Dr. Kim Ozano: Hello listeners, and welcome to Connecting Citizens to Science.

I'm your host, Dr. Kim Ozano, and this is a podcast where we explore

global health and development.

We bring together researchers, practitioners, and community voices to

share insights that drive positive change.

And today you're listening to the fifth episode in our miniseries called Backlash

Resistance and the Path to Gender Justice.

We've been exploring how civic space is shrinking for gender justice and what

resistance looks like across different political, social, and cultural contexts.

You may have noticed over the last 12 months that our conversations have been

moving from global health into the wider global development space, and this really

reflects how interconnected these issues are and why it's so important we don't

work in silos and really start to connect health rights and justice for change.

So today we're exploring how art and creativity can be

powerful tools for resistance, solidarity, and joy in activism.

I choose to resort to art because I

believe art makes you limitless.

Art has no gender.

Art has no religion.

Dr. Kim Ozano: As always, for this mini-series, I'm joined by our

wonderful co-host Ishrat Jahan, who is a researcher and advocate from the

James P. Grant School of Public Health.

We are also joined by two brilliant guests.

We have Trishia Nashtaran, who is a human-centred design specialist

and feminist organiser with over a decade of experience in grassroots

activism and futures practice.

She is the founder of the Meye Network, president of OGNIE Foundation

in Bangladesh, and also coordinates the Feminist Alliance of Bangladesh.

Our second guess is Nusaiba Sultana, who is a team leader at Oroddho

Foundation, which is a youth feminist organisation in Bangladesh that

uses art, education and advocacy to challenge social justice, including

gender discrimination, sexual violence, religion, and ethnic discrimination.

A word of caution just before we begin the episode does include discussions of

gender-based violence so, take care while listening and step away if you need to.

Let's get into the episode.

Ishrat, welcome back to the podcast.

It's so wonderful to have you back here with us.

Your insights have been so invaluable in the last four episodes, which have been so

inspiring, but today, perhaps, Ishrat, you can talk to us a little bit about the link

between art activism and gender justice.

Could you set us up for this?

Really excited to be back today, and especially excited because I

think anytime we speak about art in the space of activism and gender justice,

we are discussing the possibilities of resistance . I think in a previous

episode we had discussed how civic spaces, or spaces where the public mobilises

and engages, have come under threat in different ways across the globe.

And in the past year or so, we've also seen resistance grow.

While on the surface we don't immediately tie the shrinking of civic

spaces or the growth of resistance and revolution to gender justice, it has

a very deep impact on the way gender equality and justice becomes shaped.

That's because the accessibility of these spaces and the freedom

we have in them is very important.

Why it's important?

I think we have two really brilliant people here with us

today to learn more about that.

So, let me pop out the first question to both of you.

I want to know more about how you have used art and creative expression to

resist different forms of repression or censorship, and does that help sustain

joy through that resistance, especially in these difficult times we're experiencing.

I'm Trishia Nashtaran from Bangladesh.

You used so many crucial words, specifically the word joy.

I found joy and freedom are so important in the work we do.

I have always been passionate about art, language, literature, and technology.

So, when I started my journey as an activist, that started way before

I started as a feminist activist.

I used to be an active blogger in Bangla blog sphere.

And communicating through language was important, and that is

where, in Bangladesh, we bloggers started experiencing backlash and

censorship, which eventually led to self-censorship because bloggers

were being killed for their opinions.

It was between 2013 and 2016 when the energy of activism I was in,

that shifted to my main network.

I can give you some examples, like in 2015, there was an incident of sexual

assault during the celebration of Bengali New Year in Dhaka University campus.

The extremist, fundamentalist groups, they spread the propaganda that

women should avoid these areas, the university campus to be safe.

And we said, no, we are going to do just the opposite, because if we stay

away from these places, that could be another way of making women invisible.

We wanted to fight that with visibility.

So, what we did was we went there, in campus, and we decided

to celebrate New Year again.

So, we dressed up, we sang, we danced in the campus, and that

had a massive visual impact.

And the year after that, in 2016, what we did, we went to Nimtola Gate.

It is a small area in old part of the city where there are many rickshaw garages,

and we went to the rickshaw garages.

We brought in hundreds of women from my community, my organisation,

and we occupied the street, sat down, and we painted those

rickshaws with feminist slogans.

With slogans against gender-based violence.

That visible artistic expression and that visibility of women in public

place doing something that always men used to do that was important.

And those paintings we did on the resource that acted like moving canvas

around the city, spreading our voices.

So, these ways came up organically from within the community.

And that is how we usually function.

We try to incorporate the voice of community members with the lived

experiences, and art acts as an expression to create the communication

with the larger audience, who might not be a part of the journey, but

we want to communicate with them.

There has always been a lack of readiness to understand

gender diversity in Bangladesh.

And given the changing political dynamics in Bangladesh in recent

times, this has become more difficult.

So, I choose to resort to art because I believe art makes you limitless.

Art has no gender.

Art has no religion.

So, if we can create some creative inspiration where people can come

and ask question in a safe space, we can find hope to at least initiate

a dialogue in a certain direction.

We'd also like to hear from you Nusaiba,

I am Nusaiba Sultana.

I myself have been an artist in my childhood I used to express my

emotions and feelings through my art.

When I was growing up and I was open to this activism world, and I started

to learn about a lot of things, like how gender-based violence works or

how I am facing a lot of violences.

So, I felt like that I could express my frustration or even my lack of

freedom through my freedom of art.

When I was once assaulted by a family member, I decided to draw a picture

of Medusa, and link herself with me.

So, that would give me a power.

I felt like that art is a huge medium of expression.

Afterwards, when I was working with Oroddho I felt like we could do an

exhibition and a workshop where we have young generations, especially people

who are aged from 16 to 17 years old, so that they are exposed to the world

of activism and they are also having education, because when we are having

education through art, it goes through our hearts rather than when we are

listening or when we are having paperwork.

Then, we collaborated with BRAC.

We pulled off this exhibition.

There were like 10 fellows who did artworks.

There were like seven artworks and two poetries and one story.

And every topics were like sex workers.

Then there were tea workers, then there were transgender women.

Then there were, divorce mother, single mother.

There were a lot of diverse topics.

So, when they were expressing their knowledge through their

art, I was really much surprised.

There was a whole book about a single mother and when she was

expressing her hardships she has faced in her life, I felt in the

exhibition, people listened to her.

People understood what happens to a single mother in our society.

And then coming to the sex worker art, people from conservative backgrounds,

like religious backgrounds, who feels like that sex work is a taboo, they were

exposed to these terms as well in the exhibition and through these people, and

these people were like 16 to 17 years old.

So I feel like that when they were given the opportunity or the floor to

express their knowledge through their art, they have no boundaries in their

creative freedom and they want to learn more because they want to show the

world that yeah, they know about this.

Dr. Kim Ozano: It's really clear how strong the link between

art and the individual, and what it gives the individual.

You've talked about power in this organic, creative expression.

So, I can definitely see the outcomes for an individual and how

that would help build strength.

Perhaps you could talk to us a bit more about the outcomes beyond the individual.

Do these exhibitions and moving canvases start to shift social

norms that restrict freedom?

So, I was giving you an example of my friend I

had invited to this exhibition.

He had a lot of ignorance towards activism topics.

When he came to this exhibition and he got to learn about the hardship sex

workers face, through the art, he felt that sex workers should be given the

respect as much as everyone is given.

I experienced different kinds of responses and

consequences after different projects.

For example, when we did the rickshaw painting, that kind of created a

buzz across different platforms and media, and it also inspired other

platforms and people with other ideologies to follow the footstep

and create these kind of campaigns.

And sometimes these campaigns were not aligned with our visions.

We saw people creating rickshaw paint with really conservative ideologies

limiting spaces for women and other genders, which was counterproductive

to what we meant to do through the campaign in the first place.

And again, our last exhibition was in 2022.

To demonstrate the diversity and polarity of identities through artistic expression.

We brought in people from gender diverse communities, interviewed them, asked them

how they wanted to envision themselves as human beings, and we photographed them.

There was a photograph exhibition, and the exhibition was open to all.

The purpose was to keep some sort of abstraction so that these people were not

directly exposed to any obvious backlash, but also that could inspire some sort of

question, trigger some sort of curiosity.

We got brilliant responses from different kind of audiences, it helped

us expand our community to create safe space to have these dialogues

within different gender communities of gender-based rights and queer communities.

On the other hand, people who had no idea about gender diversity came up and

started asking strange questions, weird questions, which I felt was necessary to

be able to listen to this and to respond to this without creating hostility.

I think being mindful in navigating the dialogue and bringing in people,

and having that space to invite questions and have interesting

conversation helped us in that way.

While you were doing the paintings on the rickshaws did you

like face backlashes from the mass?

Like, why are you doing this or anything, any kind of unrest situation there?

Not at that moment because in general people

in Bangladesh are really curious.

And especially about women.

When there are hundreds of women sitting on the street and painting,

people would gather around them and keep lurking and taking photos,

which was working to our benefit.

So there was not the backlash we had anticipated to some

extent, that did not happen.

But when things got to cyberspace, that is when we started experiencing some sort of

backlash that these hyperactive feminists trying to do things, going on the streets

and putting out unnecessary drama.

I think we've entered a space in the Bangladesh context where public

engagement with issues of gender equality or gender diversity are

becoming issues that the mass people may be fearful of engaging with.

And, in the coming days, you can only assume that it'll probably get more

fearful if there's no intervention in creating safer spaces for discourse.

So, I was curious to know, how can we create more activism networks which

will help navigate more repressive forms of silences that we are

experiencing and we will be experiencing.

I feel that it is extremely important to understand the

power dynamics and especially the kind of power and privilege I hold as an activist.

When I bring in women on the street to paint on rickshaws, I'm aware that

I come with certain kind of advantage and privilege as a cisgender woman.

Understanding that power and using that power to facilitate

the activism is important.

For example, I registered my platform under OGNIE Foundation Bangladesh.

That was a strategic choice.

OGNIE works as a shield to the radical activism.

We are registered as an organisation that works for women and children rights.

Quite bland, boring stuff that conventional organisations have been doing

in Bangladesh, but that is not what we do.

So, understanding that game is important.

And also, there have been so many initiatives across all genders and all

generations, and many of those initiatives have failed for different reasons.

And when I see activists, especially young activists expressing their

frustration out of that failure.

I can't stress enough how important the failure is.

How important it is to keep trying to keep pushing and trying to do

something new because even the projects might have failed, those are the

projects where we found our allies.

Those act as prototypes, those act as spaces where we test each other's power

and patience and skills and potentials.

It is important to keep moving, to keep trying and innovating and failing and

moving forward through that failure.

So that would be another recommendation from me.

Speaking for the young generation I feel like that they

are more into skits or MEMEs, right?

We, gen Zs like to express ourselves through MEMEs.

I felt like we could also add activism through MEMEs and skits in a lot of forms.

How about making a current context or a current MEME into a learning procedure?

And also, I feel like young generations are very much interested in theatre.

They go to a lot of theatres and want to learn about a lot of things.

So, why not add activism there as well?

Why not let them be educated through that theatre?

So, I feel like activism can be also directed in this kind of

arts also, how about in concerts?

Why not create a concert event or anything that engages them in certain

fields, and then let them be educated through them because they are very

much interested in that kind of field.

You bring out a really interesting point, that there's a certain ingenuity

to young people of using online spaces MEMEs, and creating third spaces, almost

digitally, that can be considered art.

That's strategic.

And that helps keep you safe even in the most repressive kinds of

climates that we might experience.

I feel like sarcasm, sarcasm is a coping

mechanism of a lot of people, and also, we can relate to sarcasm.

So why not do strategically sarcasm and activism together

because yeah, a lot of people would engage in that, in my opinion.

It is very easy for us to try to understand how the urban,

educated youth thinks, but there are a large audience in rural areas or in

different areas of the urban spaces who consume different kind of art.

Maybe not music, maybe not drawing, painting or MEMEs, there

are people who feel entertained through religious speeches.

So, I think it is important to go to those areas, to those demographics and

try to understand what is their idea of fun and joy and design something around

that so that they feel included and the change can be transformative and holistic.

Dr. Kim Ozano: Amazing.

What a great conversation, already I've learned the importance of

creating safe spaces, not just for expression, but I love this idea of

allowing people to ask weird questions as well so, it starts that dialogue.

And I like this idea of having a shield.

As activists, you have to protect yourselves and the people that you

support and work with, and understanding the different shields that protect you

whilst allowing you freedom as well.

So, I love this idea of expressing your lack of freedom

through the freedom of art.

I think that's a real take-home message for me as well.

So very quickly, what would you say to those people who really want to

engage in gender justice and become activists, and how they might connect

art and activism to make those changes.

I think my piece of advice will be that you need

to be very calm and very patient.

When you are doing activism, people will try to trigger you,

but you have to keep your composure because yeah, that's how it works.

You have to be strategic.

Dr. Kim Ozano: You have to think through your approach

and stay patient and focused.

I think, yeah great advice for those moving forward.

Trishia, please.

I would say art is for everyone.

I just want everyone to have the audacity to imagine a future they want and be

open to the ambiguity of the future.

Dr. Kim Ozano: Perfect.

Thank you so much.

So, Ishrat, how amazing.

What have you taken home from today?

I think it starts inside of you.

Activism is very personal.

Just like art is.

It's a personal, emotional journey as well.

So, I think we often, when we talk about activism, allyship, gender

justice, they sound like huge words and we need a lot of preparation to

be able to engage or research on it.

But I think it's important to remember that these are very

deeply related to the way we live our lives and express ourselves.

Dr. Kim Ozano: I think so too, as always very articulately put and expertly

bringing in that emotion as well.

And for our listeners we did have an episode on men and boys and the

discussion around allyship in a previous epsiode, so, go back and check

that out if you do have an interest 'cause we talk about that in depth.

Thank you so much for today's conversation.

We've heard how art can be both resistance and resilience; ways to push back

against repression, but also to sustain joy and solidarity in difficult times.

We've also heard how creative expression can engage young people,

open up dialogue in digital spaces, and connect struggles across borders.

These reflections remind us that gender justice isn't only fought

in parliaments or in policies.

It's also imagined and sustained through culture, creativity

and the stories we share.

If you'd like to listen back to our earlier episodes in the series, you

can also head to our YouTube channel, by searching Connecting Citizens to

Science and hit that subscribe button so you don't miss what's coming next.

Our next episode will be the last in this gender justice mini-series, and we'd love

to have you with us for that conversation.

So, until then, stay connected.