Art and Apathy

“Art and Apathy” features several of Israel and Palestines most respected artists, as well as a diverse range of underground voices.

“Art and Apathy” is a film project that documents the complexity of life in Israel and Palestine as experienced by local artists. Despite the unending cycles of ideological and physical violence propagated by the mainstream media and politicians, the artists featured in our films choose to produce work that provokes dialogue. Through their eyes our film examines several political and social elements that are often oversimplified in international media. Defining terms such as the green line, the right to return, Palestine 48, Intifada, Zionism and other key concepts, we present audiences with the political ideologies and historic identities that structure life in the Middle East. Focusing on artists who’s work inspire alternative persepctives, we venture into intimate spaces and access visionary voices who have transcended the political rhetoric. Click on the Names of the Following artists to visit their respective websites and learn more about these amazing people.

Some of the Artists and Educators commited to the Art and Apathy Project include:

D.A.M Featuring Abir El’ Zinati

Parents Circle Featuring Rami El Hanan and Khallid Briegheth

The Fools of Prophecy, Shotei HaNevua

Buthina Cannan Khoury director of Women In Struggle

Emilio Mogliner

Steve Sabella Photographer

Najwan Darwish Poet & Author

Other Voices featured in film include

Hani Zu’rob

The Photographers from Breaking the Silence

Elik El Hanan Author

Coolooloosh

Kyana Brindle

Kyana Brindle: this isn’t a love poem…love poems be about sweetness and light… love poems be about god and openness love poems be about feeling whole and complete and in the flow of that universal life force energy radiating from inside me between we in ecstasy …hellmuthafuckin no this shit is raw and swollen like a black eye painful and so good at the same time…
www.smokinword.org/publications.htm

Between Spaces
By Kyana Brindle

Kyana Brindle is a writer vocalist, and performer from New York, who lives in Harlem. “Between Spaces” is her first one-woman show. She has performed her poetry and singing at Nightengales, Laila Lounge, Bowery Poetry Club, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Hampshire Collge, Soul Cafe, and other venues. Kyana is a reiki practioner, sexual health educator and former managing director of Smokin Word. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in psychology at NYU and has taught creative writing and directed theatre for youth throughout New York. A healer and artist Kyana believes in using spirituality and creative service as tools for transformation and social change.

space #1

i sit at the kitchen table
sipping cabernet
waiting for you to
come home
the low humming
of the refrigerator
calms me
and i notice the plants
drying in the window
the once-green edges
now brown and sadly curved
at once i am
trying not to think of you
and imagining you
touching me
your brown hands
cupping my breasts
circling my nipple with a finger
a moan escaping my lips
seeing us framed in white sheets
candle light flickering and
no sound but our breath
skin
flesh on flesh
chests rising and falling
in time with
hips calling out yes
my back arched to meet you

i try to forget that i
want you here forever
that i need to wake up to your
closed eyelids and even breath
each morning
it reminds me of my purpose, loving you
every day brings me closer to
the realization that i must
walk alone
carve my own path
even if you are beside me
the choices are mine to make
and this fills me with
loneliness i thought i buried
beneath smiles and red wine

Helena D. Lewis

In our film the very very talented Helena D.Lewis takes us to the “stroll” in New Jersey and talks to us about the young women she worked with when she was founding a drop in center for sex workers. She also shares her award winning poetry, much of which is inspired by her work with prostitutes, inmates and HIV patients. From working with sex offenders to defending sex workers, Helena speaks in hard to hear truths. Her poetry keeps her traveling around the country. She has performed twice with Def Poetry Jam.

www.hdlpoet.com

Helena D. Lewis, a Brick City [Newark, New Jersey, USA] native, is a natural born entertainer. She has done some modeling and acting. However, it is her gift with words that has brought her national attention.

Helena D. Lewis got her polishing with other artists like Pinky, Talaam Acey, Flow Mentalz, and Rob Hylton at her home mic, Bogies, in East Orange, NJ. In the beginning, they were dubbed New Jersey’s Fake A$$ Poets, but all the naysayers soon were silenced as this group of supposedly wanna-be rappers became a force to be reckoned with in the NY/NJ poetic community of seasoned writers, performers, and slammers.

Helena D. Lewis started writing in college, but she wasn’t always the polished poet that she is today. She was tentative at her first open mic performance as the audience shouted “VIRGIN!!,” the cheer that greets most first timers. But as their greeting faded with time so did her doubts. It was not long before she was a featured artist and touring colleges and venues all around the country, from Baltimore, MD to New York, NY to Miami, FL. But she did not stop there. She also picked up several awards, including winning a coveted spot on the famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe 2000 National Slam Team (previous Nuyorican Slam Team members have included: Sarah Jones, Jessica Care Moore, Saul Williams, and Steve Colman).

Helena D. Lewis delivers a special brand of in-your-face, no-holds-barred poetry that spans a wide range of subjects, from prostitution to time-travel. Her spoken word content and performance exploring a new side to poetry that exposes raw emotions. Her work spurns the sappy and unintelligible Love Jones-esque brand of poetry for a refreshing, honest, and blunt substitute, not saccharine but pure cane sugar.

Her words are the kind that invoke emotions that speak to everyone. Her delivery is the kind that enthralls the audience and involves them in the poetry. when you see her perform live, check out her chapbook - From The Gut, and listen to her CD - Where Does It Hurt?, be prepared to . . . feel it.

Incomplete versions of Things I Just Can’t Get Out My Mind…
by Helena D. Lewis

Long after my death
I want someone to speak my words with pride
use my chapbook and cd as a guide
to help slide them through
the sliding indrieernce of humanity
I was born female and black
two strikes against me
yet im prevailing
not existing
surving
surpassing jokers
plotting
convinced they can steal my joy
rename me toy
with capitalism breathing down my back
I am the queen of swords
fighting for the have nots
telling the knots in my stomach
no weapon forged against me shall prosper
for i am filled with the courage of women who jumped ship
before the completion of the middle passage
like them i rather die then be enslaved
or stop fighting for the American dream
not promised to me
but whispered on winds
by lynched men on trees
all black like me
see

Incomplete versions of thoughts I can’t get out my mind…

On the eve of my 31st birthday
I found myself alone
alone in the medical imaging center
with the old maid card I plucked when I was six still in my back pocket
waiting for the technician to x-ray my left foot for the 8th time
preying the swellen of unknown origin was not another sign of old age to come
like my inability to use all the digits on my right hand on cold, damped and rainy
days…painfully caused by the arthritis I acquired working minimum wage to obtain a four
year degree in 8years from an accredited university that serves no purpose in a room I
barely use…

Not the person I should be
Not the person I was
but destined to be more

Incomplete versions of thoughts I can’t get out my mind…

No
No, I don’t wanna’ date your
baby’s father, cousin, ex-best friend
I might be single
but
I’m not desparate

Incomplete versions of Things I Just Can’t Get Out My Mind

Claudia Alick

Claudia Alick is alone in her room smoking her one cigarette of the day, getting ready for bed and telling us secrets. The next day she is showing family pictures and telling stories of traveling from Montana to New York City only to become a member of the “Employed Poor”. Through her video diary she describe her newest love—hip hop theatre—the trials and tribulations of forming a production company.

www.claudiaalick.com

Claudia Alick, Executive Producer and Artistic Director of Smokin Word Productions, is the author of the chap-books “The Haiku Scam”, “Disingenuous”, reviews of hip-hop literature in BUST magazine, and many plays that have been seen on the stages of The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, LaMama ETC, 45 Bleeker, Chashama Experimental Theatre, New Perspectives Theatre, and PS 122 in the 2002 and 2003 NYC Hip Hop Theatre Festivals. Her play “6 Hits” won the audience award in the Downtown Urban Theatre Festival. She has won poetry slams at such venues as Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Hottest Poets, Urbana Slam at The Bowery Poetry Bar, and Louder Arts at Bar 13 where she qualified as a finalist for their national slam teams. Other performance credits include 2 seasons of the Peabody award winning series HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, the film “TerrorMarketers”, and features in the documentaries “WordJunky” (dir. Audrey Colcannon) and Ladies on the Mic’s project on Women in hip-hop (dir. Jessica Habie). Claudia teaches spoken word workshops for children, adults, corporate groups, and the incarcerated. She has guest lectured at New York University (NYU) and Montgomery College, taught at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Bell Multi-Cultural Highschool with Arena Stage, The Shakespeare Theatre’s South East Project, P.A.L. After-school centers, at Riker’s Island with Community Word Project, and at high-schools in New York with Creative Arts Team. Claudia also runs the playwrights workshop for MC’s and poets, WORDSHOP.

EMPLOYEED POOR
Living in this city aint no joke!
I’m working 40 hours a week just to stay broke.
Property is still the great divider cause landowners still got all the power.
What’s the difference between me and an indentured servant
when 50 percent of my pay check goes just to pay rent?
I’ve got collectors siphoning me off just a little at a time
these monthly bleedings got me losing my mind!
I’m talking GAS, Electric, phone-I aint even got CABEL!-
If luxury is the Garden of Eden then call me Cain and Abel
cause I am fighting with myself. Struggling to retain my drive
cause ya have to keep on hustlin if ya want to stay alive.
See, I gambled on education but all I got is loans,
I went for the chicken but instead I got the bones.
I’m living in a Lilliputian apartment and I’m feeling like Gulliver.
I’ve got a bedroom/dining/living-room/other.
I’ve got a loft bed where I sleep high in the sky.
I climb the ladder each night reaching for my piece of the pie.
I rise before sunshine alone and in pain. Shower unconscious,
dreams dribble down the drain,
always running late, the train doors wake me with a jerk,
riding the middle passage each morn from home to work.
I’m getting sick of this Sisyphean struggle,
but all the alternatives only spell trouble.
What am I supposed to do, quit my job? become a bum?
I’ve done that- not being able to afford food is NOT FUN.
I’m on the treadmill heading to wealth and
I’m about to drop dead doing this shit for my health.

Visit www.claudiaalick.com or www.smokinword.com to read more of Claudia’s work.

Raqiyah Mays

Raqiyah Mays is the Executive Editor of the Ave Magazine, known as “A Street Movement In Print”, a writer for Vibe, the Source, XXL, the Associated Press and DJ for Hot97! In “The Art of Love and Struggle” this out spoken cultural scholar takes us back in time to the beginning of her career at community radio, through troubled times and into bright futures as she discusses her controversial thoughts on love, dating and politics.

www.hot97.com

The Ave Magazine

Q&A: Queen Latifah and LL Cool J
By Raqiyah Mays, For The Associated Press | January 12, 2006

SmokiFantastic

SmokiFantastic is from another planet! Literally! Educated on the planet of Saturn by the Music god Sun-Ra, this goddess descends to Earth to narrate and guide our ladies along the path of self-expression and exploration. When she dances she changes perceptions of time and space! When she speaks her poetry she evokes what is eternally feminine, eternally returning, eternally creating!

www.smokifantastic.com

Bobbi Williams (who plays Smokifantastic in “The Art of Love and Struggle” is an interdisciplinary performance artist, educator and visionary. Williams holds a Master in Fine Arts in Playwriting and acting from Carnegie Mellon University and Moscow Art Theater School. Williams has received a BFA in directing from Point Park College.

SMOKIFANTASTIC
PROFILE

Adventurer.
Smoki is an explorer of the Inner Galactic. She is a Super Hero, Omniscientist and ambassador from the planet Venus. Love Goddess from the burning Lakshimi Mountains of Venus. Protector of the Earth. Aquarian Mystic. Smoki lives in the axis mundi and central balancing point of the Earth. The East Village.

Mission
My divine mission is to help souls embrace the Age of Aquarius. My path is to balance unify and uplift energy help humans connect to the earth and master their creative potential.

Talents
Space Surfing. Shape Shifting. Time Traveling. Spirit Dancing. Dream catching.

Manifestations
Psychic Fabulina, Dr.Friday, The Colorist, Padma, Oceania

DEEP SPACE HARMONICS

Are you the dreamer or the dreamed?

Smokifantastic love Goddess from Venus, Super Nova Songstress, is birthing galaxies with her new interactive space exploration. Hold on tight and travel to the exciting innergalactic. Deep Space Harmonics is an observation of our intimate connection with our ancestors, each other, our selves and all that is. You are an astronaut in the astro plane lucidly becoming a multi media visual experience. Ms. Fantastic’s art is timeless. The experience liberates your senses. Deep Space is pure art a natural force of nature.

“My path is to understand forms that create and express vibratory healing energy. This expression helps us to see a different perspective of life.” Smokifantastic

Amanda Diva

Amanda Diva may be a new face at MTV2 but she has an old soul. We meet this fiery young lady on the lawn of the East River where she is having her Palm Read buy the fabulous Smoki Fantastic. As they discuss pushing limits, flying solo and loving hip hop culture, our audience gets an personal look into this woman’s mind. There we find a passionate dedication to the arts, Black People and hip hop culture.

Read more about Amanda, see pictures and hear her work by visiting
www.amandadiva.com

Elizabeth Mendez Berry

Elizabeth Mendez Berry, is a journalist with an incredible diverse field of expertise. She has written for several hip hop magazines (Vibe, Source), well known newspapers and is currently working for TIME Magazine. In our film we speak with Elizabeth about why she decided to take her literary fire beyond the music and entertainment scene, and into the world of public policy. At the time of production, she was working for for the Drug Policy Alliance, conducting research and advocating for reforms in the New York State Drug Policy. In the intimate atmosphere of her Manhattan office, Elizabeth opens up and discusses her famous interviews with hip hop legends Nas and Jay Z, battling misogyny as a musical critic, political landscapes in her homeland of Columbia, and what is being done to challenge the current drug policy and its effects on young communities of color. Since the completion “Art of Love and Struggle” Elizabeth moved to time magazine. Her work was mentioned on this months cover.

In our film Elizabeth reads from her article “Love Hurts: Rap’s Black Eye” which discusses the unspoken relationship between hip hop music and domestic abuse. You can also check out her work for the Village Voice “Jay-Z leave Hip Hop With Something to Remember Him By-The Black Albumn, With Matching sneakers”

Toni Blackman

Tony Blackman has accomplished incredible feats as Hip Hop Ambassador, traveling throughout Europe, Africa and the United States! In 2001 she was appointed as a cultural ambassador through the US State Department and she began her difficult work of representing the hip hop community through lectures, workshops and performances. In our film she discusses how hip-hop is perceived around the world and shares stories of her global experiences. Sister Toni Blackman is the founder of Freestyle Union, and a respected scholar and lyricist within the hip hop community.

You can read excerpts from of her newly release book entitled “Innercourse” and learn more about her work by visiting:

Amazon.com

Traveling to Philedelphia

Hip-Hop Ambassador: Meet Toni Blackman

The Ladies Who Love and Struggle

These women are featured in the upcoming EyesInfinite Production “The Art of Love and Struggle”

TONI BLACKMAN–FREESTYLE UNION

ELIZABETH MENDEZ BERRY–TIME MAGAZINE &VIBE MAGAZINE

AMANDA DIVA–MTV2 & DEF POET

BOBBI WILLIAMS– PERFORMING AS SMOKIFANTASTIC

ROSA CLEMENTE–KNOWTHYSELF PRODUCTIONS

RAQIYAH MAYS–HOT97 & THE AVE MAGAZINE

DENISE DE LA CRUZ– REGGAE SONGSTRESS

CLAUDIA ALICK–SMOKIN WORD PRODUCTIONS & DEF POET

HELENA D. LEWIS– PLAYWRITE AND DEF POET

VISTA SOLO- PERFORMANCE ARTIST & PHOTOGRAPHER

KYANA BRINDLE- PLAYWRITE AND POET

Contact eyesinfinte films (info@eyesinfinite.com) if you want to be invited to the premier screening of t THE ART OF LOVE AND STRUGGLE