Zakaria Tourabi, A29, made art inspired by the words of Martin Luther King Jr. as part of the annual university celebration
First-year student Zakaria Tourabi’s winning artwork explores identity, justice, and belonging. Photo: Gabriel Raz Guzman
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared that “we cannot walk alone” as we try to make justice for all people a reality. For Zakaria Tourabi, A29 (BA/BFA), that could have called to mind the leadership and community-building work he himself has done since high school, bringing people together to make change.
But as Tourabi, an SMFA at Tufts combined degree student, sat down to create an artwork for the Tufts MLK Student Voices Award competition, he felt compelled to look within himself, where he found a different definition of “we.”
“This collage gathers the inner companions I carry—ancestral whispers, imagined futures, voices I once resisted, and voices I am only now learning to reclaim—as I search for what justice and belonging feel like in my own body,” he wrote in his submission.
“In this season of my life, liberation is both intimate and collective: a quiet refusal to shrink, and a promise to keep moving forward even when the path bends or blurs,” he wrote.
Tourabi’s collage of photos layered with handwritten notes earned him the distinction of being named this year’s Student Voice Award winner.
Submissions for the annual award can be in the form of essays, poems, spoken word, songs, art, or performances.
This year, students were asked to respond to this quote from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech: “Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy...Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of God’s children. We cannot walk alone. As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The focus of Tourabi’s collage is a photograph he took of a friend, his head wrapped in a white cloth to obscure his facial features. “I wanted to remove the specificity of the face so the figure could hold many identities at once,” Tourabi said. “Covering the head allows more people to see themselves in the image, rather than reading it as a portrait of one individual.”
To the side Tourabi lists some of his writings and artworks, as well as songs and creations by other artists that inspire him.
“The work becomes a living record of that walk, revealing the ongoing, tender labor of making space for every voice I carry, including the one I’m still learning to trust,” he wrote.
Tourabi will receive his award on January 22 at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration coordinated by the Africana Center, Tisch College of Civic Life, the Office for Inclusive Excellence, the University Chaplaincy, the Office of the President and the Office of Student Life.
The annual event is meant to give the Tufts community a time to participate in the ongoing university commitment to racial justice.
This year’s celebration is titled “Lifting Every Voice” after a hymn of the same name by James Weldon Johnson, which will be performed at the event. The event will also feature the student vocal groups Ladies of Essence and S-Factor; the Tufts Wind Ensemble; and Regie Gibson, the first Massachusetts Poet Laureate.
Attendees will see Tourabi’s collage as well as other student submissions, including that of Kassy Abad Gomez, E27, a civil engineering student who was recognized with an honorable mention. Her poem “Skeletons: Dry Bones” imagines society with its disparate agendas as a disjointed body that can only make progress toward justice when brought back together.
“Our generation talks a lot about community, but most days it feels like we’re walking as scattered bones instead of one body,” Gomez wrote in her submission, adding that “real change, whether that’s spiritual, social, political, requires every ‘bone’ connected and moving in the same direction, not just a few loud voices.”
