Art Practice and Asylum in Israel

Ofer Gazit is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Gazit teaches and writes about migration, borders, and mobility in the US and the Caribbean from a musical perspective, contributing to publications in sound and media studies, ethnomusicology, and jazz studies.

Hamutal Sadan is a Ph.D. candidate in Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on the art of asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa living in Israel. She completed the two-year research program Graffiti Art in Prison (GAP) (2021-2023). As an activist curator, she has been producing artistic and cultural events and exhibitions since 2017, showcasing the art of asylum-seeking artists in order to foster connections between the refugee community and the Israeli public, as part of her work at the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants (NGO). In 2019, she launched the Facebook community, Art of Refugees in Israel, as a platform for refugee artists to share their art, gain exposure, and discover new opportunities.

Sarah Hankins is Assistant Professor of Sound Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her research explores auditory and performative processes of subject formation in contexts of globalized modernity, with special focus on Israel and the African diaspora. Trained as an ethnomusicologist, Dr. Hankins seeks to integrate ethnographic and historiographic methods with critical approaches in Black studies, queer theory, media and technology studies, psychoanalysis and theology. Her work has been published in Black Music Research Journal, Women and Music, and Signs, among other refereed journals. Hankins is a producer of electronic and noise music, and is a postulant for priesthood in the Episcopal Church.