5:00-6:30 PM- Ka Oskar Ly, “Cultivating Creative Space for Community Futures” 

https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/74406acd49a54f4cb087c22df30d0147

The meaning of a place, space, and land can largely depend on how we experience it. Yet, those who came before us have cultivated it for us. What can we learn from the generations before us? 

Ka Oskar Ly will share their work as an artist and cultural worker fostering community, space, and place. For Hmong Americans, war and displacement have often made us feel like strangers on the lands we occupy and the bodies we embody. We are more rooted than we realize. We can reclaim that.  

As the co-founder of ArtCrop, Ka led a 3-year inquiry merging art and culture through a Community-Supported Art and Agriculture (CSAA) share model. This facilitated reconnecting second-gen+ Hmong Americans and invited broader communities to experience Hmong culture without appropriation. This talk will invite participants to consider their role in culture, the places, and the land we occupy. 

Ka Oskar Ly (she/her/they/them) is a queer Hmoob (Hmong) French American artist and cultural producer rooted in creating social change. Ly draws on their identities, lived experiences, and various communities to redefine and reclaim Hmoob and queer aesthetics, cultural innovation, and community futures. They have organized community by transforming campaigns through Hmong textile, cultural experiences, and public space installations and murals to raise awareness of equity and visibility of gender, queer/trans, and racial justice. Pairing organizing and art empowers them to stay curious and to continuously be in conversation with ourselves and communities about how we show up. 

oskarlyart.com/about