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Tatiana ChaterjiDaughter of Janet and Swapan, grand-daughter of Elena, John, Bedangani and Rajendra / mother of Lucía Sarojini: Tatiana Chaterji grounds her politics in knowledge of self & ancestors, with deep commitment to dismantling systemic oppression while tending to spiritual, psychic, and interpersonal wounds. She is a cultural worker, artist-facilitator, youth organizer and educator. She seeks alternatives to the criminalization of wrongdoing, using tools from theater-based healing in alignment with restorative and transformative justice.
A survivor of violence and traumatic brain injury, Tatiana brings an intersectional and disability-centered lens to her healing practices in schools, prisons, and communities. She facilitates participatory theater to activate young people and community members, developing cultural resistance strategies with grassroots organizers across social justice movements. As an artist, she aims to creatively render and dream our way out of oppression by centralizing the voices of those who directly experience it. She learned theater in the streets of her community, inspired by Bengali performance protest traditions and liberatory possibilities of ritual and celebration. Tatiana proudly coordinates youth leadership and RJ at Fremont High School in East Oakland. She has initiated programs in arts-based leadership for young women interfacing with the criminal-legal system, foster care, and commercial-sexual exploitation. A long-time Artist-Investigator with California Shakespeare Theater, she leads a residency at the Dublin federal women’s prison in story circles, critical consciousness, and performance. She is currently partnering with California Arts-in-Corrections to coach teaching artists in her curriculum. With Partners for Collaborative Change, she hosts learning laboratories in Theatre of the Oppressed, guides groups through embodied methods of advancing racial equity and authentic, accountable engagement with communities, and offers training in Participatory Action Research. In 2014 she trained youth to design and lead a research project on violence - the Oakland Listening Sessions, where they held exploratory sessions with residents and candidates for city council, culminating in the People’s Public Safety Platform. Tatiana loves to write plays and poetry. You can find her riding her bike, studying new martial arts, and choreographing fight sequences for catharsis and empowerment. She is passionate about the sacred act of witnessing. She spends a lot of timing thinking about repair, reconciliation, accountability, wholeness and wellness. Nourished by working class solidarity, anti-imperialist agitation, and queer feminist revolt, she is humbled to be joining this phenomenal team of freedom fighters. |