Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 89

A Place of Seeing
Caitlin Nasema Cassidy
Caitlin Nasema Cassidy was born in a suburb of Boston and raised between there and the Arab
world. She is the daughter of seven-sea-sailing hippies Tom Cassidy Jr., the eldest of a large Irish
Catholic family, and Joan Kelley, the youngest of a Lebanese and Syrian family. Caitlin fell in love
with the performing arts early in life, and grew up studying acting, piano, voice, and dance after
school. She received her BA from Georgetown in government and Arabic, and was a recipient of the
Theatre and Performance Studies Department award for Excellence Across the Performing Arts.
Upon graduating from GU, she journeyed to London, where she earned a master’s degree in acting
from East 15 and completed a residency at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Caitlin has designed
and implemented theatre-based curricula in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Puerto Rico, served as
Language and Culture Fellow with AMIDEAST, and devised performance for UNESCO’s World
Theatre Conference as well as India’s International Theatre Festival. Caitlin has performed at
Williamstown, Chautauqua, Berkshire Playwright’s Lab, Disney World, Lincoln Center, The Lark,
and Playwrights Horizons, as well as with Epic Theatre Ensemble, Pig Iron, The Civilians, Synetic,
and Noor. She is Co-Artistic Director of LubDub.Theatre Company.
Bearing witness, particularly in the context of suffering, is an action with
great consequence in the world. I firmly believe that attention forms the
foundation for robust and equitable social systems. To bear witness is a
revolutionary act, and to be witnessed our most fundamental human desire.
The idea of witness seems inextricably linked to the question of intervention,
which is to say the question of responsibility. Does the act of witnessing
require moral conscience? Silence? Objectivity?
I would like to argue that bearing witness is the most profound form of
intervention there is.
The act of bearing witness is distinct from that of witnessing, which itself is
distinct from that of observing. Observation does not entail the responsibility
of consciousness. In order to move from observation to witnessing, an
attempt at connection and understanding must be made. And to travel from
witnessing to bearing witness demands full, embodied
presence and compassion.
In today’s world—a world in which relationships are
increasingly mediated by ever-shrinking screens, in which
we too often fail to acknowledge the existence of other
people in the flesh, and in which we are encouraged (not
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