Ãzuka Khazrik will give an in-person talk, followed by a Q&A, exploring how the militarization of the modern academic institute impacts the organization and obfuscation of knowledge and relational politics. While counter-mapping the interlinks between militarization and the disciplinary fragmentation of knowledge that give rise to agnogenesis—the production of ignorance and uncertainty—she will collectively examine how this agnotological structure attempts to shield and feed Zionism, while more explicitly expanding its censorial violence against the student body. At the same time, history reminds us that students have consistently served as powerful catalysts for political transformation, underscoring that the pursuit of truth is indispensable to the very foundation of academia. Just as there is no academia without truth, there can be no collective liberation without liberating how we know, relate, confront and impact the world together.
You are welcome to attend the seminar in person at the Centre for Peace Studies at UiT, or digitally through: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OGUyOTg5M2YtYTMxZS00MGIyLTgwMjgtMjg2YzQ5NjFhYzgy%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%224e7f212d-74db-4563-a57b-8ae44ed05526%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22f797d1c0-b3d6-4902-b7c8-89e063ed1e15%22%7d
Ãzuka Khazrik nurtures a plural, liberational practice in music, education and transgenerational healing. Working across a multiplicity of spaces and constellations that engage with locally entrenched universalisms, her work is guided by a trans-millennial production of knowledge that refuses to separate people from their knowledge and the land. While probing the unity of science and the multi-dimensionality of experience in an age that institutes separation, over the past 15 years, her indisciplinary practice has been revolving around the collective search and need for polymathy and transformational infrastructure in our shared present and long-term future. She holds BAs in Linguistics and in Theatre from the Lebanese University(LB) and a MS in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT(US) where she was awarded the Ada Lovelace prize. She has been a fellow at Home Workspace Programme(2012-13), MIT Department of Architecture(2015-17) Digital Earth(2018-19), SHAPE Platform(2021-22) and Helmholtz Center for Environmental Health (2022-23) and has taught at HfK Bremen, the FNHW Academy of Art & Design in Basel, Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg, among others while guest lecturing internationally in both academic and community spaces. She is the founder of the liberational platforms “ خريطة الظلام Cartography of Darkness”(https://dark.society.systems), AATMA✦ عتمة, “Astrorevolt ܟܪܟܐ” and “Reading Computers قراءة الحواسيب”. Having grown up around a quarry contaminated with military waste brought from Europe and the U.S. into Lebanon, she has been active in struggles for environmental justice since early adolescence. Ãzuka is of Lebanese, Armenian, Chaldean and Indian descent and is based in Lebanon.