This episode of Undoxx: Artists Untangle Censorship with guest host zavé martohardjono is a conversation among Karen Finley, George Emilio Sanchez, and Shirine Saad on arts censorship since the 1990s.

This episode was recorded on April 29, 2026 as part of an UNDOXX Artist hub event at Brooklyn Arts Exchange Annex.

Special thanks to BAX, Community Engagement, Dancers for Palestine, and Theater Workers for a Ceasefire for that event. And thanks to JACK, Movement Research, and Bridge Live Arts for hosting UNDOXX programs since 2024.

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@zavozavito

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@shirinesaad

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@baxarts

ABOUT THE GUEST ARTISTS

Karen Finley has presented groundbreaking installation, video, performance, public art, visual art, television and film, music, and literature across the globe. In 1998, she and other artists challenged the National Endowments for the Arts in a landmark Supreme Court case about censorship in the arts.

George Emilio Sanchez is a writer, performance artist, activist, and educator who began making original pieces in 1992. He launched the group ‘First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces’ in the weeks following Trump’s 2017 inauguration and co-leads the First Amendment Culture Team (F.A.C.T.) producing a weekly First Amendment Bulletin with Tal Yarden.

Shirine Saad is a Beirut-born, Brooklyn-based writer, programmer, and DJ focusing on culture and social change. Shirine’s recent publications, like “I CARE IF YOU LISTEN”, address how artists are on the front lines of resistance movements, reshaping culture and pushing thought amidst the polycrises of censorship, war, and  late stage capitalism.

GUEST HOST BIO

zavé martohardjono is a trans and queer Indonesian-American-Canadian choreographer, performer, filmmaker, writer, and organizer who thinks about ecological activism and decolonization as technologies for liberation.

CO-PRODUCER BIOS

Yanira Castro is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist and organizer working at the intersection of communal practice, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects activated and performed by the public as rehearsals for radical democracy. She is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow. acanarytorsi.org.

maura nguyễn donohue is a Vietnamese American artist, performer, writer and organizer based in NYC for over 30 years, building systems for collaborative action through performance. 

Hope Mohr is an artist and advocate who works at the intersection of the arts and social justice. Her law practice, Movement Law, builds power with artists and arts organizations.

Ziggy Simone is a Black performer, choreographer and producer that develops works centering queerness, Black kinships, ancestral/emotional memory, and the absurd to imagine new worlds. 

zavé martohardjono (see bio above).

UNDOXX is an artist-run collective that organizes conversations, festivals, and interventions against censorship in the arts. They build power among those most often targeted by censorship: BIPOC artists, queer and trans and women artists, and global artists. 

RESOURCES

Join artists working to protect our freedom of speech and expression:Check out First Amendment Sanctuary Spaces on Facebook and watch a BRIC TV interview with its founders. 

Join F.A.C.T.’s weekly First Amendment Bulletin on Substack.Read about Finley V. NEA.

Learn more about UNDOXX and follow UNDOXX on Instagram for upcoming events.

Are you experiencing censorship? Reach out to National Coalition Against Censorship

Learn more about artists organizing to end genocide:

Writers Against the War in Gaza

Decolonize This Place

Dancers for Palestine

Theater Workers for a Ceasefire