Dear friends: Good evening.

What a joy it is to be here with you—to celebrate this moment, this threshold, this incredible milestone. A rare kind of brightness in a time that feels dark and uncertain—especially for artists.

Two weeks ago, many artists received an email from the NEA announcing a shift in funding priorities. The message, slightly summarized, but not exaggerated—said: “The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy to fund projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity, as prioritized by the President. We are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities. The NEA will now prioritize projects that: celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful. Your project does not align with these priorities. The NEA will no longer offer funding for it.”

This is terrifying. But not surprising. Russian theatre artists started receiving letters like this after 15 years of Putin’s rule. Some adapted. They learned to frame their work in government-friendly language—then did what they wanted anyway. Others refused state funding entirely. Some stayed and fought. Many left. 

What’s happening here is following the same script. Only the timeline is different. It didn’t take 15 years. It took only 100 days.

My mother was born in Ukraine. My father is a Georgian Jew. I left Russia in 2000—the year Putin came to power—and over the last 25 years watched how great art back home was slowly, deliberately silenced. What’s happening here now feels like déjà vu. 

I was asked to speak today about an impossible topic—the role and responsibility of the artist in today’s world. This fractured, exhausted world—a world that keeps turning to artists, expecting us to fix it. I’ll start on a pessimistic note—but I promise to end with optimism. So bear with me please.

I wanted to start with a quote from the “Object to the Concrete Intervention,” by a Vienna-based artist collective, WochenKlausur:

It would be wrong, in a society in which every discussion of basic principles has been lost, to expect that something like art can make decisive changes. Folk songs don’t rescue whales and ‘Stop AIDS’ posters don’t stop the spread of the disease… Did Picasso’s Guernica do anything for the residents of that city? It remains a monument, a ritual of grief and an admission that the power to affect anything with art is limited.

The realization that art can do very little to make the world a better place…isn’t exactly the most uplifting message for a graduation speech. It’s a heavy thought—one that could easily be my final line in this keynote.

But I was invited to give this speech by dear colleagues I deeply respect—who are probably now thinking, “God, I hope I didn’t make a mistake inviting Irina.” And they asked me to speak for 15 minutes. So I’ll continue.

Because—despite this realization—I still hold a belief, more wishful thinking than certainty, that art, in its own small way, might help fix a world that feels completely out of joint.

Staggering inequality. Millions forced into migration. Ecological collapse already underway. Immigration judges removed for showing compassion. Attorneys silenced. International students afraid to protest—and those who do, wear masks, not for Covid. But to avoid being identified.

Fear. Paranoia. Spreading. Infecting the arts.

So, what do we as artists do when the world begins to collapse—and the country we live in starts slipping into dictatorship at the speed of lightning?

We do not retreat. We do not hide. We do not narrow our focus only to what feels manageable: our families, our friends, our immediate communities. We don’t go to bed with the NEA’s new rules. We don’t make art to escape.

And we certainly don’t make art just to entertain.

In my most wishful thinking, there is only one answer: We resist.

The question isn’t just what we, as artists, do—but what kind of resistance our art brings into the world.

That’s not a slogan. It’s a responsibility. How do you resist, how do you meet this moment with your art?

I believe you won’t find the answer by perfecting your technique as an actor or musician. And you won’t find the answer in spaces where art feels safe, celebrated, or familiar. You learn from places where resistance is urgent—from people who have no choice but to resist. Because resistance begins with understanding what we’re actually resisting.

A couple weeks ago, while researching my new play Notice to Appear, I observed an immigration court hearing at 26 Federal Plaza. A 34-year-old man from Guatemala stood before the judge. He had lived here for eleven years. His father was killed and his sister raped in front of him by gangs, who also threatened his life. He now lives in Queens with his wife and young son, who was born here. He works in a restaurant. He pays taxes. His community adores him.

But years ago, he got a DUI ticket. Police found a beer bottle in the back seat of his car. He wasn’t drinking, but it didn’t matter. It went on his record. And two weeks ago, at his asylum hearing, the immigration judge said that—even though she believed his story, even though she agreed he would likely be prosecuted if deported, even though his removal would devastate his American child—she had to deny asylum. Because, she said, he was not a good citizen.

Since then, I’ve been asking myself and today I ask you: What does it mean to be a good citizen of this land? And what does it mean to be a good artist on this land? The judge had a narrow, rigid, and bureaucratic definition of a good citizen. Maybe being a good artist means to expand definitions?

Last year, I created a large-scale educational platform and theatre performance called SpaceBridge. It brought together 11 refugee children from Russia—whose families fled because of their anti-war, anti-Putin beliefs and now live in shelters in New York—and eight American-born children.

Creating this work wasn’t easy.  It was my act of resistance. Even before we began, the premise unsettled some people. Why center Russian refugee children during Russia’s ongoing, despicable full-scale invasion of Ukraine? Why tell the stories of children from the “aggressor” nation? Some of these children were already severely bullied in school—called fascists simply because of where they were from.

On the surface, the criticism sounded like a question of timing or focus. But underneath, something far more disturbing was at play—a growing belief that we, as human beings, not politicians, had lost the ability to hold empathy for more than one group of children at a time.

And then came the performance. And what happened onstage—what the children built, imagined, shared—cut straight through every label placed on them. The audience wasn’t watching politics. They were watching a world: a strange, joyful, collaborative world the Russian and American children had imagined together and invited us into.

In that world, an imaginary TV show taught newcomers how to survive in America. The immigration judge and ICE attorney were reimagined as beautiful puppets. American children wrote real letters to real immigration officials, explaining why their new friends deserved to stay:

• • Because Alisa, 13, paints like no one else.

• • Because Lily, 12, is a phenomenal performer with the best sense of fashion.

• • Because Artem, 11, does a Michael Jackson impression so good it should be illegal to deport him.

SpaceBridge wasn’t political theatre in the traditional sense. It was a world reimagined by children. It was their act of resistance.

And in that act, they were doing something many adults have forgotten how to do: They were exercising radical imagination. Not as a luxury. Not as an escape. A survival.

When children who have been displaced, dismissed, or disbelieved envision a world where they belong—even just for a moment—they are doing something profoundly political.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe resistance doesn’t always sound like protest. Maybe it sounds like children laughing together. Maybe it looks like joy. Or care. Or a world rebuilt from the ground up. Maybe what we need now isn’t louder politics onstage, but bolder acts of imagination.

Please don’t get me wrong. I believe—deeply—that art must reflect its time, its political struggles, current events and debates through the work we make.

But let me finally say what I came here to plead with you: The role of the artist is not just to reflect the world we live in. Not just to “shed light,” “raise awareness,” or “spark conversation” (all of which, by the way, I read in nearly every grant application, fellowship proposal, and student submission I review). Because if awareness were enough—if reflection alone could heal—then why is so much still broken?

The role of the artist today is not to simply mirror society, but to challenge it—by reimagining and modeling a different one.

I am here to ask you: What kind of world do you want to live in?

Find your answer. Find your vision. And then—make that vision: visible. Tangible. Embodied. Onstage.

And finally: Inject every audience member with just enough of that vision, that imagined world, that they begin to see it too. Want it. Demand it. Debate how to get there. Because how can we fight for radical change if we can’t even imagine the world in which that change might take place?

Shakespeare didn’t just write histories or tragedies. He created new worlds. Worlds where women spoke freely. Where fools told the truth. Where exiles became kings and queens.

Shakespeare wasn’t great because he reflected the world he lived in—he was great because he gave his audiences an alternative to it. A place where they could imagine themselves—and then return to their own lives with new possibility, new courage, new direction.

But today, unlike in Shakespeare’s time, it’s not just expression that feels under threat—it’s our ability to imagine something better. If we want to help heal what’s broken, we must first believe, and help others believe, that another way of living is possible.

That’s what art is for. To help people to imagine that possibility. To give them a reason to hope again.

And so: As you consider what your next piece should reflect—what urgency you should shed light on—don’t worry if someone else might do it first, or do it better.

Don’t just push forward blindly.

Pause.

Take that urgency—and reimagine it for all of us.

Stretch it.

Twist it.

Make it strange.

Make it bold.

Make it unruly. 

Let it refuse categories.

Let it pull us somewhere unexpected.

Build a world no one saw coming. Not to shock us—but to make us feel what’s been missing. Go, go, go—with complete courage and total commitment. Go all the way. Do the impossible: Resist—with your imagination.

Because if we stop imagining something beyond what is, if we stop building strange, impossible, visionary worlds, if we stop making the impossible visible, resistance has nowhere left to go.

Because the moment we give up on impossible worlds, we surrender the only thing that might still save this one. As Augusto Boal said: “It is forbidden to walk on the grass. It is not forbidden to fly over the grass.”

Thank you for being a wishful thinker, for believing with me for a moment that art can make the world a better place. Thank you for the risk, the rigor, and the care you’ve brought to the New School. And for what you’ll carry with you when you leave it. And let me congratulate you on this significant milestone. Salute to you all.