NYU M.A. Arts & Politics: Statement of Purpose
Where there is beauty in our world, there is also pain. For every turn we take and corner we seek - in our streets, neighborhoods, homes, communities, or cities - we see the hues of vulnerability: poverty, social injustice, racism, sexism, xenophobia, displacement, conflict, occupation, oppression, and violence. So often, as people, we tend to forget that no matter who we are or where we are we do have a responsibility as fellow human beings to amplify the voices of those in need, to share our stories and the stories of others, and to advocate for the equal rights of all people. Most importantly, however, is the necessity to meet every story, identity, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and belief with empathy and openness. That is the rule I’ve always lived by.
Each one of us is compartmentalized in two ways: circumstance and choice. I was born in Amman, Jordan to a Muslim Palestinian family. I have always been a human rights activist and have always aspired to become an artist. Despite the universality of “activist” and “artist” my identity has rendered me the following “bio”: “My name is Hayat. I’m a Palestinian-Jordanian (Muslim) something.” To so many people, those three identifying factors can mean many different things. As an artist and an activist, I have constantly struggled between trying to build myself as an artist in the global sense and not only be identified as a "Jordanian - Palestinian artist" or "Jordanian - Palestinian activist" or "Arab artist" because such binaries have sometimes implied certain stereotypes but also expectations.
I remember the first time I auditioned for a play in the U.S. It was during my post-graduate year at Deerfield Academy. The theater department was putting on a performance of the play “Voices in Conflict” - a series of monologues taken from the letters, poetry, and blogs of real U.S. Iraq War veterans and Iraqi citizens. I knew who I wanted to play: I wanted to play an American veteran. I auditioned for that part.
I didn’t get that part. Instead, I got to play an Iraqi citizen. While I inhibited an immense amount of gratitude for the experience, I couldn’t help but wonder if the fact that I was Arab played a role in my casting.
Ever since I’ve struggled with the idea that I’ve been conscious of wanting to separate my identity and background as a Palestinian-Jordanian from my identity as an artist and activist.
However, as much as I stray away from labeling myself with a particular identity, my background has certainly given me enough fuel to become an activist. Everyone has a certain background that has pushed them to fight for the causes that matter deeply to them. Yet, every race, religion, and ethnicity deals with universal issues of gender, sexuality, class, and race. Our nationalities do not shield us from universal vulnerabilities.
One of the areas I’m most interested in is the tension between cultural particularities and universality when it comes to issues such as gender, social justice, class, race, religion, and sexuality. In other words, identity.
The theater, for me, has always been a place where the boundaries between people established in our world are able to dissolve. It is a medium that succeeds in affecting change by instilling empathetic intelligence. Though my undergrad was in political science, I always had a passion for the arts and looked for ways to combine my activism with theater. So often, I felt as though I’ve had to choose between both fields: I have a love for performing and I am unable to ignore what’s happening around me. For the past two years, I have worked in the humanitarian field: I spent my first year in Beirut, Lebanon campaigning for the protection of civilians caught in conflict while I spent my second year working on protecting the rights of those who have fled such conflicts: refugees and displaced people. In between, I always found a way to perform and practice theater. Acting and writing, in particular, give me the ability to imagine, reflect, and explore areas of the self and our emotional being that always contribute to my self-awareness and the awareness of others. All those components of the theater are essential to provoking change in our communities.
The M.A. in Arts Politics gives me the opportunity to combine the two fields I identify myself with the most. I believe in the power of using the theater as a medium to effect change in our communities through conversation and dialogue. Because my experience has been so grounded in conflict resolution, one of the areas I hope to explore through the arts politics program is the use of the arts as a medium for conflict resolution through the use of memory and collective memory. The role memory has in constructing national identities and people’s truths is a fascinating phenomenon: What do you do when two memories of the same place become contested and are in conflict with one another? What is a resolution when one memory’s survival depends on the complete erasure or the denial of the other’s? All I know is that where there is pain, there is truth. That pain is our art and our activism: it is the one thing that can’t ever be contested and when it is portrayed through the arts, our stories will be revolutionary.
