EVOLVE
Polycultural Institute, the Think-and-Create Tank of Chicago’s Silk Road Cultural Center, is proud to launch its first-ever podcast series, Evolve. Hosted by Polycultural Institute’s Founder and Director, Jamil Khoury, Evolve is a mix of spoken essays and conversations with interesting and exciting thinkers, changemakers, innovators, and disruptors.
Building upon our ethics of artmaking and curation, Evolve poses open-ended questions and avoids soliciting closed-ended answers. It is polycultural, not ideological. Opinionated, not heavy-handed. We strive to get it right, but sometimes get it wrong, and are always willing to correct ourselves.
Collection 1: Rebuilding Syria
Rebuilding Syria focuses on the dramatic changes happening in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime. It begins with a series of reflections that draw upon Khoury’s Syrian American heritage, background in Middle East Studies, decades of cultural and political activism, and experiences of both Syria and the Syrian diaspora. Khoury offers a candid and subjective analysis of a country on the precipice of profound recovery and renewal or continued conflict and despair. Further down the line, he hopes to interview scholars, artists, and activists with ties to Syria.
In that vein, Rebuilding Syria is guided by insight and hope, cautious optimism, and win-win pragmatism. It is, in many respects, a love letter to Syria and the Syrian people, but doesn’t omit painful truths and sobering assessments. It is intended to support visions of a new Syria that are just, pluralistic, and free.
In this introductory episode, we look at the dramatic fall of Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad, ending a 54-year brutal and genocidal regime instituted by his father before him. Syria now faces a challenging and complicated period of rebuilding, but one thing is crystal clear: The Syrian people demanded the fall of the regime, and they succeeded.
Polycultural Institute is the Think-and-Create Tank of Chicago’s Silk Road Cultural Center. We generate art and ideas that promote polyculturalism and connect people, cultures, and communities.
Polyculturalism is the theory that cultures continuously evolve and transform through dynamic interchange. It assumes that cultures are fluid and flexible, not static and fixed, and that as cultures interact, they redefine themselves.
Silk Road Cultural Center is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary arts organization rooted in the modern communities of the historic Silk Roads, including our diaspora communities. We embrace the arts as a catalyst for connecting people, places, histories, and futures.
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