Rehan Ansari
REHAN ANSARI is a Brooklyn-based writer, playwright, and artist who also works as a political pollster and measures impact in the field of art and social justice. He recently performed political standup for Martha Wilson’s Activist History Teach-in at The 8th Floor in New York and for Little Injustice at Galéria HIT in Bratslava, Slovakia. In 2016 his play Unburdened had a staged reading at Meet Factory, Prague in 2016 and inspired an installation as part of Enacting Stillness at The 8th Floor in New York. He is the lead in Ayesha, a fiction short about a hate crime, showing in the fall at Anthology Film Archives in the East Village.
The War at the End of the World
By Rehan AnsariAfter an October of attacks in Pakistan, at a UN office in Islamabad, Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi, and police academies in Lahore and with the Pakistan Army backed by the US attacking the tribal areas of Pakistan—I decided to have a conversation on Skype with a Pakistani writer I spent some time with in Lahore last winter.
In Conversation
Inside Al Jazeera: Samir Khader
By Mridu Chandra and Rehan AnsariWhen Al Jazeera’s Senior Producer Samir Khader was recently in town for the theatrical release of Control Room, we met him at the Roosevelt Hotel. Born and raised in Baghdad but now living in Jordan, Khader seems right out of the world of American film noir— he’s like a Bogart character who has recognized a moral imperative and struggles with his fear of self and the world.
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An Ordinary Man and a Nobody
By Rehan AnsariIf the war on terror can be likened to a storm at sea most visible in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Mumbai last winter, its undercurrents rage in Pakistani society.
Unburdened
By Rehan AnsariUnburdened is set in the time just before and after President Obama’s inauguration when Robin, a journalist from Toronto, goes on a newspaper assignment to Karachi. Robin is in a decade-long relationship with Katherine, and most of the play is seen through Katherine’s eyes
In Conversation
Forecasting Art and Social Justice*
By Rehan AnsariOn February 8th Sara Reisman, George Bolster, and Rehan Ansari sat down with several members of the Queens Museum staff—Hitomi Iwasaki, Director of Exhibitions and Curator; Larissa Harris, Curator; and Prerana Reddy, Director of Public Programs and Community Engagement—to talk about their work and the museum’s role in the community.
Forecasting Art and Social Justice*
By Rehan AnsariOn March 26th Rehan Ansari with George Bolster sat down Rubin Rubin, founder and executive director of Theater of the Oppressed New York City to talk about their new space in Times Square and the politics of real estate in New York, their place in the community of social justice and theater, their impact, and about managing a nonprofit space in the era of the Trump administration.
Forecasting Art and Social Justice*
By Rehan AnsariRehan Ansari sat down with Rob Fields, Executive Director, and Eboni Banks, Development Director (TBC) of Weeksville Heritage Center in Brooklyn to discuss Weeksville’s legacy as an intentional community, the community surrounding this neighborhood nonprofit, social justice, and their forthcoming program of exhibitions.
