Reclaim the Script: Painted Words and the Politics of Calligraphy

A hands-on, creative, and reflective workshop exploring the beauty of calligraphy and the deeper meanings behind the scripts we use. With brush pens and watercolor tools, we’ll practice calligraphy in several scripts, including English, Arabic, and Urdu, as a way to reflect on how writing shapes identity. You’re invited to bring your own script, story, or cultural expression into the process.

As we paint, we’ll open up a conversation about language, memory, and resistance, and what it means to keep a script alive, especially in an age of mass technology and language erasure. Why do certain scripts fade while others remain dominant? What does it mean to write your name in a script that carries ancestral weight, political struggle, or diasporic longing?

Through prompts and open dialogue, we’ll reflect on how calligraphy isn’t just an art form but a powerful way to preserve culture, reclaim space, and honor linguistic diversity. Whether in South Asian truck art, mosque tiles, handwritten letters, or protest banners, script has always held power. This workshop invites you to explore that power with your own hands.