This webinar brings together Tamar Ballard and Ibtisam Ahmed with moderator Afra Sampreety to explore how subversive art reclaims the body, desire, and selfhood in Black feminist and queer contexts. Discussing Black women’s music and queer catwalk, they center practices that do not seek permission or validation but instead boldly celebrate intimacy and pageantry. Together, they reflect on performance and creative expression as sites of resistance, pleasure, and radical possibility.
Ibtisam Ahmed (he/him) is a scholar and performer from Bangladesh living in the UK. His work builds on utopianism, queer theory and decolonial practice, with a focus on radical community joy. He recently completed a BA/Leverhulme-funded project with his House of Spice collective. Read his article for more: Fabulous Fabulations: Brown Empowerment on the Queer Catwalk
Tamar Ballard is currently a doctoral candidate in sociology at Virginia Tech in the United States and always an interdisciplinary scholar in Black American popular music. Her research centers on how Black folks’ music listening and creation counter, reflect on, and exist beyond the reverberations of anti-Black systems of domination. Read: “‘Callin’ Out My Own Name’: Black Women’s Music, Sexual Agency, and Sounds of Pleasure
Afra Sampreety is a Norwegian student based in the UK with a passion for film, culture, and politics. Her work explores the intersection of digital media, visual storytelling and contemporary culture. Read: Anarchy in Madrid: Pepi, Luci, Bom as Political Manifesto
This is an extension of our most recent magazine issue, Issue 46: Subversive Art , published in February.
