DWOW

Words for Peace a collaboration with Voices Breaking Boundaries Voices Breaking Boundaries organized the inaugural Words for Peace event on Sunday, September 22, 2002 at DiverseWorks, in response to the increasingly frightening political climate in the U.S. following the September 11, 2001 attacks.  The event featured spoken word, dance, and music and included live telephone readings by 1997 Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, Jewish poet Irena Klepfisz, Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye and award-winning journalist Ahmed Rashid.  It was curated by Troy Gooden, Chuck Jackson, Rich Levy, Sehba Sarwar, Oskar Sonnen, Sandra Tarlin, and Michael Woodson. This year, DiverseWorks will revisit Words for Peace on September 11, 2013 in a collaboration with Voices Breaking Boundaries' Sehba Sarwar.

Artist Karen Finley will give a dramatic reading of four selected excerpts from "We Keep Our Victims Ready", first performed at DiverseWorks over two evenings in October 1989. About the oppressed in contemporary America, "We Keep Our Victims Ready" is a confrontational and powerful work of art that Finley has reframed in the context of current social and political issues: war, reproductive rights, freedom of expression, and identity. Finley's reading will be followed by a discussion and Q & A moderated by DiverseWorks Assistant Curator Rachel Cook and UH Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Jessica Santone. This event is free. Karen Finley is a New York-based artist whose raw and transgressive performances have long provoked controversy and debate. Finley was one of four artists whose NEA grant applications were vetoed due to content considered “indecent.” Finley and the other three artists sued for reinstatement and won the case in 1993 in the ninth circuit court in Los Angeles. In May 2013, Finley's performance and installation, Sext Me if You Can, was presented as part of NEA 4 in Residence at the New Museum in New York. For this interactive performance installation, Finley created a limited edition of paintings inspired by […]