Panel
Exiled Voices, Shared Futures: Artistic Freedom, Economic Power, and Democratic Resilience
Through lived experience and institutional insight, the panel will examine how repression operates economically—and how universities, cities, and advocacy networks can help build the conditions for creative freedom and democratic participation.
DATE
Apr 18, 2026
START TIME
3:50 p.m.
END TIME
4:50 p.m.
LOCATION
OCAD U Main Campus
Johanna Bankston
Senior Officer, Global Policy & Advocacy, Artistic Freedom Initiative
Zahra Ahooei
Artist Protection Fund (APF) Fellow in residence, OCAD University
Charles Reeve
Associate Dean of Arts & Science and Professor of Visual and Critical Studies, OCAD University
Kelly Langgard
Director & CEO - Toronto Arts Council and Toronto Arts Foundation
Isha Khan
CEO, Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Democracy depends on the systems and institutions that make dissent possible in practice. Around the world, authoritarian regimes increasingly use economic pressure to silence artists—through defunding, restricted mobility, precarity, and exile.
This panel brings together leaders from global policy, higher education, municipal arts funding, and human rights to explore how artistic freedom is materially sustained. Through lived experience and institutional insight, the conversation will examine how repression operates economically—and how universities, cities, and advocacy networks can help build the conditions for creative freedom and democratic participation.
Together, the panel asks: What systems are needed so that artists facing repression are not only protected, but resourced to continue shaping public life?
The panel will be followed by a screening and conversation with Iranian filmmaker, Zahra Alhooei.
