Artists and Activism: A Critical Examination

On this week's episode, Walid Al Wawi interrogates the role of the artist amidst ongoing global atrocities, particularly the genocide in Palestine. He touches on the uncomfortable truths about institutional complicity, aesthetic performativity, and the myth of the neutral artist. Walid speaks with candour and conviction about the collapse of meaning in art that does not act, and the moral failure of those who remain silent under the guise of professionalism, detachment, or fear. We discuss the weaponisation of solidarity, the commodification of resistance, and the co-option of Palestinian grief into digestible, decorative formats.

This episode confronts hard questions: Can art still matter in the face of catastrophe? What happens when institutions only welcome activism within acceptable limits? And what does it mean to truly act rather than perform?

This is not a conversation about art as metaphor, it is about dismantling the frameworks that allow artistic identities to flourish while real lives are destroyed. It is an urgent call to drop the ego, abandon the pedestal, and choose the ground. Free Palestine.

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