, economic, and social equality for ourselves and communities within white Australia but we’re also trying to solve the issues within our communities that are brought upon by substance abuse, mental and physical health issues, and all forms of violence perpetrated by other members of our communities.The resistance is alive and well, as Indigenous people across the country have started organizations and businesses to help people with the issues that we face and to try to accomplish equality.maya: What connections do you see, if any, between the Indigenous struggle against ongoing settler occupation in so- called Australia and the freedom struggles of Black folks in Congo, Sudan, Haiti, the so-called United States, etc.?OUMOULA: We have been exploited and oppressed by the same people so unfortunately our connections are the scars and the traumas that we have developed during the harsh conditions that we have been forced to live in. So theoretically if one of the groups you have mentioned finds a blueprint or method to solve the issues that they are facing, we could all use the same strategies to accomplish the same goal.maya: Do you have any ideas or strategies on how we can make solidarity between Black folks of the Atlantic World and Black Aboriginal/Melanesian folks of the Pacific World more meaningful, visible, and prominent?OUMOULA: I think about the strategies that have already been developed. Looking at the influence that Black people throughout the Caribbean and the U.S. have had on culture around the world proves that we as a Black collective have the power of influence and maybe there we can find our key to liberation.maya: Yes, and we can even look to recent history to see examples of unity and camaraderie built between communities throughout the Black diaspora—you reminding me that First Nations peoples drew direct inspiration from the Black Panthers and created an Australian Black Panther Party with community survival programs rooted in Black power and Indigenous sovereignty. What does a liberated Black Indigenous future look, feel, and sound like to you?OUMOULA: Independence, to be completely free from European or other groups’ hegemony." } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "Dignity Before Stadiums:: Morocco’s Digital Uprising", "author" : "Cheb Gado", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/dignity-before-stadiums", "date" : "2025-10-02 09:08:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Cover_Morocco_GenZ.jpg", "excerpt" : "No one expected a generation raised on smartphones and TikTok clips to ignite a spark of protest shaking Morocco’s streets. But Gen Z, the children of the internet and speed, have stepped forward to write a new chapter in the history of uprisings, in their own style.The wave of anger began with everyday struggles that cut deep into young people’s lives: soaring prices, lack of social justice, and the silencing of their voices in politics. They didn’t need traditional leaders or party manifestos; the movement was born out of a single hashtag that spread like wildfire, transforming individual frustration into collective momentum.", "content" : "No one expected a generation raised on smartphones and TikTok clips to ignite a spark of protest shaking Morocco’s streets. But Gen Z, the children of the internet and speed, have stepped forward to write a new chapter in the history of uprisings, in their own style.The wave of anger began with everyday struggles that cut deep into young people’s lives: soaring prices, lack of social justice, and the silencing of their voices in politics. They didn’t need traditional leaders or party manifestos; the movement was born out of a single hashtag that spread like wildfire, transforming individual frustration into collective momentum.One of the sharpest contradictions fueling the protests was the billions poured into World Cup-related preparations, while ordinary citizens remained marginalized when it came to healthcare and education.This awareness quickly turned into chants and slogans echoing through the streets: “Dignity begins with schools and hospitals, not with putting on a show for the world.”What set this movement apart was not only its presence on the streets, but also the way it reinvented protest itself:Live filming: Phone cameras revealed events moment by moment, exposing abuses instantly.Memes and satire: A powerful weapon to dismantle authority’s aura, turning complex political discourse into viral, shareable content.Decentralized networks: No leader, no party, just small, fast-moving groups connected online, able to appear and disappear with agility.This generation doesn’t believe in grand speeches or delayed promises. They demand change here and now. Moving seamlessly between the physical and digital realms, they turn the street into a stage of revolt, and Instagram Live into an alternative media outlet.What’s happening in Morocco strongly recalls the Arab Spring of 2011, when young people flooded the streets with the same passion and spontaneity, armed only with belief in their power to spark change. But Gen Z added their own twist, digital tools, meme culture, and the pace of a hyper-connected world.Morocco’s Gen Z uprising is not just another protest, but a living experiment in how a digital generation can redefine politics itself. The spark may fade, but the mark it leaves on young people’s collective consciousness cannot be erased.Photo credits: Mosa’ab Elshamy, Zacaria Garcia, Abdel Majid Bizouat, Marouane Beslem" } , { "title" : "A Shutdown Exposes How Fragile U.S. Governance Really Is", "author" : "EIP Editors", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/a-shutdown-exposes-how-fragile-us-governance-really-is", "date" : "2025-10-01 22:13:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Cover_Gov_ShutDown.jpg", "excerpt" : "Each time the federal government shutters its doors, we hear the same reassurances: essential services will continue, Social Security checks will still arrive, planes won’t fall from the sky. This isn’t the first Governmental shutdown, they’ve happened 22 times since 1976, and their toll is real.", "content" : "Each time the federal government shutters its doors, we hear the same reassurances: essential services will continue, Social Security checks will still arrive, planes won’t fall from the sky. This isn’t the first Governmental shutdown, they’ve happened 22 times since 1976, and their toll is real.Shutdowns don’t mean the government stops functioning. They mean millions of federal workers are asked to keep the system running without pay. Air traffic controllers, border patrol agents, food inspectors — people whose jobs underpin both public safety and economic life — are told their labor matters, but their livelihoods don’t. People have to pay the price of bad bureaucracy in the world’s most powerful country, if governance is stalled, workers must pay with their salaries and their groceries.In 1995 and 1996, clashes between President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich triggered two shutdowns totaling 27 days. In 2013, a 16-day standoff over the Affordable Care Act furloughed 850,000 workers. And in 2018–2019, the longest shutdown in U.S. history stretched 35 days, as President Trump refused to reopen the government without funding for a border wall. That impasse left 800,000 federal employees without paychecks and cost the U.S. economy an estimated $11 billion — $3 billion of it permanently lost.More troubling is what happens when crises strike during shutdowns. The United States is living in an age of accelerating climate disasters: historic floods in Vermont, wildfire smoke choking New York, hurricanes pounding Florida. These emergencies do not pause while Congress fights over budgets. Yet a shutdown means furloughed NOAA meteorologists, suspended EPA enforcement, and delayed FEMA programs. In the most climate-vulnerable decade of our lifetimes, we are choosing paralysis over preparedness.This vulnerability didn’t emerge overnight. For decades, the American state has been hollowed out under the logic of austerity and privatization, while military spending has remained sacrosanct. That imbalance is why budgets collapse under the weight of endless resources for war abroad, too few for resilience at home.Shutdowns send a dangerous message. They normalize instability. They tell workers they are disposable. They make clear that in our system, climate resilience and public health aren’t pillars of our democracy but rather insignificant in the face of power and greed. And each time the government closes, it becomes easier to imagine a future where this isn’t the exception but the rule.The United States cannot afford to keep running on shutdown politics. The climate crisis, economic inequality, and the challenges of sustaining democracy itself demand continuity, not collapse. We need a politics that treats stability and resilience not as partisan victories, but as basic commitments to one another. Otherwise, the real shutdown isn’t just of the government — it’s of democracy itself." } , { "title" : "There Was, There Was Not: Cinema as Collective Memory", "author" : "Emily Mkrtichian", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/there-was-there-was-not", "date" : "2025-10-01 16:06:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/EIP_Cover_10_1_There_Was_Film.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "Join us for the New York Screening:7:00pm: Screening Begins8:30-9:00pm: Q&A with Celine and Emily9:15-11:30: Party at DCTV with small bites and DJEIP members 20% OFF CODE: Get your tickets hereCinema holds a singular place in our imagination, opening a shared space of possibility in both our individual and collective consciousness. At first, this might seem less true for nonfiction cinema, yet over nearly a decade of making my first feature, I’ve come to believe it has the power to cast a spell on how we experience reality and remember the past.In making There Was, There Was Not, I lived through a historical moment that became a fundamental rupture and trauma for my people - and now I can’t help but think about the archive obsessively. Its multitude of shortcomings but also its infinite potential and pivotal importance. My grandmothers and aunts were my personal archive - they taught me about the history of my family, which was also the history of our people. When your past is defined by movement and displacement, your lineage becomes a cultural encyclopedia, an embodied record of larger geopolitical events. The personal is political in every way.When I began making the film in 2016 it was originally meant to be a celebration of women like my grandmothers and aunts. These women are the stubborn, tender keepers of history and makers of a better future that I met and became close with during my time in the Republic of Artsakh - an ethnically Armenian autonomous region that fell into dispute after the fall of the Soviet Union. Artsakh was functioning as a de facto state for nearly three decades, and for Armenians, it is a symbol of self-determination, resistance, and the need to hold onto lands that have been systematically taken from us through violent means for more than a century. The formation of the republic of Artsakh was full of tales of freedom fighters, heroes and martyrs (mostly men), who gave their life so that our connection to our lands would remain unbroken. I envied this tenuous yet determined connection to place. My grandparents fled their village in Turkey during the 1915 genocide, and relocated several times before settling in Iran. So as someone who had been disconnected from land and history for two generations, I wanted to document women’s connection to it and fight for it. For all these reasons, I started filming with four women who were all fighting in their own way - fighting for Artsakh to be the place they dreamed and believed it could be.I have so many vivid memories of my time in Artsakh. It’s hard to describe the beauty of that place, but let me try. I know that remembering the joy I experienced there is some kind of conjuring.In Artsakh, it felt as if you were always surrounded by mountains. Everywhere you turned, there were thousand-year-old stone churches, ice-cold rushing rivers, lush wet forests, and sharp cliff lines threatening to drop out a thousand feet onto a green valley floor. The people were completely unhinged in their love for their homeland and their absolute existence in the present. I’ve never made so many toasts, ate so much fresh tonir bread, sat in cars with unknown destinations awaiting me, and cracked as many walnut shells in my hands as when I was in Artsakh.As I describe this ethereal, joyous existence, I can feel myself becoming wary and anxious about the next part of my story. I felt this way for years while I was making the film. One of the of women, Sose, expressed it perfectly in 2021 when I asked her, “Do you remember the first day the war started?” and she responded, “Yeah, but let me stay in this life.” She meant the life before. The life that exists in her memory and in mine. The life that overflowed with joy, abundance and freedom – however precarious.On the morning of September 27th in 2020, in the middle of COVID and 4 years into making my film, Artsakh was attacked along its borders and in its civilian cities.This is the day I became aware that my body is an archive.Over the next 45 days, I lived mostly in a bomb shelter and held desperately onto a camera like it was a lifeline that could convince the world - out there, looming, ignoring us - that this injustice must end. As it turns out, a camera is not capable of this. Or, the world is not capable of being truly moved to collective action by way of images alone. What the camera did do, though, was tether my life to the lives of the four women in wildly intimate and unexpected ways. Together, we learned the names of all major long and short-range missiles, drones, and rockets - and the specific sounds they made. We did everything in our power to help the thousands of people around us who were suffering. We fled in fear and returned in desperate need of proximity to each other and this place. We were not safe but felt that together somehow we could summon the strength to remain on that land and stay alive for as long as possible.As I watched and filmed, I felt something in my own body wake up. It guided me via intuition and care, and forms of knowledge I have never been able to put into words. It was everything my great grandmothers and grandmothers witnessed in their lifetimes, imprinted in my DNA, becoming available to me as an archive in my own body. I drew on that knowledge and strength and intuitive force constantly, and I know that it kept me alive.And I captured every moment I could, holding it in frames to keep it from disappearing, to grant it power and authority.And we watched as a place we loved deeply began to disappear in front of our eyes.In 2023, after nine months of being blockaded and deprived of food, fuel, and freedom of movement, Artsakh was ethnically cleansed of its remaining 120,000 Armenian residents, marking the end of thousands of years of our presence on that land.That is where my film ends.But for me, and for the women I filmed, and for the people of Artsakh, the story did not.Our witnessing and our memories became an archive for future resistance. As women, we pass on this knowledge in intimate ways—by creating lives imprinted with our experiences and by caring for, teaching and being in service to those around us.Ultimately, this work became a collaborative archive of relationships between women and our connection to a place that we no longer have access to. The act of watching the film together allows us to summon this land and the life lived on it through our collective imagination and psyche. In this way, cinema becomes an extension of the archive our bodies hold as witnesses—transforming into a tool to conjure Artsakh, bringing it back into existence and, as Sose said, allowing us to stay in that life and let it live into the future.There Was, There Was Not, titled after the Armenian version of “Once Upon a Time,” – the phrase that opened the stories I was raised on—is my way of honoring this evolving understanding of the archive and of cinema’s power to open new imaginative possibilities on the present, past and future. It is also a beginning, a foundation for future projects like Cartographies of Memories, a somatic, multimedia archive of Artsakh that continues this work of remembrance.Every image I captured became a finite archive, and now my work is to add to it.Cinematic work can be a subversion of erasure, transforming the archival act into something living, relational, and generative. It does not only preserve but imagines, offering a way to resist forgetting and to dream into a future where what was lost can still be carried forward.Let cinema be an act of creative resistance." } ] }