Little Amalthe 12-foot-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee, will soon arrive in Atlanta as part of its journey to 15 countries and 35 U.S. cities to bring its message of hope and solidarity to displaced people around the world. .
To celebrate his arrival, the Michael C. Carlos Museum and Emory Libraries will present an event focused on the plight of the ever-growing refugee population.
“Comedy and Conversations” – a critical, concerned and sometimes comic look at the world around us – will take place at the Carlos Museum on Wednesday September 27 at 7:30 p.m. Registration is required.
Before the program, participants can view the Carlos Museum exhibition “You Belong Here: Place, People, and Purpose in Latinx Photography” from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Comedian David Perdue and social conservative/activist Munir Meghjani host “Comedy and Conversations.” Understanding that comedy can be both provocative and productive, they founded “Comedy and Conversations” to focus on the human and sometimes absurd aspects of difficult issues.
The September 27 program is designed to draw attention and action to little Amal’s expression of hope.
“Complex topics have become more depressing or controversial. We wanted to experience difficult, engaging, and productive conversations that would allow us to come together, find common ground, and, perhaps, even some joy and laughter. As an immigrant with deep ties to the refugee community, these topics are both personal to me and important in our society today,” says Meghjani.
Participants in “Comedy and Conversations” will include:
Alpa Amin
A leading voice in the field of public interest immigration law in Georgia, Amin serves as Executive Director of the Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network (GAIN). Amin has worked at GAIN since 2008, during which time she built and managed the Victims of Violence program serving immigrant survivors of human trafficking, domestic violence and sexual assault in Georgia, and served as the first director of legal services at GAIN before taking on the management role. . She is a past chair of the Georgia Immigration Collaborative and the Georgia Statewide Human Trafficking Task Force, where she helped create a groundbreaking statewide roundtable and report on labor trafficking.
Angel Contreras
Contreras is an up-and-coming comedian based in Atlanta. She is a regular at the Laughing Skull Lounge and has performed across the country and internationally. His comedy touches on his Mexican-American upbringing, his day job, witchcraft and more. When she’s not on stage, she defends the public in court.
Gilbert Lawand
An Atlanta-based comedian whose style is a blend of social commentary and silliness drawn from a unique background, Lawand was born in Baghdad to Catholic parents before moving to a small town in southern Georgia, where he grew up in a farm. He has opened major theater shows for Dave Chappelle, Eric Andre, Aziz Ansar and Tom Segura, and has performed at several festivals, including the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, the High Plains Comedy Festival and the Laughing Skull Festival (where he was a finalist). He also produces the annual Red Clay Comedy Festival in Atlanta.
Arthur Lindsay
Lindsay is an artist/cultural researcher/educator whose work is inspired by the scientific research he conducts on African spiritual and aesthetic retentions, rediscoveries and reinventions in America. The results of his research are manifested in works of art, as well as in books, scientific essays and lectures. A proud native of Colon, a port city located on the Caribbean coast of the Republic of Panama, Lindsay emigrated to the United States with his family at the age of 12 and settled in Brooklyn, New York.
Munir Meghjani
A progressive thinker and social and civic entrepreneur, Meghjani has used his professional experience and community involvement to build connections and bring together diverse groups in Atlanta and the Southeast. He is executive producer and host of the “Real Tall Tales” podcast, a broker at Sands Investment Group and chairman of the Emory Alumni Board of Trustees. A serial entrepreneur and commercial real estate broker, Meghjani is also deeply involved in the nonprofit sector focused on the arts, education, interfaith and justice. The mantra he adopted from a young age is: “I can’t do all the service the world needs, but the world needs all the service I can do.” »
David Lost
Perdue is an Atlanta comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central, FuseTV, EPIX and Kevin Hart’s LOL Network. He is also an actor appearing in “Love Is”. . .” on OWN and Bobcat Goldthwait’s “Misfits and Monsters” on truTV. Perdue co-hosts the sports/comedy podcast “Forth and Ten” as well as the politics/comedy podcast “The Confused Caucus.” In 2022, he was selected as an Arts and Social Justice Scholar at Emory University. Perdue is a lot of things, but most importantly, he’s not a former U.S. senator.
About Emory Libraries
Ranked among the top 20 research library associations in North America, Emory Libraries serves as an interdisciplinary intellectual commons for the Atlanta and Oxford, Georgia, campuses with more than 5.8 million volumes and 430,000 e-journals, more than 1.8 million e-books, and internationally renowned collections .
About the Michael C. Carlos Museum
Located in the heart of Emory’s Atlanta campus, the Michael C. Carlos Museum is a dynamic, interdisciplinary center for the study of art and culture, with collections from Africa, ancient Egypt, Nubia and the Near East, ancient Greece and Rome, the indigenous Americas, South Asia and American and European works on paper.
Through its permanent collection galleries, engaging special exhibitions, and innovative programs for audiences of all ages, the Carlos Museum connects the past to the present and the campus to the community.
Museum educators reach across the museum, campus, and city to develop opportunities to engage the intellect and imagination of university students and faculty, K-12 students and teachers and the Atlanta community as a whole.
