Tuesday, March 11, 5:15-6:30pm - in person at Cader Room (Swartz Hall 117), Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Ave., Cambridge MA

The Religion and Public Life's Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative at Harvard Divinity School is pleased to present:
"Arts and the Moral Imagination: Witnessing the Unseen: Reflections on Presence and Absence in Native Lands"

In “Witnessing the Unseen: Reflections on Presence and Absence in Native Lands,” John Halaka, Professor of Visual Arts at University of San Diego, will reflect on the experiences of presence and absence of displaced populations. His talk will be anchored in his engagement with Palestinian refugees and ensuing creative work. Halaka’s artwork positions us as witnesses to concealed histories, guiding us to acknowledge our personal relationships and moral responsibilities to populations that have been forcibly displaced from their native lands.

This event will be moderated by Hilary Rantisi, Assocate Director of the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative.

Biography:
John Halaka is a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of San Diego. His artwork investigates narrative of cultural survival and political resistance in colonized and diasporic communities. Halaka’s drawings, paintings, photographs, oral history archives and documentary films, visualize the tensions between the emotional presence and physical absence of populations whose cultures have been devastated by the violent intrusions of settler colonialism.

Halaka’s artwork is produced as a result of extended personal engagements with marginalized communities and is designed to provide an arena for both the participants and the viewers to meditate on survival and resistance as conditions that shape the life experiences of displaced populations.

Selections of John Halaka’s artwork can be viewed on his website: johnhalaka.com.

Please register at [Registration] Witnessing the Unseen: Reflections on Presence and Absence in Native Lands