Shebani Rao is an artist, writer, and researcher in Philadelphia.
For years, organizers in Philly fought against a billionaire-backed Sixer’s Arena in the heart of Chinatown. I created social media graphics for the No Arena in Chinatown Solidarity Group (NACS) for the No Arena campaign. My goal was to make the research base about arenas accessible, fun, and concrete for Philly residents to get the issue trending. (And we won!)
My work highlights the ways that marginalized groups are surveilled, criminalized, and punished in America.
A piece created for an employer about the criminalization of homelessness.
A piece created for an employer about common city codes that implicitly criminalize homelessness.
A piece created for an employer, based on focus groups with people with lived experience of homelessness.
A piece created for an employer about the criminalization of homelessness.
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
From a series I created for Community Justice Exchange that summarizes a talk they gave at Allied Media Conference, “From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition.”
I use creative visuals to make complicated public services work better for people.
A graphic from a research presentation I did at the City of Philadelphia about how to make an effective benefits access tool.
A map of benefits access efforts I created as part of a research project at the City of Philadelphia.
A graphic I made about how to improve the complaints process in a homeless system of care (COC), created for an employer.
A visual summary of takeaways from a focused group I conducted at a homeless shelter, created for an employer.
I created this series to document the ways in which the Indian-American community plays a key role in America’s military industrial complex and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
As Racial Equity Strategist at the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Criminal Justice, I worked to reduce the jail population and racial disparities in incarceration. With input from my colleagues, I created a visual, interactive training for local government and community partners. The training was about how our criminal legal system was intentionally built over decades - so we could better understand how to shrink it it. These are a few of the images I created for the training.
A slide about how the growth in prosecutor fueled mass incarceration in the 1990s.
A slide about wealth inequality post-WWII.
A slide about key local and national events during the civil rights era.
A slide about growing police brutality, white flight, and segregation in Philly in the 1970s.
A slide about the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia.
A slide about how Democrats embraced a “tough-on-crime” stance in the 1990s.
