IMAGINE! Raza Rumi and Austin Bunn in conversation
Friday, October 2, 5:00 p.m. (doors), 5:30 p.m. (program)
Kitchen Theatre Company, 417 W. State St., Ithaca
Free and open to the public

Twenty-five years ago, a group of local writers declared Ithaca a place where persecuted writers and artists could safely speak their minds and exercise their imaginations. Since then, Ithaca City of Asylum has welcomed creative and courageous individuals from China, Iran, Swaziland, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nicaragua, and Russia for two-year residencies. 

Celebrate this 25th anniversary year with IMAGINE!, a series of dialogues on the power of imagination as a public good. Each invites a former program participant and local residents working creatively in other fields to share their perspectives on making art, exercising rights, and imagining a better world for all.

October’s First Friday panel features journalist and memoirist Raza Rumi (writer-in-residence from 2015 to 2017) and writer and filmmaker Austin Bunn. Jonathan Miller, co-director of Story House Ithaca and vice chair of the Ithaca City of Asylum Advisory Board, will moderate.

The lobby bar opens at 5 and the program begins at 5:30 and runs until 7. Admission is free and open to the public but donations will be gladly accepted. Ithaca City of Asylum is a project of the nonprofit Center for Transformative Action.