the moment when we confront & contest the FBI's violent, non-consensual record of being watched with a community archive of love, of being seen... honored to finally present inversesurveillance.com, a site-specific art installation in Chicago's "Little Palestine" ✊🏾

it's been an absolute honor to partner with IMAN—Chicago + ATL Muslim Wellness Watan 🇵🇸 and TATREEZ & TEA for this co-created project that has been a total labor of spirit and heart, thank you each for your invaluable collaboration

We are grateful to be partners on this community art exhibit in Chicago's "Little Palestine," featuring creative technology to reclaim the voices and stories of those long affected by federal mass surveillance programs.

9,930 pages of FBI FOIA records, 140 feet of wall, one tri-circular labyrinth … introducing the Inverse Surveillance Project, co-created with the Chicago Arab and Muslim community in “Little Palestine” — opening tomorrow!! inversesurveillance.com/events

yesterday dreams came true, visions were realised, many tears were shed and hearts collectively expanded. big love to Danya Qato and our entire community advisory board for being on this co-creation journey w/us. Chicago fam, we’ll be here all month ! inversesurveillance.com/events

tonight in chicago: a DIGITAL SECURITY WORKSHOP hosted by the Inverse Surveillance Project alongside our smart organizer friends at @lucyparsonslabs on the basics of keeping your digital life secure + how to wield the power of FOIA 🤓✊🏾 eventbrite.com/e/arts-and-pow… The Feeling of Being Watched Doc

This Thursday in Bridgeview, IL! Mark your calendars 📅

inviting community to confront thousands of FBI records collected about our Muslim n’hood over a decade of surveillance & then using those records as a canvas to co-create a community archive, has been one of the highlights of my life, closing tomorrow🥹 bit.ly/ISPclosingnight

Today @ 5pm! We hope to see you there!

What do you do when your reporting forces the FBI to release 30,000+pages on years of surveillance of your community and their aggressive redactions cause more questions and harm? if you’re assia boundaoui you create a public instillation to allow the community to reclaim its story.

You build a public journalism instillation, a narrative labyrinth of files that follows the tangled FBI operation that cast a whole community as suspect. Then you transpose those files with digital images of regular families living regular lives.

And you create an immersive community archive that gives people back their voice, agency and control of their stories.

And the pop-up becomes a vibrant gathering place, a month-long convening where neighbors and family, elders and children, come to process shared anger, confusion, sadness and resilience. They come to witness and release. They come to affirm their place, their stories.

I’m proud to know 2020 #LivingstonAward winner Assia Boundaoui. And I’m honored the #KnightWallaceFellowship could give her space and support to take her powerful investigative reporting from “The Feeling of Being Watched” and extend it to transformative community journalism.