About this Event
Join Empact for a Brown-centered and led Community Circle exploring the power of creating and convening. This gathering is an opportunity for community connection and reflection and will be facilitated by our own Rubini Naidu, Empact’s founder. Our hope is to create space to collectively uplift and listen to diasporic, immigrant, and intergenerational South Asian voices and experiences of what it means to be artists and cultural practitioners in this moment.
Throughout time, artists, storytellers, and culture workers have not only reflected, but also directly influenced the course of history. While we are currently in a time of extraordinary change and circumstances often feel out of our control, we know the deep wisdom already held within our communities can help us move through and guide that change. When we create, it has the ability to lift us all through the tides.
We hope this time together as a community leaves us with a sense of authenticity and possibility.
What is this event?
〰️ This is an Empact Community Circle, which is a time to connect and have meaningful dialogue about inner healing and social justice as a community. We do this by moving through a series of curated, guided discussion prompts together.
〰️ The themes of this event are identity, arts & culture, and community.
〰️ Event cover is a sliding scale of $5-25. If you have any questions – such as requesting ticket coverage or wanting to sponsor someone else’s spot – feel free to send us a DM or email! We rely in part on donations from the community for our programming and operations. Thank you for helping make our work more sustainable 🫶🏽
〰️ Tickets include light snacks and bevys.
〰️ Open to all – while this event is centering South Asian voices and experiences, we welcome any allies wanting to foster cross-cultural solidarity! This space is meant to be a place to bring any and everyone to bring their whole, authentic selves.
Our flow will roughly look like:
☁️ Welcome & Settle In (2-2:30 pm): Fill out a name tag, grabs snacks, and mingle as folks arrive
☁️ Discussion (2:30-4:30 pm): Flow into group discussion with facilitated questions around themes
☁️ Wind Down (4:30 pm onwards): Reflect on takeaways individually and as a broader group
About Rubini Naidu:
Rubini Naidu (she/her) is a visual artist, brand and cultural strategist, and facilitator based in Detroit, Michigan. Her work explores identity, empathy, and decolonial reimagining – framing photography as a social practice and using collaborative storytelling and participatory design to create restorative experiences for people and communities. She is also the Founder of the community and studio practice Empact. Rubini holds an M.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology from Columbia University and a B.S. in Psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. Her photography and stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, ACLU, and more.
✨ Learn more about Rubini at www.rubininaidu.com.
About Empact:
Empact is a community and studio practice dedicated to creating empathy through storytelling, arts, and culture. Our work is focused at the intersection of social justice and inner healing.
✨ Learn more about Empact on our website, www.empact.community, or get in touch.
Event venue & nearby stays
The LOVE Building, 4731 Grand River Avenue, Detroit, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.