Jul 24, 2026 · 59 min · 15 segments
Sabaidee and hello! Welcome back to another episode of Legacies. My name is Niki Capaldo, I am an Advocacy Ambassador with Legacies of War. In this episode, we get to learn about Activism through…
Kofi Bazzell-SmithGuest
Niki CapaldoHost
Was there ever a moment when you realized art could be more than just expression? When did you realize it could be a form of activism, innovation or social change?
And so I think it's important not to diminish that as, you know, a small thing.
Expression is radical and expression is freedom or suppression and expression is storytelling and expression is identity.
I agree, but I guess I'd like to preface this whole conversation by saying I don't really have a history of activism in my artistic practice.
It's something that I'd like to engage more in, but I guess I can give by example the closest that I've ever gotten to some symbolism of what we might even be able to relate to activism was my last project.
I made an immersive manga exhibition That was about robots with advanced consciousness that was being controlled by and abused by humans.
And I use it as a metaphor to talk about capitalism and racial capitalism and unbridled technological advancement.
And it was sort of about a story in the future where there's no more black people.
And it was really a metaphor for the genocide and cobalt mining in the Congo.
And I trained some AI chatbots to talk to my audience about their lives and experiences.
I'm not sure if it really resulted in anything, but that is something I'd like to explore further.
And I think a lot of that depends on like, you know, our definition of activism is so individual.
Was there ever a moment when you realized art could be more than just expression? When did you realize it could be a form of activism, innovation or social change?
And so I think it's important not to diminish that as, you know, a small thing.
Expression is radical and expression is freedom or suppression and expression is storytelling and expression is identity.
I agree, but I guess I'd like to preface this whole conversation by saying I don't really have a history of activism in my artistic practice.
It's something that I'd like to engage more in, but I guess I can give by example the closest that I've ever gotten to some symbolism of what we might even be able to relate to activism was my last project.
I made an immersive manga exhibition That was about robots with advanced consciousness that was being controlled by and abused by humans.
And I use it as a metaphor to talk about capitalism and racial capitalism and unbridled technological advancement.
And it was sort of about a story in the future where there's no more black people.
And it was really a metaphor for the genocide and cobalt mining in the Congo.
And I trained some AI chatbots to talk to my audience about their lives and experiences.
I'm not sure if it really resulted in anything, but that is something I'd like to explore further.
And I think a lot of that depends on like, you know, our definition of activism is so individual.
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