|
|
Panic!: The Silk Road of Pop
with Sameer Farooq (filmmaker)
and Rayhan Asat (human rights advocate)
Thursday, January 30 / 7:00 PM
Pollock Theater, UCSB
|
|
|
On the distant northwest edge of China, music has become a hot commodity among Xinjiang's Uyghur Muslim community. The Silk Road of Pop follows Ay, a young music fan, as she takes the viewer on a tour of the underground Xinjiang music scene. Doubtful of her life choices and curious about the world beyond Xinjiang, Ay turns to music for answers, finding solidarity with young musicians who mirror her struggles in their songs. Featuring traditional musicians, hip-hop crews, rock stars, and dynamic music fans, The Silk Road of Pop taps into the rhythmical zeitgeist of what it means to be young and Uyghur in China.
This special event will feature a screening of The Silk Road of Pop, followed by a brief recorded Zoom conversation with human rights advocate Rayhan Asat that provides an update on the situation in the region since the film’s production. Filmmaker Sameer Farooq will then join moderator Jia-Ching Chen (Global Studies, UCSB) for a live post-screening discussion.
This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center
as part of its 2024-2025 feature series Panic!.
| |
|
|
Rayhan Asat (human rights advocate)
Rayhan Asat is a senior legal and policy advisor and the China project lead at the Atlantic Council Strategic Litigation Project. She is an internationally recognized human rights lawyer, international law scholar, and advocate of Uyghur heritage. She works closely with civil society, diplomats, lawmakers, and businesses to address human rights concerns, especially the atrocities in Xinjiang.
| | | |
|
|
Sameer Farooq (filmmaker)
Sameer Farooq is a Toronto-based artist of Pakistani and Ugandan Indian descent. With an approach that shifts between photography, documentary film, sculpture, and anthropological methods, he investigates strategies of representation to expand the ways through which museums look at the past. He works to redress the role of exhibition and collection-based practices by building community-based models of knowledge production.
| | | |
|
|
Jia-Ching Chen
(Global Studies, UCSB)
Jia-Ching Chen is an urban, development, and environmental studies researcher and Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Currently, his interests are in China’s role in shaping the global green economy and the spread of Chinese planning expertise through its international development activities.
| | | | | | |
