How can artists engage with the truths of violence without reproducing harm?

What responsibilities do artists carry when representing histories of violence, war, displacement, oppression, and collective trauma? How can art move beyond mere witnessing to create space for resistance, repair, and transformation?

Presented in dialogue with Alice Miceli’s exhibition Impenetrable Landscapes, which examines the enduring environmental violence of war in various geographies, this artist roundtable brings together Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) studio residents Ifé Franklin, Navid Haghighi, and Shima Taj Bakhsh, moderated by BCA Artistic Director Shey Rivera Ríos, at BCA Mills Gallery.

Drawing from their distinct artistic practices, cultural perspectives, and approaches to representation, the artists will share their approach to creating and presenting work that engages with and transforms topics of violence. We will dive into questions of visibility and erasure, relationship between personal and collective histories, and relationship to land, archives, and cultural responsibility. We will talk through the opportunity that art gives us to challenge political violence without erasing the harm, and transforming it into generative opportunities for collective conversations about truth, accountability, and more just futures.

The conversation invites audiences to consider how artistic practice can foster critical reflection, preserve memory, and imagine possibilities beyond violence.