Progressive Diasporas

Progressive Diasporas is a project series curated by Anna Harsanyi and Sheetal Prajapati exploring the experiences and intersections of immigrant diasporas through a set of collaboratively developed, cumulative experiences and events. The project – formed in part through the exploration of the curators’ own ongoing creative and personal exchange over 7 years – aims to share and support collaboration between artists, non-artists, program participants, and the curators. With a focus on process as practice, Progressive Diasporas draws its shape from the immigrant experiences embedded in our everyday strategies for survival, amassing small networks, shifting forms and identities, seeking out resources, adjusting comfort, and other invisible forms of sustainability. The project hopes to create spaces for intersectionality around the shared experiences and connections one finds through the process of migration, movement and displacement of identities.

The first iteration welcomed artists Umber Majeed and collective Adobo-Fish-Sauce (Ricky Orng and Febo Anthony) to explore the experience of diasporas through the development of ongoing and new work with others. Each artist invited a member of their own community outside of the arts to collaborate with, producing ideas, inspiration and work for this project.