Tara Asgar
Project: Bangladesh Block Party
Bangladesh Block Party, a celebration of Bangladeshi culture at the heart of Fulton and Arlington streets in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn! This event isn’t just about festivities but unity and visibility. It allows the local community to experience traditional Alpona making, a cherished Bangladeshi folk art, as the streets come alive with vibrant designs and community activity. Block party events also expand into advocacy. Connect with immigrant activists and advocacy groups, supporting the undocumented community; to bridge cultures, break barriers, and celebrate diversity together.
Bio:
Tara Asgar utilizes her body to seemingly navigate her multiple identity markers: Brown, Immigrant, Transgender, Muslim, Trespasser, and Trauma Survivor. Her live and documented performance works speak to her experience of surviving within and outside various dominant and marginalized communities, negotiating the complicated notions of visibility and legibility. She often employs community organizing, written communication and video footage drawn from her archive to negotiate and complicate our linear understanding of gender, class, race, and social mobility, and how they shape narratives of freedom and unclassified bodies. Her ongoing group exhibition at the South Asian Institute in Chicago, titled “What is Seen and Unseen,” has recently been named one of the top 10 must-watch art exhibitions in Chicago for the summer of 2024 by art critic Lori Waxman, alongside Georgia O’Keeffe at the Chicago Tribune.