Quantum Entanglements is a new multimedia investigative feature from Respair Production & Media about South Side Chicago communities fighting for self-determination in response to what may be coming next: the possibility of being poisoned, pushed out and policed by an impending $9 billion quantum computer on the shores of Lake Michigan.
This panel begins where the project begins: with the people living in the shadow of a promised future they did not get to decide. As the next industrial revolution descends on a community still reeling from the destruction of deindustrialization, South Side organizers and residents are asking what it means to have agency over land, livelihood and future.
The conversation will follow the converging fights at the center of Quantum Entanglements: environmental justice, self-determination and digital privacy. What happens when a massive technology project is framed as progress, while surrounding communities are left with unanswered questions about contamination, displacement, surveillance and policing? What does transparency mean when decisions have already been made? How do residents push back when the forces reshaping their neighborhoods arrive with the language of innovation, investment and inevitability?
Through clips and reporting from the feature, this panel will bring together organizers, residents, journalists and researchers to talk about the struggle for collective power in a place where the wounds of deindustrialization are still present and the risks of a new industrial future are already being felt.
At its heart, Quantum Entanglements asks: Who gets to decide the future of our neighborhoods? This panel invites audiences into that question, not as an abstraction about technology, but as a grounded conversation about land, health, policing, privacy and the right of communities to shape what comes next.
Panelists:
Damon A. Williams is a movement builder, organizer, hip-hop performing artist, educator and media maker from the South Side of Chicago. He is the Co-Founder of Respair Production & Media and Co-Creator of AirGo, a weekly podcast that reshapes culture toward liberation and creativity. He is also Co-Founder of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, an artistic activist organization born out of support work during the Ferguson uprising, and continues to organize direct actions, cultural programming and popular education through The #BreathingRoom Space. Damon has been named one of TIME Magazine’s 2020 Guardians of the Year, a Field Foundation Leader for a New Chicago, a Margaret Burroughs Fellow and a Power of Cash Narrative Change Fellow.
Daniel Kisslinger is a Chicago-based host, producer and media maker whose work centers dialogue, storytelling and communities challenging power. He is the Co-Founder of Respair Production & Media and Co-Creator of AirGo, a weekly podcast reshaping culture toward liberation and creativity. An Anthem Award-winning filmmaker, Lisagor Award-winning journalist and twice Webby-nominated podcast producer, Daniel has also served as Executive Producer of the Poetry Foundation’s VS podcast and editor of CTU Speaks!, produced by the Chicago Teachers Union.
Moderator: Nashwa Bawab, web producer at In These Times