Hiba Abdallah: Declarations for a Different Future

Writer and filmmaker Toni Cade Bambara notably declared that the task of a cultural worker from an oppressed community is to make “revolution irresistible.”​​¹ This is a weighty responsibility for artists, but art offers us ways to imagine new possibilities once the existing systems have been dismantled. Hiba Abdallah’s new project Declarations for a Different Future takes on this responsibility. Abdallah offers a series of her own declarations that urge the reader to consider their role in dismantling the systems that were never designed for marginalized communities.

Hiba and I met about two years ago when I commissioned her to develop a project for the inaugural Scarborough zone of Nuit Blanche Toronto. Hiba hails from Windsor, Ontario, but it was clear she was committed to engaging the Scarborough community and working in an authentic way to centre their perspectives. After a weekend-long series of workshops with an intergenerational group of artists and cultural producers identifying as Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, Hiba collected over 200 statements that reflected the anxieties, sentiments, and hopes of Scarborough’s residents. For her latest project, Hiba has taken a more introspective approach, choosing to reflect on her personal observations and demands rather than on the sentiments of others. The project is a series of concise and unambiguous phrases written in the active voice, with each statement inciting action, large or small, and calling for a change of course.

In this age rife with callouts and online expressions of groupthink, making bold assertions is a risky endeavor. Going against the pack could result in reprisal, so why chance saying anything of substance at all? On one end of the spectrum, online platforms have facilitated the spread of bigoted attitudes, but on the other end, platforms have enabled disingenous and opportunistic behaviour under the guise of socially progressive views. This behaviour has the effect of policing the opinions of those who are considered to be part of the group, and it has fostered the conditions for an increased hesitation in expressing divergent and nuanced views, or any views whatsoever. Yet with Hiba’s project, her demand for justice doesn’t come quietly or cautiously; there is an urgency in the emphatic block letters and black-and-red markings of the text. The statements interrupt the status quo, put us on high alert and call us to action. However, as much as the statements are directed towards the reader, it’s just as plausible that the instructions could be interpreted as a series of the artist’s notes-to-self, important reminders to stay focused on the work she needs to do to make a difference.

What are the steps we must take to collectively bring about change? What are the steps I must take to change my own world and the one around me? There are barriers to our revolution, but the root of Hiba’s project asks us to believe that a different future is possible, and, going back to Bambara, it begins with the self.​​²

Alyssa Fearon is a curator, educator and arts manager who currently holds the position of Curator at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and teaches in the Visual and Aboriginal Art department at Brandon University.

1. Toni Cade Bambara and Thabiti Lewis, “An Interview with Toni Cade Bambara: Kay Bonetti,” Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara, edited by Thabiti Lewis (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012), 35.
2. Toni Cade Bambara, “On the Issue of Roles” The Black Woman: An Anthology, edited by Toni Cade Bambara (Washington Square Press, 2005), 101.

This article is published in issue 37.1 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue