An evening of powerful and inspiring discussions and performances in response to writer and arts educator, Farzana’s debut piece “Revolutionary Mothering: Staying Alive in Violent Times”.

“Even when our communities don’t have the jargon for it, we know it because we live it, our bodies archiving. A kind of testimony.” – Farzana Khan

In a society dominated by the politics of fear and shame – how are black, brown, Muslim and working class groups forced into silence? What language must be created between ourselves – outside of oppression and beyond hurt – to hear each other and transform the world over?

Farzana Khan is a writer, cultural producer and an award-winning arts educator. Farzana works at Platform, a climate and social justice organisation working across arts, education, research and activism. Farzana has over 10 years background in youth and community work particularly focused on arts-based education projects both in the UK and internationally. Her academic focus has been on radical and transformative education through creativity. She is the co-founder of Healing Justice London, building community repair and self-transformation models based on non-eurocentric methods for communities of colour. Farzana is a Fellow at the International Curatorial Forum and currently curating a Black Activism Map with the Stuart Hall Foundation, mapping cultural resistance in the UK. Her areas of work and writing focus gender and racial justice, self and social transformation to interrupt cycles of harm and violence, community repair and self-healing.

Selina Nwulu is a writer, social researcher and campaigner with a focus on social and environmental justice, education and global politics. She was Spread the Word’s Young Poet Laureate for London 2015-16. Her work has been featured in Vogue, Blavity, i-D and ES Magazine. She has toured with her poetry both nationally and internationally, most notably at Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe and StAnza Poetry Festival, St Andrews and Cúirt Literature Festival in Galway as well as a literary tour in Northern India with the British Council. She has been commissioned by Apples and Snakes, the RSA, A New Direction and the Wellcome Trust. Her debut collection, The Secrets I Let Slip, was published by Burning Eye Books in 2015 and is a Poetry Book Society (PBS) recommendation. She has written for outlets including for The Guardian, Red Pepper, Sable Litmag and the New Humanist.

Azeezat Johnson is a social geographer, interested in developing conversations about Black (and) Muslim geographies which pushes against the racialisation of our bodies as Other to a neutralised White Self. My PhD research (completed at University of Sheffield in 2017) grew from this vein of thinking: it used the clothing practices of Black Muslim women in Britain to explore how the performance of one’s identity changes as we move through and interact with different objects, bodies, gazes and spaces. This pushed against a static reading of Black Muslim women (that are too often constructed as either Black or Muslim). It also moved beyond the hypervisibility of the headscarf within academic and popular debates by pointing to the multitude of different presentations that are used.

Promi Ferdousi is a bilingual poet, singer, writer with Voices That Shake and teacher. Her tag line is BBW; Big Beautiful Wise, she is an ambassador for body positivity, a survivor of state violence, and a champion of mental health.