Editor’s note: This lecture has been postponed. A new date will be announced as soon as possible. 

Using the arts to promote health justice is at the heart of the fifth annual Yosif Al-Hasnawi Memorial Lecture: Promoting Racial Justice in Health Care.

Hosted by Brock University’s Department of Health Sciences on Friday, March 22, the free, public event will feature Nisha Sajnani, Associate Professor and Director of New York University’s (NYU) Drama Therapy Graduate Program. She is also Chair of the NYU Creative Arts Therapies Consortium and founding co-director of the Jameel Arts and Health Lab, which was established in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

Sajnani will present a talk entitled “The Art of Health Justice” from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre.

Her presentation will explore how artistic media, such as visual and digital arts, performance and storytelling, intertwine creativity and advocacy to amplify racialized and otherwise excluded voices, shed light on disparities in health care, and engage communities and decision-makers in addressing systemic inequalities in health-care access and outcomes.

“Artists can be powerful allies in our collective efforts to advance health equity,” says Sajnani. “By engaging both reason and emotion, the arts can challenge oppressive narratives and engage different audiences in collaborating on a radical reimagining of what is possible and what is just in our interactions with and within health systems.”

The annual Yosif Al-Hasnawi Memorial Lecture helps to memorialize its namesake, Yosif Al-Hasnawi, while also encouraging advocacy for justice. On Dec. 2, 2017, the first-year Brock Medical Sciences student was fatally shot while intervening on behalf of a stranger being accosted on the street outside of the mosque in Hamilton where he was volunteering.

This year’s lecture is sponsored by the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences; the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Rights, Equity and Decolonization; the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies; and the Master of Arts in Social Justice and Equity Studies program.

Registration is not required. For more information about the event, or ways to support Al-Hasnawi’s memory, please visit the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences website.