How can artists, architects, and theorists from cities as diverse as New York, Cairo, and Riyadh mobilize public art to reclaim the commons? What promise - or peril - does digital art and Web3 pose to this collaboration? This panel discussion brings together artists, thinkers, creators, and policy-makers to ponder these questions and propose arts and culture as tools for rebuilding public sphere.

In cities around the world, climate change is making visible the infrastructures that were once hidden. What is the role of art in this process? How can art hasten and clarify this infrastructural awakening? This panel discussion brings together artists, thinkers, creators, and policy-makers to explore what it would mean to truly embed artistry within the infrastructural networks that sustain us.

Khalid Abdel-Hadi, a Jordanian-Palestinian artist, curator, and activist, is founder of “MyKali”, a SWANA-region, conceptual, queer/feminist/intersectional webzine launched in 2007. During this conversation, Khalid Abdel-Hadi will discuss working outside of institutionalized structures, as well as curatorial practices in the Arab diaspora.

Ya Ghorbati is an invitation to a musical journey across North Africa to discover the stories of Judeo-Arab divas from the early twentieth century through the 1960s. In it, singer Laura Elkeslassy excavates songs by Line Monty, Zohra Elfassia, Hbiba Msika, Salim Halali and more, recreating the musical soundscape of her family’s history in Morocco. In the process, she comes face to face with forgotten ancestors and reclaims her true family name as her artist name.