Events

Event details

We’re throwing a party with music, food, drinks, and you! Mizna’s celebrating recent publications, programs, and people. We’ve been building a space of vision, shelter, and resistance and we want to enjoy it with our community. We’ll be spotlighting the Kindred and Translational issues, the Gaza Folio and 20th Arab Film Fest, Baba’s x Mizna reading series, a new Mizna Fellowship, and more. Special guests: Muna Abdulahi, Tarik Dobbs, Malak Haw + Nikki Luna.

DJ: bousayha
Food + Drink: Qahwah House + Batroun Mountain Wines
Venue Partner: Minnesota Museum of American Art
Support from: Cultural STAR Grant Program

WHEN: Wednesday,  July 29, 2026 at 7pm
WHERE: Minnesota Museum of American Art, 350 Robert St N St. Paul MN 55101
RSVP HERE

Parking is available in the following locations:  

• Paid meter parking on the streets surrounding the museum, most reliably on Kellogg Blvd., one block away from the M  
• Jackson Street Ramp – enter off Jackson Street north of 4th Street  
• Lowertown Parking Ramp – enter off Jackson Street, between 4th Street and Kellogg Blvd  
• First National Bank Ramp – enter on 5th Street near Minnesota Street  
• Union Depot – enter off Kellogg Boulevard near Wacouta Street  
• Kellogg Square – enter off Kellogg Blvd near Robert Street  
• Cray Plaza – enter off 5th Street past Jackson Street 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

bousayha is a multidisciplinary artist and dj who believes in the power of sensory, playful and collective work to make liberation irresistible.

Muna Abdulahi is a Somali American poet and performance artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work has appeared through the Poetry Foundation, Button Poetry, and the Minnesota History Center, among others. She is a recipient of the Fredrick Bock Prize.

Tarik Dobbs is assistant professor of creative writing (poetry) at Southwest Minnesota State University. Dobbs’s poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, and Poetry Magazine, among others. Dobbs is the author of Nazar Boy (2024), winner of the 2026 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry, and Dearbornistan (forthcoming), both from Haymarket Books.

Malak Haw is a writer from Gaza, currently living in the United States. She holds a degree in English Literature from Bridgewater State University, where she works as a writing consultant. Writing connects her to the world, as it is rooted in language and memory. She believes storytelling is a significant expression of Palestinian life, culture, and the richness of everyday experience.

Nikki Luna is a Lebanese-American genderqueer poet, visual artist, makeup artist, and archival researcher. Nikki’s work with poetry and archives has included organizing the Mizna Writing Collective, teaching writing workshops with Querencia Press, serving as a judge for the Minnesota Book Award, performing public poetry readings with Mizna and No Borders at Minneapolis People’s Pride, and researching in the archives of the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois, and the Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture in College Station, Texas. When they were little, Nikki dreamed of writing books, creating art, and being a queer mermaid. She honors those desires through literary community-building, genre-fluid artistic practices, and growing amongst chosen family.