Purvi Shah
Purvi Shah seeds healing and transformation through anti-violence advocacy and creating art. She won a South Asian Social Service Excellence Award for her leadership fighting violence against women. During the 10th anniversary of 9/11, with Kundiman, Purvi directed Together We Are New York, a community-based poetry project amplifying Asian American voices. Her most recent book, Miracle Marks (Northwestern UP, 2019), investigates gender violence and sacred survivals.
Ready to Heal / Ready to Grieve, circlefor
Invited community members to reflect on healing and grief. Throughout the day, participants collectively mapped and memorialized on the installation how they encounter and have encountered healing and grief, alongside co-creating their stories of future healing. Interactive installation at the Queens Theatre, Oct.17, 23, & 24, 2021.
Purvi's prize-winning debut, Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press, 2006), plumbs migration and loss.
With Charlene Allen, she currently co-facilitates the NYC Restorative Justice Collaborative to address intimate partner violence with community-centered responses. She led first-hand stakeholder research and systems change facilitation toward authoring the report, Seeding Generations: New Strategies Towards Services for People who Abuse, which prompted a NYC community-based initiative addressing intimate violence.
With Anjali Deshmukh, she creates interactive public art at circlefor.com. Their participatory project, Missed Fortunes, documented pandemic rituals to create poetry with visual art & a community archive for healing.
Purvi relishes sparkly eyeshadow, raucous laughter, and seeking justice.
