Laura Hanna discusses the history, practice and values behind The Debt Collective, a budding organization that seeks to challenge the way basic needs are financed and accessed. The Debt Collective’s pilot project, dubbed Corinthian Collective, launched the first student debt strike. Hanna talks about the critical importance – and needs – of collective action in the fight against asymmetrical creditor-debtor relations.
Former Data & Society Fellow Seeta Peña Gangadharan moderated the discussion.
Laura Hanna is a filmmaker, media activist and organizer. She helped launch Strike Debt’s Rolling Jubilee initiative, produced The People’s Bailout Telethon at Le Poisson Rouge, and co-founded the Debt Collective, an economic justice organization that advocates for the rights of debtors. She is director of Gattis, James, Hammer, and Williams, four long form clemency films about death row inmates in Indiana, Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Hanna co-directed the Perpetual Peace Project film series installed in the New Museum, ICA, Goldsmiths, Utrecht University, and the International Peace Institute. She was commissioned to produce short films for The Venice Biennale of Architecture with Kyong Park and Ted Smith. Hanna has directed and produced shorts for The Nation, OR Books, The New Press, MoMA, Creative Time, SEIU, Art Review, The New School and Slought Foundation.
About Databites
Data & Society’s “Databites” speaker series presents timely conversations about the purpose and power of technology, bridging our interdisciplinary research with broader public conversations about the societal implications of data and automation.