the body is the brain

This episode of Undoxx: Artists Untangle Censorship with guest host zavé martohardjono is a conversation among Karen Finley, George Emilio Sanchez, and Shirine Saad on arts censorship since the 1990s. This episode was recorded on April 29, 2026 as part of an UNDOXX Artist hub event at Brooklyn Arts Exchange Annex. Special thanks to BAX, Community Engagement, Dancers for Palestine, and Theater Workers for a Ceasefire for that event. And thanks to JACK, Movement Research, and Bridge Live Arts for hosting UNDOXX programs since 2024.@_undoxx_@zavozavito@the_yam_mam@shirinesaad@georgeemiliosanchez@baxarts ABOUT THE GUEST ARTISTSKaren Finley has presented groundbreaking installation, video, performance, public art, visual art, television and film, music, and literature across the globe. In 1998, she and other artists challenged the National Endowments for the Arts in a landmark Supreme Court case about censorship in the arts.George Emilio Sanchez is a writer, performance artist, activist, and educator who began making original pieces in 1992. He launched the group ‘First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces’ in the weeks following Trump’s 2017 inauguration and co-leads the First Amendment Culture Team (F.A.C.T.) producing a weekly First Amendment Bulletin with Tal Yarden.Shirine Saad is a Beirut-born, Brooklyn-based writer, programmer, and DJ focusing on culture and social change. Shirine’s recent publications, like “I CARE IF YOU LISTEN”, address how artists are on the front lines of resistance movements, reshaping culture and pushing thought amidst the polycrises of censorship, war, and  late stage capitalism. GUEST HOST BIOzavé martohardjono is a trans and queer Indonesian-American-Canadian choreographer, performer, filmmaker, writer, and organizer who thinks about ecological activism and decolonization as technologies for liberation.CO-PRODUCER BIOSYanira Castro is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist and organizer working at the intersection of communal practice, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects activated and performed by the public as rehearsals for radical democracy. She is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. acanarytorsi.org.maura nguyễn donohue is a Vietnamese American artist, performer, writer and organizer based in NYC for over 30 years, building systems for collaborative action through performance. Hope Mohr is an artist and advocate who works at the intersection of the arts and social justice. Her law practice, Movement Law, builds power with artists and arts organizations. Ziggy Simone is a Black performer, choreographer and producer that develops works centering queerness, Black kinships, ancestral/emotional memory, and the absurd to imagine new worlds. zavé martohardjono (see bio above).UNDOXX is an artist-run collective that organizes conversations, festivals, and interventions against censorship in the arts. They build power among those most often targeted by censorship: BIPOC artists, queer and trans and women artists, and global artists. RESOURCESJoin artists working to protect our freedom of speech and expression:Check out First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces on Facebook and watch a BRIC TV interview with its founders. Join F.A.C.T.’s weekly First Amendment Bulletin on Substack.Read about Finley V. NEA.Learn more about UNDOXX and follow UNDOXX on Instagram for upcoming events.Are you experiencing censorship? Reach out to National Coalition Against CensorshipLearn more about artists organizing to end genocide:Writers Against the War in GazaDecolonize This PlaceDancers for PalestineTheater Workers for a Ceasefire

In this episode of Undoxx: Artists Untangle Censorship, we explore how censorship functions in a country outside of the US, specifically for artists from Vietnam. Host maura nguyễn donohue is joined by a fellow curator for the project We Exist in the Ambivalence of Those Motherfuckers Anh Vo, and Vietnamese performance artists Thanh Toàn Doan & Nhi Lê Phương. How do artists raised under strict censorship, scarce resources, and unstable infrastructures persist? Navigating both direct censorship—state oversight, permits, and surveillance—and indirect pressures such as funding loss and institutional control draws increasing parallels between Vietnam and the U.S. Building temporary, collective, and sometimes unsanctioned environments for performance —DIY structures like pop-ups, workshops, and street-based actions—becomes an essential strategy for survival and experimentation. Collective practice, improvisation, and mutual support are critical tools, but what is the mental cost of resilience?This episode was recorded on Jan 30, 2026.ABOUT THE GUEST HOST  maura nguyễn donohue is a Vietnamese American artist and Chair of Dance at Hunter College. ABOUT THE ARTISTSĐoàn Thanh Toàn is a movement artist based in Ho Chi Minh City , Vietnam. Toan was trained in Contemporary Indian dance technique Yorchha with Ananya Dance Theater and African-based movement with Brown Spirit Ensemble. They also facilitate workshops that foster connections through movement and dance. As a performing artist, Toàn finds dance at the convergence of community, justice, and feminist queer world-making. Nhi Lê works in installation, performance art, and visual art. Based in Saigon, Vietnam, her work explores themes of human instinct, space and time via mixed mediums and familiar objects with potentially metaphorical meanings. Her practice focuses on evoking critical thinking towards one’s true self and redefining values that shape behaviours within the social system, exploring the role of human connection. Based in Brooklyn and Hanoi, Anh Vo is a Vietnamese choreographer and writer working in the expanded field of performance. Their practice mobilizes the naked body in its variations to make explicit the entanglement of power and apparitional forces that cut across flesh. Their work is situated in the unlikely lineage convergences between Downtown New York experimental performance, Hanoi performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. CO-PRODUCER BIOSYanira Castro is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist and organizer working at the intersection of communal practice, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects activated and performed by the public as rehearsals for radical democracy. She is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. acanarytorsi.org.maura nguyễn donohue (see bio above). Hope Mohr works at the intersection of the arts and social justice. www.movementlaw.net Ziggy Simone is a Black performer, choreographer and producer that develops works centering queerness, Black kinships, ancestral/emotional memory, and the absurd to imagine new worlds. zavé martohardjono is a trans and queer Indonesian-American-Canadian choreographer, performer, filmmaker, writer, and organizer who thinks about ecological activism and decolonization as technologies for liberation.UNDOXX is an artist-run collective that organizes conversations, festivals, and interventions against censorship in the arts. They build power among those most often targeted by censorship: BIPOC artists, queer and trans and women artists, and global artists. RESOURCES For more information about performance in Vietnam please read the MRPJ issue #62 co-edited by maura, Anh and We Exist co-curator Lumi Tan athttps://movementresearch.org/publications/performance-journal/issue-62/Learn more about UNDOXX and follow UNDOXX on Instagram for upcoming events.

This episode of Undoxx: Artists Untangle Censorship with guest host Yanira Castro investigates the censorship of the exhibit Diasporic Collage: Puerto Rico & the Survival of a People at the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. The episode tells the story of how one work in the exhibit by Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican artist Alia Farid, Piquete en el capitolio, became a flashpoint and how the curators and art workers’ powerful demands and strategies kept the exhibit open. Yanira talks with Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez, Co-Curator of the exhibit and Director of CENTRO, about turning a moment of institutional cowardice into an example of solidarity.This episode was recorded on May 6, 2026. ABOUT YOMAIRA C. FIGUEROA-VÁSQUEZDr. Yomaira C. Figueroa-Vásquez is an Afro-Puerto Rican scholar, writer, and creative from Hoboken, NJ. She is Professor of Africana, Puerto Rican, and Latino Studies and is the Director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) at CUNY Hunter. GUEST HOST BIOYanira Castro is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist and organizer working at the intersection of communal practice, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects activated and performed by the public as rehearsals for radical democracy. Her projects have been recognized with national awards, commissions and residency support. She is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow.CO-PRODUCER BIOSYanira Castro (see bio above).maura nguyễn donohue is a Vietnamese American artist, performer, writer and organizer based in NYC for over 30 years, building systems for collaborative action through performance. Hope Mohr is an artist and advocate who works at the intersection of the arts and social justice. Her law practice, Movement Law, builds power with artists and arts organizations. She co-leads the Artist Legal Case, a collaboration with the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Vital Arts.  Maya Simone is a Black performer, choreographer and producer that develops works centering queerness, Black kinships, ancestral/emotional memory, and the absurd to imagine new worlds. zavé martohardjono is a trans and queer Indonesian-American-Canadian choreographer, performer, filmmaker, writer, and organizer who thinks about ecological activism and decolonization as technologies for liberation.UNDOXX is an artist-run collective that organizes conversations, festivals, and interventions against censorship in the arts. They build power among those most often targeted by censorship: BIPOC artists, queer and trans and women artists, and global artists. ABOUT DIASPORIC COLLAGEDr. Yomaira Figueroa-Vázquez’s Statement on the cancellation of the exhibit.Monica Huerta’s review in ArtForum.Articles about the cancellation: The State News, Hyperallergic, WKAR News, Puerto Rico Art News, Middle East Studies Association.RESOURCESLearn more about UNDOXX and follow UNDOXX on Instagram for upcoming events.Are you experiencing censorship? Reach out to National Coalition Against Censorship.Need a lawyer?Movement LawArtist Legal CafeVolunteer Lawyers for the Arts

Miniseries DescriptionUNDOXX: Artists Untangle Censorship is a miniseries by artists for artists about censorship in the United States and around the globe. It is co-created by artists and activists Yanira Castro, zavé martohardjono, Hope Mohr, maura nguyễn donohue, and Maya Simone Z.What does censorship in the arts look like? And what are artists doing right now to fight it? We created this miniseries to shed light on the state of artistic expression now. As books are banned, paintings are taken down, residencies are canceled and institutions tell us which content is permissible, we are looking at the people and orgs who refuse to be silenced. SHOW NOTESThe first episode of Undoxx: Artists Untangle Censorship sets the scene for how censorship functions and how it is being experienced today by artists in the U.S. Guest host zavé martohardjono talks with Executive Director Lee Rowland of National Coalition Against Censorship about: how surveillance and censorship are changing our culture, risk assessment, strategic considerations in making demands of institutions, and how collective action is our most powerful tool.@_undoxx_@zavozavito@acanarytorsi@[email protected] LEE ROWLANDAs Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, Lee Rowland oversees NCAC's program work, legal and government advocacy, and public education. She also runs the Free Expression Network regularly bringing together advocates for strategy and info-sharing. Lee was a First Amendment litigator for two decades at the American Civil Liberties Union. She has taught about free expression at NYU Law and CUNY Hunter College. She served as lead counsel in federal First Amendment cases involving public employee speech rights, community advocates' First Amendment rights, government regulation of digital speech, and state secrecy surrounding the lethal injection process. As NY ACLUA's Policy Director for over five years, Lee became a seasoned lobbyist and advocate for a range of civil liberties and free speech positions, and helped draft and pass NY's recent Equal Rights Amendment.  GUEST HOST BIOzavé martohardjono is a trans and queer Indonesian-American-Canadian choreographer, performer, filmmaker, writer, and organizer who thinks about ecological activism and decolonization as technologies for liberation. CO-PRODUCER BIOSYanira Castro is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist and organizer working at the intersection of communal practice, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects activated and performed by the public as rehearsals for radical democracy.zavé martohardjono is a trans and queer Indonesian-American-Canadian choreographer, performer, filmmaker, writer, and organizer who thinks about ecological activism and decolonization as technologies for liberation.Hope Mohr is an artist and advocate working at the intersection of the arts and social justice. Her law practice, Movement Law, builds power with artists and arts organizations. She co-leads the Artist Legal Cafe. maura nguyễn donohue is a Vietnamese American artist, performer, writer and organizer based in NYC for over 30 years, building systems for collaborative action through performance. Maya Simone Z. is a Black performer, choreographer and producer that develops works centering queerness, Black kinships, ancestral/emotional memory, and the absurd to imagine new worlds. UNDOXX is an artist-run collective that organizes conversations, festivals, and interventions against censorship in the arts. They build power among those most often targeted by censorship: BIPOC artists, queer and trans and women artists, and global artists. RESOURCES Learn more about UNDOXX.National Coalition Against Censorship. NCAC's Artist Guide to Defending Artistic FreedomNCAC’s Free Expression NetworkCollective Courage campaign Find your local ACLU chapter HERE.

We talk about: organizing artists, participatory performance, Dionysus in 69, audience co-creation of a work, how artists are both similar to and different from other workers, the conflicted class identity of artists, building artist power as a labor force, guaranteed basic income, Daniel reads a manifesto, and much more…ABOUT THE ARTISTDaniel Park is a theatre and performance artist, organizer for economic justice in the cultural sector, and the cooperative business manager and a worker-owner of Obvious Agency. Obvious Agency makes playable theatre, spreads democratic and cooperative practice, and organizes arts workers and workplaces. Their mission is: Play hard. Work together. Get free.https://www.obvious-agency.com/@ObviousAgencyCoop RESOURCES Ben Davis, 9.5 Theses on Art and ClassLucy Lippard, The Pink Glass Swan: Upward and Downward Mobility in the Art WorldForum on Working Class Artists in AmericaVoices for Creative New YorkCultural Workers OrganizeDionysus in 69 (video) (Richard Schechner/Performance Group)///Are you an artist or arts organization interested in building power and/or in need of legal support?Reach out to movementlaw.net

We talk about…stuttering as a teacher, "bending the clock" as a disability justice and a racial justice practice, sitting with the ethics of living on stolen land, engaging with the fraught archive of slavery, "opening time" on the page, wrestling with questions of voice in the archive, the healing work of putting the archive of slavery in conversation with an archive of plants, collaborating with ensemble, singing hymns, Saidiya Hartman, m. nourbeSe philip, and much more. ABOUT THE ARTISTJerome Ellis describes themself as a “blk disabled animal, stutterer, and artist.” They were born in 1989 to Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants. Jerome lives in Tidewater, Virginia with their wife, ecologist-poet Luísa Black Ellis. Jerome has been awarded a United States Artists Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award, a Creative Capital Grant, and 2 MacDowell residency Fellowships. Ellis was in the 2024 Whitney Biennial as both a solo artist and as a member of the People Who Stutter Create collective. Jerome's debut album, The Clearing in 2021, which was accompanied by a book, is a score of stuttering and an act of resistance against performative fluency. Most recently, Jerome is the author of Aster of Ceremonies, a multi-layered book of poetry and music that came out in 2023 from Milkweed Editions. Aster of Ceremonies engages with the fraught archive of slavery by bringing the voices of "runaway slaves" into conversation with an archive of plant life. It weaves together practices of history, ecology, and disability justice and claims stuttering as a portal into a liberatory relationship to time. www.jjjjjerome.com@jjjjjeromeellisPhoto credit: Annie ForrestSHOW NOTESJerome Ellis, “The Clearing: Music, Dysfluency, Blackness, and Time," Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, 5, no. 2 (2020)Saidiya V. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)Craig Dworkin, “The Stutter of Form,” in M. Perloff and C. Dworkin, eds., The Sound of Poetry / The Poetry of Sound (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009)Robin Coste Lewis, The Race in Erasure, Portland Arts & Lectures, (April 20, 2016) Fred Moten and Saidiya Hartman in conversation with J. Kameron Carter and Sarah Jane Cervenak, “The Black Outdoors,” Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University, (September 23, 2016) Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016)Ashon T. Crawley, Black Pentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017)/////Are you an artist in need of value-aligned legal support?Reach out to Movement Law.movementlaw.net

We talk about: attention as a material, the politics of audio description, queer abstraction, tuning ensemble in improvisation, avoiding saying "no" when directing, translating site-specific improvisation to a proscenium context, the difference between impulse and desire, refusal as a practice, making experimental dance with AI, and much more…ABOUT THE ARTISTSRashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener's work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, and MoMA/PS1. Throughout they have maintained a commitment to queer culture and aesthetics. Their partnership intentionally blurs authorship and maintains a deep commitment to collaboration with a diverse community of dancers, performers, artists and cultural institutions.https://www.rashaunsilasdance.com/@rashaun.silasSHOW NOTESRashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener, and Claudia LaRocco, Already & Not Yet: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener in Conversation with Claudia La Rocco, SFMOMA's Open Space, Nov. 7, 2019Megan Metcalf, Future Formers, Former Futures, SFMOMA's Open Space, February 13, 2018Ted Chiang, Why AI isn't going to Make Art, The New Yorker Danielle Goldman, I Want to be Ready: Improvised Dance as a FreedomHope Mohr, Self and System, SFMOMA's Open Space, Oct. 24, 2019Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists in Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100///Are you an artist or arts organization in need of legal support or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, dedicated to building power with artists and mission-driven organizations. ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/⁠

We talk about: audience-determined structures, reparations as a culture-building project, Augusto Boal's "rehearsal for revolution," balancing audience choice with a desire to "get into the harder stuff," the "curb cut effect" (why reparations are for everyone), and much more… ABOUT THE ARTISTEric Avery is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural organizer with over eighteen years of professional experience in theatre, interactive performance, and community-based projects. Since 2018, they have focused on applying a reparationist framework to their creative practice, organizing projects, and life. This dedication to relationship-centered process has put Avery in partnership with non-profit organizations, municipalities, social service agencies, universities, farms, community centers, prisons, art galleries, and private homes. In addition to collaborations, Avery has independently created over 25 original productions. They earned a Bachelor's in Theatre & Film from the University of Kansas and an MFA in Theatre Arts from Towson University. Honors/Awards, including a Bessie Award (Outstanding Visual Design), Lavender Magazine Best of List (Outstanding Performance), Elliot Norton Award (Outstanding Design), 2024 MAP Grant Awardee, Zellerbach: Community Arts, East Bay Fund for Artists, Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency, and a TBA CA$H [email protected] Avery, The Pla[y/n] for Reparation$Eric Avery, 67 Simple OperationsARTIST INSPIRATIONSTheater of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal)On Theater of the Oppressed 10,000 Things Theater CompanyLee BruerBasil TwistPina Bausch36 Questions to Fall in LoveREPARATIONS RESOURCESCalifornia Reparations ReportReparations in California (KQED)On "the curb cut effect"Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in AmericaCenter for Belonging (UC Berkeley)SPECIFIC REPARATIONS PROJECTSBruce's Beach (Southern California)Wildseed (New York)Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (Universal Basic Income pilot program)More on the Stockton UBI projectLand Back to Shasta Indian NationVirginia Policy regarding "Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program"UBNC Chapel Hill tuition proposal  ///Are you an artist or arts organization in need of legal support or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, a law practice dedicated to helping artists and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/

We talk about… the difference between social practice and socially engaged art, how Bass' installation Wayfinding relates to performance, the "singular family narrative" as a fiction, how lawmaking and artmaking differ, using language as a material, being a "writer for the encounter," and much more…ABOUT THE ARTISTChloë Bass is a multiform conceptual artist working in performance, situation, conversation, publication, and installation. Her work uses daily life as a site of deep research to address scales of intimacy: where patterns hold and break as group sizes expand. She began her work with a focus on the individual (The Bureau of Self-Recognition, 2011 – 2013), followed by a study of pairs (The Book of Everyday Instruction, 2015 – 2017), and recently concluded an investigation at the scale of the immediate family (Obligation To Others Holds Me in My Place, 2018 – 2024). She will continue to scale up gradually until she’s working at the scale of the metropolis. She is currently working on Since feeling is first (2023 – ongoing), a series of works examining intimacy at the scale of the courtroom and the law.You can learn more about her work at chloebass.com.@publicinvestigatorRESOURCESLinks to specific projects by Chloë Bass discussed in the podcast:Wayfinding#sky #nofilter: Hindsight for a Future Americathis is a filmsoft servicesPerspective Alignment⁠Recess⁠ Analog ResidencyArt as Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art, by Gregory Sholette (Editor), Chloë Bass (Editor), Social Practice Queens (Editor)Social Practice [email protected] Berlant, Cruel OptimismAruna D'Souza, review of the exhibit Cantando Bajito: Chorus at the Ford Foundation Gallery, featuring Chloe Bass, Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina (Trans Memory Archive Argentina), Tania Candiani, Hoda Afsharand, and Textiles Semillas (Textiles as Seeds), and curated by Roxana Fabius, Beya Othmani, Mindy Seu, and Susana Vargas Cervantes.Aruna D'Souza, Writer and Art CriticJudith Butler, The Psychic Life of PowerRuth Wilson Gilmore, Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation///Are you an artist or arts organization in need of legal support or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/

We talk about: supporting socially engaged artists, how design of arts funding pathways influences outcomes, co-leadership in the arts, the overlap between art practice and arts leadership, A Blade of Grass, and much more....ABOUT THE ARTISTLu Zhang is an artist and arts administrator. She’s been at A Blade of Grass (ABoG) for two years. Before joining ABoG Lu was the Initiatives Director of United States Artists (USA), a national arts funding organization headquartered in Chicago. In that role, Lu launched Initiatives, a department dedicated to expanding holistic support for artists and their communities. In partnership with foundation leaders, Initiatives conducts research, shares learnings with the field, and increases direct support to individual artists across discipline and geography. Key programs include Disability Futures, a fund to increase the visibility of disabled creative practitioners, and Artist Relief, a $23.4 million emergency initiative to support artists facing dire financial circumstances due to COVID-19.Prior to joining USA, Lu was Deputy Director of The Contemporary, a nomadic, non-collecting art museum in Baltimore, Maryland, where she provided strategic and operational oversight, and led resource initiatives for local artists.As an artist, Lu creates projects that take various forms—including books, drawings, installations, interventions, and an institute. She has collaborated with Press Press to produce publications and The George Peabody Library to launch a studio residency program. Lu is the founder of the Institute for Expanded Research which activates sites and leverages resources to produce and present projects in collaboration with artists. Lu received her MFA from the Frank Mohr Institute in the Netherlands and her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.https://www.abladeofgrass.org/@zhanglux@abladeofgrassorgRESOURCESPaper Monument, "As Radical, As Mother, As Salad, As Shelter: What Should Art Institutions Do Now?" I Want to Be With You Everywhere Performance Festival by and for Disabled ArtistsLiz Lerman's Critical Response Process///Are you an artist in need of legal support? Are you a mission-driven organization in need of consulting or capacity-building? Reach out to Movement Law, Hope Mohr's client-driven law practice, dedicated to helping artists, arts organizations, and mission-driven organizations build power and navigate change. Schedule your free 30 minute consultation today at ⁠https://www.movementlaw.net/