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SubDrift Boston Subcontinental Drift Boston (SubDrift) is an intergenerational creative community that merged within the South Asian diaspora out of a need to tell their own stories. Building community through the arts, they are part of a growing national movement that strives to build an inclusive, forward-looking diaspora including  all religions, castes, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, multi-racial, adoptee, and other intersecting identities to be welcome! They host monthly open mics, writing workshops, and other programming to foster artistic expression, collaboration, and innovation.

Payal (they/them) is a multidisciplinary cultural worker, medical abolitionist, abortion doula, and movement builder whose work is rooted in the in-betweens. Currently based on Massachusett, Pawtucket, and Wampanoag territories, they invoke the power of intergenerational community building to construct tender new possibilities of being beyond borders and capital. payal's paintings alchemize folk art from their ancestral villages in Bihar with traditional Americana motifs to amplify peoples’ movements; they use visual and spoken language to explore the in-between spaces of trauma, coloniality, queerness, and embodiment. Their illustrations, zines, spoken word pieces, and workshops have found a home across Chinatown walls and grassroots protests, in gallery spaces like the Museum of Fine Arts and international TRANS* Future Archives, and through collaborative learning spaces like the Allied Media Conference and the School of Arts and Social Justice Boston. payal was a 2021 recipient of the Boston Foundation’s LAB grant. They are an organizer with Subcontinental Drift Boston, a monthly multilingual open mic centering South Asian diasporic voices, and with transnational organizing collectives fighting for labor, race, caste, and gender equity. Through creative strategies, they cultivate playful spaces that challenge the state's monopoly on Imagination so that we may all fully unearth and activate our collective power.

Neha Rayamajhi (she/her) is a cultural worker and organizer who uses multidisciplinary art and academia to disrupt and build. She is passionate about creating narratives, spaces, and experiences that revolve around decolonial politics, diasporic nostalgia, and the joys of reimagining anti-oppressive futures. Born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal, she is currently daydreaming in Boston, the ancestral and unceded land of the Massachusetts and Pawtucket people.

Anjali "Anju" Madhok (they/she) is a singer, songwriter, producer, and performer shaped by the people and places in Minnesota and Massachusetts. Their music conjures imaginary lovers, scents of citrus, and visions of hairy brown skin under the sun.

Anju’s work has been highlighted by NPR’s All Songs Considered, Rolling Stone India, and Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current. They were commissioned by South Asian American Digital Archive to create original work for a sound tour of Philadelphia.

Anju is currently teaching piano, violin, and guitar to young musicians and working on their debut full-length album. You can connect and follow their journey @anjutunes on social media and www.anjutunes.com.

The Shadow Notes, eternally searching for the holy sonic grail, the Shadow Notes is a band of diasporic disciples from the future. They are rarely heard or seen, despite epic performances at the MFA, HindieRockfest, NYC Summerstage. But when they do appear, it’s a guaranteed supernova of ancient instruments bending around synth grooves and powerful dance breaks. Inimitable, mysterious, majestic- the Shadow Notes is the unmistakable alchemy of Ali and Singh.

Levi Ali, hailing from a reggae household in the deserts of Arizona, Levi Ali always had an interest in the percussive arts. He started as a metal drummer before developing an interest in music from around the world. A self taught musician, he has studied darbuka, Indian tabla, Trinidadian tassa, dhol, Persian daff, kanjira, chimta, djembe, davul and regularly performs around Boston. He also performs every Wednesday in Worcester as part of the Electric Haze House Band.

Michael Dwan Singh one of the few sarangi players in the US, Singh is a seasoned musician and stage actor. Born in Boston, he grew up with piano, synth and tabla. It was only after college that he discovered the sarangi, and since then- has been playing under the lineage of Ustad Sultan Khan. Singh has performed on stages across the US, Middle East, and India- and his sarangi can be heard on countless records- the most recent being the Ms. Marvel soundtrack.

Tonight, the Shadow Notes will be joined by the multitalented, grammy-nominated Agney Mulay: a singer/songwriter extraordinaire from New Delhi.

Sumaya Teli is a British Kashmiri woman living in the US, she is a mother, writer, blogger who uses different mediums including photography, poetry and storytelling to show her creative perspective on growing up as a child of the Kashmiri diaspora and on raising children conscientious of their identity. During her time as a medical student at the University of Sheffield, she spent an elective working at the Psychiatric Diseases Hospital in Srinagar, combining her professional interest with her passion for Kashmir while aiming to better understand the challenging human condition on ground.

Her stories and photographs on Kashmiri resistance through fashion and culture have appeared in print in Greater Kashmir, Kashmir life, Outlook India and The Hindu Business Line and National North American Radio channel PRI World.
 

In 2016 conversations around intentional storytelling and representation in the then media, of Muslim mothers led up to the co-founding of MAMANUSHKA, an inspirational, thought-provoking and nuanced lifestyle blog which sits at the intersections of faith, motherhood and lived experiences. The blog was the recipient of two awards In the 2020 Muslimah Bloggers Awards - an international community choice award featuring the best of Muslim woman blogosphere, where Mamanushka was voted the Muslimah Blogs ‘Best Parenting’ and ‘Best Lifestyle Blog’. Sumaya believes that motherhood is an act of resistance and every mother is an activist that has the power to bring about social change through the very act of mothering.

Szu-Chieh Yun is a Taiwanese-American artist based in Boston, MA. She received her MFA from University of Arts London at Wimbledon College of Arts 2016 and her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2011, during which she completed a semester abroad in the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S. and internationally. Szu-Chieh is an experienced visual arts educator who has worked extensively with low-income students in Boston as a mentor and internationally as an art teacher in Shanghai. She attended Studios at Mass MoCA in 2022 and is currently a Studio Resident at the Boston Center for the Arts.