Society & Culture
We start this new season of the @butterchickenpodcast off with a bang. Maria Qamar, illustriously known as @hatecopy, joins the #butterchickenboys @DJSharad and @DJJuicy for an incredible conversation at her solo NYC exhibit, FRAAAANDSHIP. They talk about the process of becoming an artist from within a desi family, the cyclical and long term effects of forming online and physical communities, and the paramount importance of promoting women’s education. Maria was born in Pakistan to parents of Bangladeshi and Gujarati descent and moved to Canada in the year 2000. She started drawing from a young age, and grew up reading comic books, which helped her realize that she was a visual learner. Maria’s work is influenced by what she realized about society after moving to and living in the West. Issues of policing women’s bodies and lifestyles form key tropes in her work. An important message that we took away from this discussion is the significance of putting your creations out there even at the risk of no one seeing it. We agree with Maria that the more visible you make this kind of work, the better the future will be for our culture. We round off the episode with a set of rapid-fire questions from @browngirlmag and then opened the floor to questions from our amazing audience. @hatecopy is a force to be reckoned with, and we can’t wait to see what’s next!