Meet The Team

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DIYA, founder/creative director

it was somewhere around this time, two years ago, when i began conceptualizing Meraz. it started off as a journey so lonely - one opinion, one idea, one artform - that when the "one" became a party of ten, minimized to seven, stretched upto 23 and finally came back to seven solid members - we had already tried out so many artforms. we've never labeled Meraz as spoken art centric or music centric or anything as such. we've kept it open to experience, experiment and extract talent from different forms and styles. in 2022, we're taking a bigger step and working on building a strong production team. and we hope to see you on the other side! this post is just a big THANK YOU to every artist, the core team, our audience, and all our friends who have watched us, helped us, and given all the moral support. without you, we wouldn't be completing these two grateful years with an audience of over 500, who made it to atleast one of the four shows that we pulled within this year. thank you.♡

MEESHA, co-founder/production head

in my daydream, i'm an artist. i'm not sitting behind a desk, or studying in a classroom. i'm in a cosy little small corner, doing my own thing. learning yet another new hobby, maybe gardening for real this time. just being able to afford wasting time. to keep responsibility on hold and just bask in the golden hour. the light seeping through every nook and corner of my room. i've got more than 2 cats and this time i don't have to worry about giving them away. i have bags and bags of litter and food for them. oh, and i start reading again. good books. really, really, really good books – the kind of books that are rare picks. and maybe i'd share a copy with a random stranger. leaving my faint presence imprinted in their memory. forever. i pick up my art again. who knows i could be a painter? a genius one at that. finally comprehending color theory and shit. or maybe my art is nonconformist. the kind of one that people write theories and theories about but can never comprehend. maybe i'm an artist who gets on nerves of other artists. or their best friend. or muse? i speak and think in many languages. i have finally learnt arabic. i can finally understand the quran. im praying. im praying. im speaking to Allah. he is so close to me. i'm so close to him. and i know here and the hereafter is with me. i know that the future is there to pick me when it wants, but the present has held my hand. anchored. i know that i'm finally brown without the need of mixing oranges with the blues of my anxiety. i can breathe, i can sleep, and i can dream all that i want.

YOHANIZ, Team and Artist Manager

Where are you Andy Warhol, in all these acres of antiseptics and ointments? Are you hiding under the racks of slacks like a petulant child too cool for his mother? I think I see you, pallid bird with bangs, storking through the wilds of acetaminophen and Vaseline. Or do you linger at the register with etceteras in your eyes, all your discounts and desires belting down the counter? Oh Andy, this is a world made to fall apart. Where is the escalator taking us but down, soup can after soup can, each one of us redundant in the silver gleam?

AAIENAA, Creative Head

I don't know how I got here

SUMAYYA, Artist Coordinator

When it was too late, we realized all the punks here dressed like birds. Ravens in the corner, sipping Cape Cods. Hector, with his Kodachrome Mohawk, surely a parrot. The Italian band in pink leather, flamingos every one. We, mere finches, near the Pac-Man machine making munching noises. We mourned Brad, Spider-Man in the superhero band, who yesterday had flown through his van windshield. Drunk, they claimed. But we knew. If he’d only picked Batman, we’d have seen him flapping under a low moon, his body rising above howling dogs, until we finches shuddered awake at 3.am., chirping for dawn.

DHANUSHREE, Coordinator

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