Join us for this panel discussion chaired by Hazem Jamjoum ft Dr Lisa Palmer, Dr Asim Qureshi, Sukaina Rajwani + Sumayyah Zannath

Like the 'weeds' that push through even prison concrete, there is much the state, and corporations can't control or don’t have the imagination to control. How can we collectively imagine and act beyond the carceral gaze, while also addressing current realities? Furthermore, how do issues of land justice intersect with efforts to challenge the prison-industrial complex?

About the panellists

Hazem Jamjoum is a translator, cultural historian, and the founding editor of the publishing house Safarjal Press. His translations include Ghassan Kanafani’s The Revolution of 1936–1939 in Palestine (1804 Books, 2023); Maya Abu al-Hayyat’s novel No One Knows Their Blood Type (CSU Poetry Center, 2024)

Dr Lisa Amanda Palmer is a Senior Visiting Research Fellow in Black Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. She was the former Associate Professor and Interim Director of the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester. She co-founded and was the Course Director for the Black Studies undergraduate programme and Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Birmingham City University. Her research focuses on Black feminist love politics, Black cultural politics with a critical emphasis on the coloniality race, racism, gender and sexuality. Her writing covers a broad spectrum of fields including the gendered politics of lovers’ rock music, the production of local community archives and knowledge production, Blackness land and allotments, and the misogynoir faced by Black women in British public life. She is currently writing her book on the cultural politics of the UK’s lover’s rock reggae scene.

Dr Asim Qureshi graduated in Law (LLB Hons, LLM), specialising in International Law. He completed his Ph.D. in International Conflict Analysis from the University of Kent. He is the Research Director at the advocacy group CAGE International, and since 2003 has specialised in investigating the impact of counterterrorism practices worldwide. He has published a wide range of NGO reports, academic journals and articles. He has written the books Rules of the Game: Detention, Deportation, Disappearance (Hurst, Columbia UP, 2009); A Virtue of Disobedience (Unbound, 2019); the editor of I Refuse to Condemn: Resisting Racism in Times of National Security (Manchester UP, 2020) and When Only God Can See: The Faith of Muslim Political Prisoners (Pluto, 2024). Since 2009, he has been advising legal teams involved in defending terrorism trials in the US and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Sukaina Rajwani - mother of Fatema Zainab Rajwani, one of the Filton 25 Palestine Action activists, who was recently sentenced as a terrorist in the UK for trying to disrupt the supply of drones and weapons to Israel during an ongoing, live streamed genocide in Gaza. Sukaina has been advocating tirelessly for her daughter since Fatema Zainab's arrest and incarceration in August 2024.

Sumayyah Zannath is a writer, community organiser and creative facilitator. She is part of the Nejma Collective, an abolitionist group rooted in Islamic principles. They build towards a world without prisons through material support across the prison border and political education. Sumayyah is also part of Land in Our Names, a land and racial justice collective that is establishing a BPOC land project through the framework of reparations.

This event is part of the wider public programme of events for the Rooted Through Realms exhibition.

About the exhibition

Rooted Through Realms, is a solo exhibition featuring a new body of work by artist Shaheen Kasmani, curated by Aaisha Akhtar. This exhibition calls upon us to bear witness and connect the dots between ongoing settler colonialism, climate change, and local and global injustices, whilst also encouraging us to employ our senses and otherworldly faculties to collectively imagine new possibilities as inspired by the gardens of paradise.

This exhibition was made possible with support from Arts Council England. Shaheen’s residency and Ort Gallery’s professional development work in the lead up to the exhibition were generously supported by Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Shaheen Kasmani is an artist, creative producer, curator and educator. With a MA in Visual Traditional & Islamic Arts, her interests lie in narratives around coloniality and heritage, art, architecture and patterns. Shaheen was the lead curator for the Ramadan Pavilion at the V&A Museum, and co-curated The Past is Now exhibition at Birmingham Museum. She has exhibited her work in the UK and Europe, and guest lectures at universities in the US.

shaheenkasmani.com

@shaheen.kasmani

Aaisha Akhtar is a Birmingham-based curator, writer, and producer. She currently serves as Artistic Lead at Ort Gallery (2021 – present), where she works with artists and creat

Description supplied by the event organiser.