ShowUp Like Her Podcast: Episode 1

Title: Living away from home as students

How do we navigate life as young Bangladeshi students living abroad? What does it mean to ShowUp as students in today's world? How do we represent ourselves as Bangladeshis? In this episode host Asna Towfiq and Ayonti Mahreen Huq (AMH) speak about the recent crisis in Bangladesh where students are being attacked, killed, arrested for standing up for a more equal and fair system. This is huge and in Bangladesh’s history students have always played an important role whether it was the language movement or the country’s independence in 1971. For those of us who live abroad, and specially for every Bangladeshi student this is an extremely difficult time and so in the first episode of ShowUp like her we decided to share our thoughts on what is happening currently in Bangladesh.

Moving abroad at a young age can be scary to say the least and learning to being responsible for our actions in a new country and culture is a life challenging experience which can either make or break an individual. We talked about ways to navigate these challenges. As more and more students, especially female students are moving abroad to study – this is an important topic to have more conversations on.

About the Guest: Ayonti is a Bangladeshi- multimedia artist currently residing in Toronto,

Canada. Her work reflects both her critique of society and her understanding of the world and beyond, both real and imaginary. She moved away from Bangladesh as a student, and since then have been navigating life through her curiosity, openness and positivity. Using both traditional and digital tools, Ayonti creates vibrant and surreal illustrations, sculptures, and animation. Her work is heavily guided by the female gaze and the desire to be playful and experimental. Ayonti is also an ambassador for Bangladeshi women artists and is a big supporter for representation of marginalized groups.

Listen to the full episode here