Wild tongue by Digital Writers' Festival

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iej ńsk igdy e g an ory i ab lemion jskiej c ś y la p no lud in. Te as bryt odna i a m l m zie tór Ku dcz nej nacji ne po tka, k ciałaby ny n e h io an er yz ng suw urru skradz imigr ziemi c starsz ze a n m o i e j k y iń ws o zon g i W tały on siaj. Ja dzione członk ła i za r o zi i ra tw un by os tał s nwurr iem - z ne do d a tej sk onków o jest, s o z o a z n zł ch. T zine ri, Bo oich la c zuw ości y Ten undje się sw tki odc należn unku d rzyszł ska p r iń c y u y i u W rzekł rej sk i prz o sza zych Kulp a g z j u s ó j e z t a nia nie zji, k e dom łębsz aźnie sh) A eri , be, n a j a g r i i d j l e c w t n a t a o u t n u , n a P z i r Wu ena ba bena b bo poc yrazy byłych ńska. ( a a ł e z m bo b e e bw yć w kiej: du mb ryg nga ekom a mba e mom wase złoż ygeńs ia abo a i r e min yen ma ab nje abo ie ziem e o be ba pe, n O ka na ba oyamb o d n z e . g e s e d o n m n b a ę e a b b ea, mb eka a no i am ue m um

w d m ik am ad ba ng su e ola so ube. N e o la diwut iniang de, di bo, na ' a t d a n o d l b m n e m a o me eko ak ma m'a e to e'e se s ba n lin. Di tim ti a ba ba longu pe o b ube ye ba yen m wa de 'e, me ed di ,n Ku "Di bo'a e o be kalati aso m e men ea. Na ayabe p , m b w eko ende ba nin o mu e, e ta buind ba na y i y ba m bayed ba po o nje a na o mwem e u a ia b b nde o u ben boa ple s bui o dia d ." s o m peu ncetre es , a l m e o b o o s u b s i b . d i k e a o m t s o s on o b en eko o bola ia W. D ana Bi erre a leur tocht de t i s y n n r s le d au ct ya gaba kiele dA sur respe uples us issu tait, n é é e no gue o icia an r e o é n sp éc r n ui otr tou la) Pat a ét ons n tres de d’entre r ce q ude et e n y a zi s pa ance ceux er su ratit venir (Du g tre y a u r

o x o fo re n ue n lin. N ent au nt. Pou leurs ns not vers u q s u r m o n i o é K r e t r t o i l ba iss off ga ari on le l nna la nati r. Et e u qui hent à , nous a solid o c l e s o herc tu us r ri de t fu ine, ene ans c “No undje sents e à ce z s, qui Aborig mble d r é Wu és, pré tribué réfugi re des r ense e s n r s u o pa ont c ion o s la te ravaill r t t i u a à qu migr oujo ons t e l’im t sera engag ch) e s t e es s nou ” (Fr n . nou lonial o c dé 4

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Wild Tongue ‘Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out’ (Anzaldúa, Borderlands, p. 76). Azja, Timmah, Tania, Valeska, Mónica and Nilmini met through our love of Women of Colour feminist literature. One day, on the Yarra River bank, over coffee and wine, we lamented the dominance of white neoliberal corporate feminism and pulled out our books we loved, and (secretly) carried around in our bags. That is where our collective energy sparked! I approached the Australian Women and Gender Studies Association to run an event called “ Loving Feminist Literature”, for International Women’s Day, they liked it but suggested I apply next year. We decided to run the event anyway, and the collective officially came into existence with our first live reading at Lentil as Anything in Preston. The AWGSA is funding our IWD event in 2017…This is our call! We work as an intersectional collective with porous boundaries. We celebrate the intellectual, philosophical, spiritual, and political contributions of feminists of colour. We resist the erosion of feminist studies in Tertiary Institutions. We wish for academic feminist texts to be accessible to general audiences. We aim to create a safe, convivial intellectual platform for building feminist solidarity across race, sexuality and class. We don’t like corporate liberal feminist network breakfasts! We love books! (and cats, dogs, each other and you!) This zine’s title Wild Tongue was inspired by a queer Chicana activist and writer Gloria Anzaldúa, whose work Borderlands. La Frontera: The New Mestiza was one of the books carried in the bag by one of the collective members. In one of the chapters she talks about the attempts by the education system to eradicate the distinctive features of the Chicano students’ forms of expressions and to get rid of their accents.

Anyone identifying with colonised or subjugated people knows that robbing people of anguage is one of the most insidious forms of violence. ‘Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out’ (Anzaldúa, Borderlands, p. 76). This collection of essays, poems, prose and artworks is written almost entirely in English – the language of the coloniser responsible for the death and devaluing of so many of our mother tongues. The language of the dominant imposed on us daily; the language we also have to rely on to build intersectional feminist solidarity across the globe. However, we do not stop to search for creative and critical ways to subvert the use of the coloniser’s tongue. For this publication we timidly asked our contributors to write their Acknowledgements of Country in their mother tongues as a way to eliminate English as a proxy between the original and ongoing custodians of this unceded land and people from migrant and refugee backgrounds who currently explore home and life here. The response we got was overwhelming. Wild Tongue was created, compiled and edited by Timmah Ball and Azja Kulpińska. Nilmini Fernando curated the night of live performances under the same title, which was a part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2016. As an independent publication we acknowledge the creative, intellectual and emotional labor expended by those who trusted us and contributed. I would also like to thank Sophie Utikal and Magdalena Fische whose incredible photo became our cover! We seek to find ways to provide further payment for this work in the future, to create a cultural landscape, supporting women of colour, queer, nonbinary, gender diverse, Indigenous, and multilingual voices. To stay in touch, get involved, or start a project please contact us at: wildtonguezine@gmail.com We hope this zine will bring you joy and maybe even inspire you to contribute to the next volume. All feedback is welcome. Content warning: Sections in this zine contain themes around racism, misogyny, queerphobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, sexual themes, state violence, colonisation etc. Take care while reading through the contents and if you are triggered or affected by anything contained in this zine, please talk to someone you trust. We also wish to advise Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander readers that the zine contains references to people who have passed away.

10 LIMBO Vicky Tran

11 DRESSCODES (un)limited Johanna Couvée 15 THE IDEA OF AUSTRALIA Tania Cañas 18 LINDER/ PRIVATE RITUALS Shauna Osborne 20 A WOMAN Kylie Supski 26 VA KA HINA Hope Mathumbu

31 TRUE KNOWLEDGE EXISTS IN KNOWING YOU KNOW NOTHING Adriana Bito

TABLE OF CONTENTS wild tongue

34 SCAR TREES Meiki

37 NOT DEAD YET Timmah Ball 38 MAKING MARKS Nicole Monks

39 YOUR BORDER IS NOT MY BOUNDRY Kaytsen Jama 40 WE NEED A NEW FASHION LEXICON! Tanveer Ahmed 41 ACADEMIC EXCHANGE Marisa Cornejo 42 CULO CON ORGULLO! Sophie Utikal/ Photo by Magdalena Fischer

44 OUR FRAGILE SMILES IMAGES/TEXT Dawn Iris Dangkomen 49 TRANSGRESSIVE DATA Nilmini Fernando 55 IN MEMORIAM Eleanor Jackson 56 THE RECLEMATION Sangeetha Thanapal 59 A ROOM OF ONES OWN -MY FEMINIST MANIFESTO Lian Low 62 PHILOSOPHY IN THE FEMINIST BEDROOM Margaret Mayhew 66 GOD IS A BLACK WOMBAN Sista Zai Zanda 75 WRITE LIKE A MIGRANT Azja Kulpińska

Dresscodes (un)limited Johanna Couvée

Why imposing values on the beachwear of an already discriminated group is self-destructive in an identity-puzzled Europe. We’ve all seen the images of a woman sitting on the beach in Nice surrounded by policemen, coercing her to partly uncover her body by removing her tunic. Ahead of next year’s presidential election in France, the spotlight shines on politicians fighting over a potential burkini ban. But have we given a moment’s thought to the significance of those images and the subsequent ideological controversy between the imaginary ‘East’ and ‘West’? Just pause for a minute and think about what happened on the 23rd of August in the South of France, a country which claims to govern its country according to modern values originating from the French Revolution, liberté (freedom), égalité (equality) and fraternité (brotherhood). French police publicly humiliated a woman, while bystanders passively gazed at the scene. That same day, another woman wearing a headscarf was fined on a beach in Cannes, because she was not wearing “an outfit respecting good morals and secularism.” The French ruling elite believes it is “necessary, appropriate and proportionate” to ban the burkini or full-body swimwear in order to prevent public disorder after several terrorist attacks throughout the past year. I do not know how you interpret this, but I cannot take it lightly. French liberals shout louder than ever that men and women are equal in France, while portraying the French Revolution as the crib of feminism. In their minds wearing a ‘burkini’ does not reflect French values of ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’. Prime Minister Manuel Valls claimed the burkini to be “a symbol of the enslavement of women”. It seems like certain French people assume that misogyny is no longer an issue in Fance and conveniently accuse Muslim men of a ‘regressive’ and ‘oppressive’ attitude toward women. Banning the burkini is seen as a benevolent act of western France liberating female Muslim victims.

If we argue that it is wrong for the government of Iran or Saudi Arabia to police women’s mode of dress, because it violates bodily autonomy, then it is also wrong to do it in France. A woman’s dress should be a woman’s choice and therefore a burkini ban should be rejected. We also need to acknowledge that sexism is not all equal and often ignores the built-in privilege of whiteness. For instance why are these measures focused on Muslim women and not applied to nuns, who also cover themselves? As Audre Lorde puts it, “The oppression of women knows no ethnic or racial boundaries (...), but that does not mean it is identical within those differences” . All issues of sexism are valid, but when they’re being addressed, we cannot ignore differences of e.g. race, class or (perceived) religion between women. Muslim women do not enjoy the same opportunities, resources and representation in media or leadership positions as white women. In the labour market, they are not only subject to discrimination based on gender and ethnicity but also religion.. Discrimination happens on the basis of perceptions of ‘Muslimness’, supposedly indicated by the clothing of Muslim women. In France, civil servants are prohibited by law from wearing ‘religious symbols’ in respect of secularism and neutrality of the public service. This has significant implications in terms of job opportunities, because the number of jobs in French public service is around 5.6 million while 26 million people are employed in France. The French thus exclude Muslim women who wear a headscarf from more than 21% of all potential jobs that they might aspire to in France. Or in the UK for example, Pakistani women are asked almost 4 times more frequently about marriage and family aspirations in job interviews than white women. Moreover, as a group, Muslim women and men are exposed to a larger continent-wide surveillance and negative hypervisibilisation. The burkini debate is part of this, just like the implementation of bans on niqabs, hijabs, long skirts, or the control over the construction of minarets. In an increasingly Islamophobic environment, reinforced by recent extremist security threats in Western Europe, the discriminative way people look at and talk about Muslims has worsened. The woman who was fined in Cannes was confronted with people shouting ‘go home.’

In order to stay in ‘free’ and ‘equal’ France, one must prove one’s ‘Frenchness’ by a public abandonment of all that is interpreted as a reference to origins or convictions. And those who refuse to do so are denied the possibility to fulfil certain positions, to build a sound place of worship and now to go to the beach. “What is the next step?” demands Linda Alem from Paris who chooses to wear a veil, “are we going to wear crescents to be recognized?” Arguably the restrictive regulation of and discriminative discourse on Muslim bodies is not only a problem in France today, but woven into Europe’s past and present. The current stream of policies controlling the lives of Muslims and the lack of (anti- racist) responses from white feminists inscribes itself in a long history of repression and war against Muslim populations. During the Spanish Inquisition, Muslims were forced to publicly consume pork to show their secession from Halal requirements. Throughout the long French colonial period, ‘inferior’ ‘backward’ Muslims were forced ‘to civilise’ according to French standards and struggles for independence in colonies in North Africa with large Muslim populations (e.g. Algeria) were among the bloodiest and most repressed. Muslim populations from ex-colonies or refugees living in France today, face the fact that imperial dehumanising way of thinking about Muslims has not been critically examined least of all changed. Since the structures and relationships of colonialism remain operative, it’s not a surprise they reappear in today’s political discussions and regulations. In contemporary France restraining policies like the burkini-ban also include economic instability, immigration, the Iraq intervention, civil war in Syria, and a Europe that struggles with its own identity. Right-wing exit-EU-minded parties put the EU under pressure and question who belongs and who should be kept out. The situation is antagonised by several terrorist attacks, demanding the ruling elite to demonstrate muscular measures of “control” over potential suspects. But the repressive policies aimed at Muslim subjects undermine the principles of individual freedom and equality, and lead to more isolation and segregation

When I look at the situation, I see panic, fear and weakness. I see a ‘West’ that desperately fights an ideological battle with an imagined ‘East’ by replacing dialogue with coercion and inspiration with intimidation. Western Euorpe has lost the courage to think and connect. It is easier to blame Isis or women in full-coverage swimsuits than putting its own dehumanising practices into question. Western Europe lacks a contemporary vision on how it should evolve. Now more than ever it is crucial to profoundly question and redefine claims of freedom and equality. To address continuing violence and injustice France and Western Europe must start to build sustainable bridges with Muslins and other minority communities. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, California: Crossing Press Šeta, Đ. (2016). Forgotten Women: The impact of Islamophobia on Muslim Women. Brussels: European Network against Racism Dremeaux, L. (2016, September 2). ‘The Way People Look at Us Has Changed’: Muslim Women on Life in Europe. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/world/europe/burkini-ban-muslim-women.html

The Idea of Australia Tania Cañas

This piece is about how our community’s sanctuary is currency subject to reproducing white Australia ideology and bureaucracy. How we become coopted as extensions of ongoing colonial, genocidal violence. We refuse to subscribe to such lies. We acknowledge indigenous sovereignty and seek sanctuary under this sovereignty. First performed at Sovereignty + Sanctuary, a First Nations and Refugee Solidarity Event (RISE and WAR- Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance)

I learnt about a sunburnt country, A land that sweeps and hides its pain Of rugged mountain rangers, Of droughts and flooding rains, I was told to love the racism to accept the colonial gaze. Her beauty and her terror You see, I meet Australia, through the imperial frame. I learnt about a federated country,

a land with boundless plains to share

“but don’t go against the grain”

Of the rugged aussie battler but not all the battles

Ascribed an imperial identity, and expected to portray

Of droughts and flooding rains,

You see I learnt to perform Australia, through the imperial frame.

Of green and gold for the wattle I learnt to come Waltzing Matilda was taught just English, just enough for the factory or to clean

Groomed to the tune of Advance Australia Fair We are here today because we refuse to be used to advance the white Australia affair.

of Edward Barton, Author Phillip and of course the British queen to praise historical criminals see the beauty, not the terror and see the terror as beauty as if were one and the same. You see, I saw Australia, through the imperial frame. I was told to celebrate, forget, assimilate Especially on Australia day “We’ll treat you as one of us, as white”- but only just for that day. To think using settler logic 16 Of droughts and flooding rains,

Linder

Shauna Osborn I want to trace you upon acid free paper, paint your skin in luminous hues of yellows, gold, and blues

Private Rituals Shauna Osborn

between landscape and the female body: earth sand stones plants flowers blood a silhouette

Move the star tattoos into unstable constellation patterns along your sculpted abs with soft charcoal and my coarse finger

digging moulding carving space

Capture your androgynous coif & the classic squinty-eyed bravado that made a young man named Brando a marvelled idol

visible & tactile

Soften your dry, pouty lips with bronzed corals, smudged graphite, and honey flavoured kisses

female force after-image within the womb

Tear you, then fold you carefully into my empty pants pocketâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;my Swedish born enigma in a sweat stained sweater

optical indexes memory-traces ancient stone circles individual desires

between the body and the land: one obsessive act

splendid imperative like Cezanneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s apples-satisfied not static subjective earth what desire

A Woman. Kylie Supski

“So call me what you will, take from me, but a woman is electricity, an artist, the lightning’s brilliant play.” —Tanya Louise Hendy.

I, I am a transgender woman. You look at me as an abnormality, a broken program. You not only look, you ask others “Look, look at him-her-it, a transgender woman”. No. No I do not, I do not wish to fit, fit into your “perfect world”. Now I know. I will never, nonever be you. I, I am a woman, a woman in a body, a body of a man. No, you do not, you do not have to interrogate me, to prove that. I know that for myself.

Even you, a woman with so many, so many words, words I have listen to. Even you did not, did not see me as “her”. You saw, a transgender woman, “reminding you of fears and doubts in your heart.” Am I not a “real”, a “real” woman to you ? Now I know. I will never, nonever be you. And you, almost my mother, so your words hurt, hurt even more. I know, what you meant, when you said “Your selfish choice was yours, and you will have to live with it, live with it for better or worse. Only time will tell.” Do you ? Do you really think your God will punish, punish me ?

Now I know. I will never, nonever be you.

Now I know. I will never, nonever be you. Would my mother understand ? Would she welcome me ? Me as a woman. Me as her daughter. I think she would. What if she always, always imagined, imagined me as a girl. And those long afternoons she spent, spent with me stretching freshly washed sheets, teaching me to cook, and do needlework, was her way, her way of telling, telling me “I wish you were a girl”. If she could, could see, see me now, but she— (will never, nonever will.) Now I know. I will never, nonever be you. I, I have missed so much.

A first date, with a boy or a girl. Will I. Will I find comfort, comfort in being a boy, a man, a woman in the same life. You said “Lucky you not many, not many can experience that”. But will I. Will I ever again, hold a hand in my hand ? Or am I, too scared ? Or is it, too late ? Now I know. I will never, nonever be you. I, I sometimes, sometimes just want, want so much to hurt, to hurt myself, and spend all day crying, crying to forget, I will never, nonever— bear a child. You said “You already have one”.

But, it is not the same, as to bear, bear a child, a child inside you, and open, open yourself to show, show your childâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a whole new world.

feel any regrets ?

No. No I will never, nonever have that.

I, I just, just wanted, wanted to be, to be myselfâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Now I know. I will never, nonever be you. I, I look, look through my almost, almost transparent, transparent hands,

Now I know. I will never, nonever be you. But perhaps, I never, nonever wanted, wanted to be you.

A Woman. A Woman. A woman.

ï¿¼

‘TRUE KNOWLEDGE EXISTS IN KNOWING THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING.’ An extract from HONESTY Adriana Bito So! We don’t know anything, but we do have needs and thoughts gushing inside of us! The best we can do is trust our own experience of life, but also trust others on theirs! It is really important for a group of people interacting, working or living together, to be confident about who is in charge of what, while assuring their own role in the best way. That’s how I realised that many times in my life I had been overstressed because I felt like I had to know everybody’s knowledge, as much as themselves. Or, at least, try to learn it as fast as they were exposing it to me. Without realising the depth of this knowledge, and most of all, the enormous amount of time responsible for it. Although, all the analyses I made with the Psychotherapist made me realise that the Adriana I am at a given time, is the result of each single second that I have been living and experimenting in my life. All the sounds, that I have been hearing from my Mum’s womb, all the way to the feedback that I got for this first book I am writing now... All the lights and things that I have seen, from the first finger in front of my eyes to check my newborn sight... To the beautiful Melbournian blue, and sometimes even electrically pink-violet, sky that I can see clearly now that I am not deep in depression anymore... All the flavours that I have tasted, despite my very limited gastronomic open mindedness... From the miondo* that I used to take with me to kindergarden in Paris, to the Australian vegemite, and these Balinese crackers with fish flavour that surprised my timid tongue recently... And yes, this is how far my culinary exploration can go! Don’t even mention the idea of tasting French escargots...

All the invisible data my very sensitive nose could get, from my Sisters early breath when we were still used to play dumb and blow in each other’s nose, in the fresh morning... To the amazing smell of my favourite Italian perfume, or even the comforting well-known; and barely conscious; smell of my Mum’s natural perfume... as well as my Lover’s one... All the touch feelings, often impersonal or even slightly violent, like a professional hand-shake or an unwilling push on your sweaty shoulder, in the middle of the Parisian metro during summer... All the way to the most intimate touch, and the amazing feeling of another human’s hug, with just the right body pressure, after having a very bad day...

Because, let’s be clear! For me, getting out of depression doesn’t mean to have no doubt, fear, anxiety, and other unpleasant feelings anymore. It rather means, coming to the realisation that doubt, fear, anxiety and all the ‘weaknesses’ you think you have, are just natural human biological messages that tell you what you need to do better. I thus learnt how to listen to my own emotions and flaws in a way that they now are the actual source of all my strengths and enjoyable, sustainable, successes. ----*Miondo are very specific Cameroonian side dish made of slim long sticks of mashed kasava. They are characterised by their heavy smell once boiled cooked ready, and by their chewy texture. They’re basically my favourite side dish, a bit like Fries for ‘Classic Western’ kids.

All the undefined life experiences that have shaped my vision of the world and that I can barely describe because of their unusual uniqueness... And just like all those micro-experiences made me aware of the scope depth of my own humanity; my newly aware ‘Flesh Feeling’ experience of Life made me realise how scarce my knowledge of the experiences of other people was. The more I was realising this, the more I was getting scared of the amount of knowledge I actually didn’t have. It just seemed like instead of improving my situation, I was making it even more difficult to face. But this feeling also allowed me to really understand the importance of taking such a journey with relevant partners that will help you remember why you started it, and where you actually want to go. Because of course, spending hours thinking and rethinking the same things in your head will probably drive you totally crazy... If you don’t share your thoughts with relevant people, who can either make you feel safe enough to just express your mind out loud; or give you the answers to the questions you cannot answer by yourself; mostly because they might actually be part of somebody else’s expertise.

Scar Trees

Meiki English You ask me how I feel about it, my stalking ex, (the one who is looking up pictures of you), asides from not great. Good question. I read it on my iphone4 as I walk my morning walk from Jolimont to Richmond station passed the scar trees that prove Aboriginal people lived here long before us. My iphone4 tells me if I need you you’re here. In fact you are in Indonesia surfing free WIFI between getting tattoos and eating avocados visiting waterfalls and volcanoes dancing in the ruins of temples and rice paddies. You’re so far away that before you left, I said I didn’t mind who you fucked and almost meant it. In Richmond, the sun has just risen – it will take three hours for it to reach Ubud; for Ubud to come close enough for this day to break. In three hours this feeling will have passed. But for now the silence spreads thick in my mouth. I loved her once – I want to say. Past tense, but unequivocal, I loved her; as already I am starting to love you. Maybe not all at once or enough or as well as she loved me

but enough that I wanted to hold her, keep spinning, and never let go. And now she calls me up – my stalking ex – to say she’s broken up with her girlfriend, both her girlfriends, living with one, sharing the dog with another, missing me. And I’ve moved on; closed our story like a book with an ending I did not expect or understand, but could not reread. Sex dreams, old photos, ruffled hair; I can say nothing to you about her that would not betray her more than I already have. Or make amends for the love I fell short of – or thank her for the favours I did not return. But for nine months we fucked so hard my body hurt: sex was the solution and we were good at finding problems to solve. The fights never bothered us. It was the night I didn’t sleep with her afterwards that was the beginning of an end she’d never forgive me for. The break up just brought us closer together. Until the day she came over and I rolled away. And in my defence, It’s been 12 months. Nearly 12 months And in her defence, You never loved me enough And in my defence, No-one ever could And in her defence, You did at first And in my defence, Ocytocin And in her defence,

24 And in my defence, I wasn’t well And in her defence, You said you’d love me always And in my defence, I also said I don’t know how to be friends with any of my exes And in her defence, I haven’t really changed And in my defence, That’s beside the point And in her defence, Is it? And in my defence, No And in her defence, Even in your mind I win every time And in my defence, Yes You ask me how I feel about it, my stalking ex, (the one who is looking up pictures of you), asides from not great. Good question. I read it on my iphone4 as I walk my morning walk from Jolimont to Richmond station passed the scar trees that prove Aboriginal people lived here once and still do.

Our Fragile Smiles Dawn Iris Dangkomen

I am eternally the shy girl with the sad smile. She was always present, an archetype of many forms. Before I understood my gender, I always drew her, though I didn’t know she stood for me. The smile, sad and awkward, seemed out of an unrealised resignation to myself. My own face, my own body, felt more and more empty and an affront as my teen years grew longer, and wonderful genderless childhood faded away. But all these feelings were transformed when I exercised them into the ownership of a fictional girl. They became ... a sense of determination, however fragile, against the odds. She, I, became the protagonist of a story, someone I wanted to cheer for despite faults and missteps - someone whom I wanted to succeed. I was only able to do so through my characters. Much much later, it finally hit me that I could transform myself, and not have to hate myself anymore. I used to look at myself in the mirror and feel very little - disconnected, less present. My body was something I put up with rather than owned. But there was no specific thing I disliked enough to want to change. Even in the midst of my self-loathing, I wanted to stay true to myself. I never wanted to feel false. Today, those senseless accusations by conservatives and TERFs about trans women “pretending to be women” still hit hard. The only pretence I’ve had was to pretend to be okay or happy, to pretend to have something to offer with my old sense of self. It’s such a change now

to look at the mirror and make faces, bounce around, be connected with my expressions, to actually recognise myself. Selfies are something magical. To be able to capture a celebration of yourself, whether just for yourself, sent between loved ones, or publicly with the world, is so needed today. When one’s self esteem plummets drastically in between girlhood and womanhood; when body shape bullying and weight loss glorification still goes unchallenged; when non-white features are either fetishised or made to feel like they should be erased; when trans bodies are policed or barred from acceptability or normative beauty: being able to hold this face or body with pride for however a small moment is priceless. It took me a while to warm to them. I’d internalised a lot of the vile social messages that slandered any display of feminine self-esteem as “vanity”, that dismissed selfie culture as vapid and empty. But gradually I saw through to the power it gave us back. In hidden Facebook havens, I see women and nonbinary people of colour, AMAB femmes and trans women, lifting each other up in comments over self-snaps, across vulnerability and fierce pride alike. Searching for promo photos of myself recently, the happiest, bubbliest ones were from casual messages sent to my lover, capturing me in my most genuine and relaxed. And with my partner, in the long months we spend apart overseas, I frequently ask, “Can I see you?”; the replying selfie from her a reminder to me of her essence, an immediate physicality to bridge the space between us, and a catalyst for me telling her all the ways she matters and is beautiful, in the face of the societal messages screaming otherwise.

Transgressive Data I still hold a place for the girl with the sad smile. In my art and writing, she’s always there, wrestling with those deeper musings of fragility, loneliness, and belonging. But where I once only had her, I now have my own, happy smile in the real world to hold onto. All people deserve the self-love to be able to smile gladly as themselves. As feminists, let’s raise our selfies high and fight for it.

Nilmini Fernando Transgressive data: ‘Emotional data, dream data, sensual data, and response data- that are out-of-category and not usually accounted for in qualitative research methodology. Elizabeth Adams St Pierre. Excerpts from my secret journal of conversations in my head dur-ing my doctoral research with African women seeking asylum in Ireland.

I’d like to acknowledge that these words were written on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. I’d like to pay my respects to Elders past and present, and to give thanks to the Aboriginal creatives I share this space with. As a migrant artist and performer, I stand in solidarity with Aboriginal sovereignty of this stolen land, which was never ceded.

I feel as if I am being “disciplined” by western theory and research protocols. Academic research is a circuit of hell. It’s a snake, feeding itself with its own body and nothing else can get in. White women’s feminism and white people’s research methods ask the same questions, get the same answers. I thought feminist research was trans-formative. That PhDs were about innovation. But when I try to do things differently, I am obstructed. Thesis Supervision You Say: All existing studies have been done “on” asylum seekers by white academics. I have listened to people in asylum—they are sick of interviews. Their experiences and ideas go nowhere. They feel used and tired. Nothing changes for them, but meanwhile aca-demics make their names and get degrees using their lives as “ma-terial”. Whichever way I look at it, I am the only one to benefit.

Well, You want your PhD don’t you?

You Say: Love and connection with other women is more important to me than the degree. But I want to read and study, so my voice has authority. I could do Participatory Research.

(Groan) Participatory Research will take forever!

You are silenced. More determined than ever to do it right. And in doing so, prove them wrong. Like magic, Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s book lands in your lap. You cannot turn back now. Postcolonial, Black and Indigenous feminists—your home/you’re home. Aileen Morteon-Robinson: Knowledge is never innocent or neutral. It is a key to power and meaning. It is used to dominate and control. White women anthropologists had the power to define and repre-sent the Indigenous women they write about. They stick to the convention bound by their discipline, university and politics and white Australian culture. They do not address how they are being compliant in the gendered racism of set-tler colonisation One Year Review You face a panel of white middle class academic feminists. You tell them how energised you feel working with the African women. That you are exclusively following Black Feminist epistemological process: safe spaces, participatory collaborative work, based on love, respect, safety. (Its not rocket science!) Making safe space for the African women in asylum to talk about racism, also also allows you to address the racism in feminist knowledge-making. You state your intention to decolonize across theory, epistemology and methodology. That was to be your origi-nal contribution to academic knowledge. 1. That’s a very ambitions aim. 2. So many students complain about the terrible isolation of doing their PhD, yet here you are saying you are enjoy-ing it! 3. You’re not writing enough. We think you need to take better care of your academic self and spend less time in the field.

You go home angry. You (more) fully realize the limits of white feminist academia. It’s not enough. Audre This is the truth you are grappling with, Nilmini: I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is anyone of you. Their comments tore at you. It may be true. But you are angry that this must be true. It is a false choice, to decide between ethics, au-thentic participation and academic success? You need to create the space you need. You start a secret journal, name it “Here I can be Black”. Here I can be black. Trace the ink lines. Bloodlines. Love lines. Memory lines. Trace a way through the slaughter. Pick up bones like sticks to light the fire that shows the way home. You : I feel guilty…about my priviledge Audre : Guilt is a response to one’s own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. You: You mean, like Aspaner Najmabadi says, I need to carve an“unavailable intersection”. Audre: Yes! Remember…The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Mas ter’s House. You But how can I take a space when those who crowd the platform won’t let me in unless I follow their rules? Buddhist Teacher: The crowd is in your mind. Your thoughts. Fears. Make friends With your. Anger. Guilt. Along with your big ide-as…they are a sign of 51

the natural radiance of your mind.

Irish Poet: Write from the wound.

You: Really? I’m not crazy?

You: Which wound? There are so many…When I try to refer to earlier, non- Western philosophy, or say positive things about being a woman in Asia or about Muslim women , I am rapped on the knuckles for “romanticizing those cultures”. They scream: What about Sati and honour killings and stoning and the veil. Do you know how hot it is in Saudi? They make little girls wear those things! Why must I have to un-ravel all the (white) lies, before I can tell a (black) truth? In fact, I feel as if I am a wound.

Audrey: Anger is loaded with information and energy. But anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision , our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clari-fication, for it is in the painful process of this translation that we identify who are our allies with whom we have grave differences, and who are our genuine enemies. You They tell me to “mine the data”! I am not prepared to “mine” the women’s lives, as if they were diamond mines or coalmines or goldmines or coltan mines. Rob their treasures. I have seen for myself the holes left in the ground, the missing Needles of Cleopatra from the Temple of Luxor.

Irish Poet: Then write as a wound. What does the wound say?

I sat beneath it, on the River Thames, drunk one night and wept for the theft. I saw another at the Place de la Con-corde. Nefertiti’s bust in the Berlin museum. I too am cut up onto so many parts… scattered here and there…like drops of water. How can I write the whole story?

Buddhist Teacher: Think of Mamaki- she is a Dakini. A fairy duster, but not the tinkerbell whitely kind but a powerful angel who cuts through ignorance. She is the deity of water, prajna, the knowing and wisdom mind that reveals the true nature of things. Her action is not a sprinkling , but razor sharp, insi cive wrath.

Sara Ahmed: Alliances are not guaranteed by the pre-existing form of a social group or community … collectivities are formed through the very work that we need to do in order to get closer to others’. You: Rather than “gazing at the other” I can find ways for partic-ipants to get close to their own interior images, thoughts and ideas. Rather than trying to change the other, I can al-low them to change me.

You

I’m weeping. Hot, sore, burning. Bleeding.

Irish Poet : Nilmini, You walk like water. Write like water.

You : In city I find my entrance into the magic world through a crack in the concrete which is named “River”. Wherever wa-ter flows you can find a portal to the planet earth. That is why we have water. Water is everywhere, in all its forms. Like our womanity. We are everywhere. Some of us are rain, some ocean, river, sea, flood, tears, blood. We can tell a collaborative story from different places. We cannot always run together. But like water, we move through from river to ocean, vapourize, condense, precipitate and infiltrate all.

Postscript: Final Report

In Memoriam “…originality and quality…significant contribution to the theory and practice of feminism and transformation….advances knowledge for practitioners, researchers and theorists—that is, praxis…weaves complex ideas and findings into a coherent whole…. high level of scholarship…creativity… originality… reflexivity.” DAKINI (khandro in Tibetan): “Sky-goer” or “space-dancer,” which indi cates that these ethereal awakened ones have left the confinements of solid earth and have the vastness of open space to play in. Direct, sharply intelligent, radical, and courageous.

Eleanor Jackson

If only you were there with me tonight, my lover. We are still lovers, aren’t we? Always surveilled as such even now, when we are so distilled from one another, marked and branded for the way that I have taken you in my mouth like a new name, or you have worm me like a peach split glove – these are indelible kinds of affection, are they not? And so, absent you, coupled beside me placards in hand, a pamphlet, the number of the helpful service illuminated on the cyclops jumbotron, I lean to your freckled cheek, smoothed by the evening chill, and leave the smudge of my lipstick: pock pit and bruise, laurel and wreath, headstone and wedding ring. With a special grief, official voices are making the right noises, reason rage fundamental sentiment prayer rainbow love love love hate hate hate there is a sludge of language and I am compressed in the vacuum of you the places where you have laid you head collapsing I can smell nothing but the cleft of your armpit The seam of your crotch, sea spray, cedar, beeswax leather, lavender, the minute rigidity of your handwriting. I ask a kindly stranger in a fake fur jacket to hold my hand she does I hold her in return when it becomes too much To merely add our tremulous choirgirl voices: feeble lovers

bleak mountain

The Reclamation Sangheeta Thanapal

Kanne. Maniye. Azhage. These are the words I grew up with. Words of love and solicitude, that to this day unlock a latch in my heart, and transport me to a space of solace. I wonder why they call it your mother’s tongue. Is it because of the way your name rolls off it? Or how she speak-sings of the land she knew well and I know not at all. My father is Tamil too, but it is never my father’s tongue. It is odd that my people’s language belongs to my mother alone, for somewhere along the way, it stopped belonging to me. White supremacy means never speaking it in public, lest you be judged as wanting. Assimilation means acting as if you cannot even speak it, so you would be thought of as one of them. Color blind, race-blind. Language blind. No, no, I’m not that kind of Indian. Those lost years still haunt me.

They say your first language is the one you think in. I am forever a colonised subject. But when I am enveloped by family, or all the beautiful brown milling past me at a Chennai mall, I dream, I dream in it. Kumara. Azhaga. Devatha. The most favored of the Tamil gods. The beautiful one. These are the gods I grew up with, the gods you tried to erase. My lost gods have come back to me in my mother’s tongue present in the short prayers, long conversations, whispered asides (sing. sing to the Lord and he will come.) For I am the girl-child I will be the mother whose tongue, will decide if my daughter, will no longer belong. So, I will no longer stop belonging:

to the language that belongs to me, to the language that is rightfully mine.

A Room of One’s Own - My feminist manifesto

Here, I reclaim it. For my mother, For me, For my daughter, For her daughter,

I have on my bookshelf and by my bedside: A list of Australian women’s literature that I wrap around like a safety blanket. The list includes:

We are all mothers, and may all our tongues stay with us, never to be lost again.

Lian Low

Dreaming in urban areas – Lisa Bellear I’m not racist but.. – Dr Anita Heiss Talkin’ up to the white woman – Dr Aileen Moreton-Robinson Love dreaming & other poems – Ali Cobby Eckermann Ruby Moonlight – Ali Cobby Eckermann Comfort Food – Ellen Van Neerven Heat and Light - Ellen Van Neerven Otherland – Dr Maria Tumarkin “I’m a feminist but… ‘other’ women and post national feminism” Dr Ien Ang’s essay From Victims to Suspects: Muslim Women Since 9/11 – Dr Shakira Hussein The Other Shore – Hoa Pham Wave – Hoa Pham Tapestry – Dr Maria Pallota-Chiarolli Notes to my sisters – Dr Moni Lai Storz Eat first, talk later - Beth Yahp Anguli Ma – Chi Vu Locust Girl – Dr Merlinda Bobis White Turtle: a collection of short stories – Dr Merlinda Bobis Banana Bending: Asian Australian and Asian Canadian Literary Cultures - Dr Tseen-ling Khoo Unpolished Gem – Alice Pung

Her Father’s Daughter – Alice Pung Laurinda – Alice Pung Original Skin – Maxine Beneba Clarke Nothing Here Needs Fixing – Maxine Beneba Clarke Gil Scot Heron is on Parole - Maxine Beneba Clarke Carrying the World - Maxine Beneba Clarke Foreign Soil – Maxine Beneba Clarke The Hate Race – Maxine Beneba Clarke I was 19, when I softly tapped on feminism’s door. My friend Eugenia, academically brilliant, led me to the sisterhood. Then left. She left me at feminism’s door, because she thought this was the lesbian room and she wanted to give me space. The door opened to white faces (except for one) gazing at me, then a friendly, “Come in!”, I’d interrupted a Women’s Collective meeting. I sat on the floor shyly wishing that the beanie covering my newly shaven bald head would swallow me whole. But I kept returning because I wanted to connect / I was tired of being invisible. I wanted belonging, a home in the sisterhood. Since I can’t find belonging in a society that humiliates me as a sexual pervert, a moral deviant I’d moved continents, settled into Kulin Nations country just as Australia’s legal fiction of terranulius was overturned, and hope for a new nation was stymied, stunted, bludgeoned by the fury of anti-political correctness campaigns. Howard. Hanson. Racist rhetoric. For the next four years, I wrote in my room, graffittied my desk and walls, to write myself into existence. “I live here, not somewhere else, but here” But where was here? I kept asking. Who am I in this new home Australia?

Where I live, whether I know or care whose land I’m on, can mean whether I’m complicit in reinventing white Australia’s invasion history Australia spits Ching Chong Chinaman / Where are you from? Go back to where you came from / Go back to where you came from / Go back to where you came from. Straight male hate “Chicks with dicks” / “Fucking dyke” I wanted to find belonging, a home in the sisterhood But, when my white sisters looked for me in the Women’s Room, if there were new faces, and they didn’t know how else to distinguish me, they would often revert to ‘the Asian one’ The Asian one, the quiet one in the corner, beanie over her head, silently absorbing white women’s feminisms. When Kim Busty Beatz Bowers, of Hot Brown Honey Burlesque, said, “As a black woman, why do I know more about white men than I know about myself?” I asked myself, as an Asian Australian woman, why do I know more about white women’s lives and stories than I know about myself? I still hold that pen, to write myself into existence. White people often forget, Anglo-Celtic is just another ethnicity, not the norm But forgetting is privilege. If this sisterhood is to belong to me I need to know we’re on the same page and she has my back.

This quote can be found in Candy Bower’s essay, ‘Gone Daddy Gone’: Brown Girl Seeking.. ‘ in The Lifted Brow , 5th August 2016 http://theliftedbrow.com/post/148465643257/gone-daddy-gone-brown-girl-seekingby-candy

In Solidarity With Black Poets Speak Out (U.S.A.) In Solidarity With #SayHerName In Solidarity With The Sovereign Peoples Of Australia

God Is A Black Womban Sista Zai Zanda

And truth is, truth hurts but that’s no reason to reject reality and Hide from fact in an act in a play called ‘Nothing Political!’

She told me (and he told me) NOT to be political. ‘We don’t want anything political here, okay?’ ... I nodded ... And in my heart, I felt despondent coz, you see:

‘No, my writing is not ‘political’ – my writing is my truth. My writing is life seen through a sister’s eye – as in ‘Sista Zai’. Seen?’

Nothing written here but the truth of where I’ve been and what I’ve seen. Where I’ve been with these two feet of mine and A heart born to shine.

Truth is: I live in a politicisd body: A body forced to accommodate hurt. Truth is: I live in a politicized body. A body etched with meaning I didn’t sketch our go out seeking.

hidden,

Truth is: I live in a politicized body – Black

skin afro and mouth curled around chapters of history purposefully

disappeared,

kidnapped, missing. I live and move around in Black skin branded with meaning I played no part in creating. I live and move around in Black

I live and move around in Black skin so I’m constantly wondering if this time I’ll be let in, just as I am, in this black skin OR will I be forced to engage in another sit-in? That is, if I still got the strength to keep moving through this bullshit shit-stem. So, no, my writing is not ‘political’. Except, I live in this skin

skin in a world taught to shoot on sighting

that’s caused revolution and

counter-revolution ... C’mon!

so I’m always left

Are you still dreaming!!?

wondering if, this time, I’ll be shot down? shut down? shut up ? OR if I’ll be let in ... just the way I am in this

After Civil Rights.

Black skin.

After After

Apartheid. Decolonisation.

I STILL live in a politicized body that is now written into the laws of popular culture as ‘some-part-human-andrest-part-animal’ – Don’t believe me? Well, turn on our tell-lie-vision as it tells-lies-to-your-vision about the Black Womban. ‘Hold her down!’ (it says). ‘Have your way.’ (it says).

Advertised as

‘just give her a kick and command her to get down on her knees and lick your ... SICK! No! My writing is not ‘political’ BUT ... My body is the site of the most Radical. You see ... I had aunts whisper in my ear about The sacredness of my sex. Did you hear?! I SAID: I had aunts whisper in my ear about the sacredness of my sex. I’m not talking about some Hail Mary Virgin Birth – I’m talking about

‘The Mule Of The World’, we’re told that if she is stubborn then –

S.E.X. – L.O.V.E. – M.A.K.I.N.G. with

GOD, your Creator, IS a Black WOMBan!

The intent to heal and birth.

God IS a Black WOMBan:

Love that bathes lovers in

Carrying worlds between her legs at the soft warm meeting of strong

The unashamed gush of

thighs.

My Healing Waters.

God is a Black Womban.

That’s the sacredness of my sex.

Carrying life in bellies and feeding life with Breasts full of sweet milk.

My Black Pussy ought to

SUCK on this truth

Remind you of

I dare you:

The Original Black Pussy that birthed a world of

Suck.

SEVEN BILLION ... AND MORE ...

God Is A Black Womban. But you don’t know this Goddess Divine. Black Divine.

Lick it. I dare you – Taste the origins of your life on my lips And

Coz we’ve been brainwashed to see God as an angry Old Man hell-bent on punishing you, Disciplining you, always watching you. But, that’s not love.

I bet you will bow down to the sacredness of my sex: yes –

Write like a migrant

My God is a Black Womban who

Azja Kulpińska

Dances WILD Eats BIG

This piece is dedicated to all the linguistic in-betweeners, to all those told to tame their wild tongues and to all those whose ancestral languages were lost due to colonial violence.

Laughs HEARTY.

#say her name

Truth is: God is a Black Womban: #say her name.

#say her name #say her name #say her name

#say her name #say her name

#say her name

God Is A Black Womban God Is A Black Womban God Is

I was once told by someone who reviewed my essay that despite all the structures being grammatically correct it is clearly identifiable that it was written by a migrant. They did not mean it as a compliment. Back then, as someone trying three times as hard as my Anglo peers to succeed in the unfamiliar tertiary education system in a new country, I was heartbroken and disappointed at myself for my ‘deficiency’. As a child born in Eastern Europe just a few years before the collapse of the Eastern Block, I vividly remember the change of narrative reflecting the political and economic shift and our new alliances. A part of that narrative was the necessity to master English. At English classes they anglicised our first names and those of us with distinctly Slavic names were given entirely new ones. It took me a year or so to learn to react to this arbitrary, bizarre collection of sounds. It took me even longer to be able to open my mouth during these classes out of fear of being ridiculed for speaking ‘incorrectly’. But what took me the longest was the realisation of the violence behind the privileged position of

English as a lingua franca - deaths and devaluation of countless indigenous languages, lost wisdom, lost connections to culture and families. I began to wonder how we as migrants, diasporic and indigenous people can resist the tyranny of English, how can we perform linguistic interruptions that decentre the influence of the dominant language? After all English has been forced upon us so don’t we now have all the rights to reclaim it, transform it, bastardise it, add in the beautiful metaphors rooted in the linguistic structures that shape our worldviews? Gloria Anzaldúa and Irena Klepfisz, both my literary heroines, are just two of the countless diasporic writers who actively practiced linguistic disruptions in their writing. Both queer women, both experienced living in between cultures and languages, both write bilingually and blur the boundaries between conflicting worldviews – Gloria Anzaldúa a Chicana from Texas straddling indigenous, Mexican and Anglo cultures, Irena Klepfisz, a Polish-Jewish Shoah survivor who settled in North America and relearnt her once lost mother’s tongue Yiddish as an adult. As migrant and diasporic people they have learnt to navigate the spaces in-between, to disrupt, question, enrich and hybridise the worldviews and languages they carried within them.

I suspect this is why the comment about my writing sounding ‘migrant’ was not meant as a compliment. But I choose to trust Gloria Anzaldúa (2012, p. 102) when she says: ‘En unas pocas centurias, the future will belong to the mestizo. Because the future depends on breaking down of paradigms, it depends on straddling of two or more cultures. By creating a new mythos that is, a change in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the way we behave – la mestiza creates a new consciousness.’ So next time you say I write like a migrant I will sure hold my head up high.

The moment I realised I could no longer express myself as freely in the language my grandmother sang lullabies to me something has shifted. I too became the in-betweener. I possess a number of, often conflicting, worldviews and I gradually become more comfortable navigating them in that unique way that monoculturals and monolinguals will never understand. I suspect this is why they are so scared of us.

Bios

Tanveer Ahmed After many years of teaching fashion design in London, Tanveer Ahmed is now a PhD student at The Open University, UK, researching new ways to teach fashion design that are more culturally progressive and promote racial equality. Get in touch via tanveer.ahmed@open.ac.uk Timmah Ball Timmah works across urban planning, design and community arts. She also writes for publications such as Inflection Journal, Right Now, Etchings Indigenous and Meanjin. Her heritage is Ballardong Noongar. She is already contemplating Wild Tongue Volume 2. Adriana Bito ADRIANA BITO – KAIZEN ENGINEER AND INTERSECTIONAL ACTIVIST FOR JUSTICE&PEACE Originally from Cameroon, born in France, and brought up in Paris’ popular and multicultural suburbs; Adriana has always wanted to scientifically prove that diversity, under all its shapes, is strength. This is why she created H O N E S T Y, to make coaching and development programs through reflection, while deconstructing internalised daily discrimination. With the aim to support everyone and each of us into Self-Determination for true Justice&Peace. Discover her work on her blog: http://honesty.strikingly. com/#blog Tania Cañas Tania is a research candidate and tutor at the Centre for Cultural Partnerships, VCA. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Academic Journal and currently a guest curator for the International Community Arts Festival (ICAF). Previously as a Director at RISE Refugee, she now provides advice on art and theatre policy and programs. Tania has presented at conferences both nationally and internationally, as well as facilitated community theatre workshops at universities, within prisons and youth groups in Australia, Northern Ireland, The Solomon Island, The United States and most recently South Africa http://tania-canas. squarespace.com/

Marisa Cornejo Marisa Cornejo is an artist based in both Switzerland and France. She has a Bachelors Degree in Visual Arts from the UNAM, Mexico and a Masters Degree from the CCC, HEAD, Geneva, Switzerland. Marisa was born in Santiago de Chile in 1971 and left with her family after the coup d”Etat in 1973, to live in exile in Argentina 1973-76, Bulgaria 1977-78, Belgium 1978-80, Mexico 1980-98 where she studied dance, visual arts and collaborated in the art collective La Panadería in México City. In 1998, she moved to England where she became a mother and 2002 found her in Brussels, Belgium. Since 2005 she is in Geneva where she works with the themes of memory, identity and forced migration through drawing her dreams as an artist researcher. Johanna Couvée Johanna Couvée is a Brussels-based sociologist, former teacher in citizenship education and currently working as the head of production of the Zinneke Parade, the representation of a multitude of community-based artistic projects. Dawn Iris Dangkomen Dawn is a queer trans woman of colour of Thai background, an illustration student and occasional poet. In her creative works and in studies she has been drawn to grapple with various feminisms, oppressions and identities salient to herself and her loved ones – among them transmisogyny, queerphobia, and racism. She dream of a building a career around creative and performance outreach, education, therapy, and protest around the social justice issues closest to her. Nilmini Fernando Nilmini Fernando is a Postcolonial feminist scholar/ activist/ writer and founder of Loving Feminist Literature. She is currently developing a toll for enhancing intersectional practice in diverse white societies and working on a book.

Eleanor Jackson Eleanor Jackson is a Filipino Australian poet, performer, arts producer and radio broadcaster and current Editor in Chief of Peril Magazine, which considers Asian Australian arts and culture. Kaytsen Jama Kaytsen is a Somali Australian artist and writer currently completing a postgraduate degree in Law. Kaytsen’s work draws upon her multidisciplinary perspective; focusing on the politics of language, space and belonging. Kaytsen’s first solo exhibition ‘Mapping Home: From Within and Without’ exhibited at Halka Sanat, Istanbul, in January 2016 http://www.halkaartproject.net/sergiler.html?id=1874 Azja Kulpińska Azja is a queer migrant from Poland currently based on the lands of the Kulin Nations. She is a Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner, zine-maker, community educator and emerging radio producer. She has facilitated dialogical theater projects in Australia, Solomon Islands and Poland that explored challenging narratives around migration, displacement, systems of oppression and other topics relevant to the communities she works with. She is a youth worker facilitating a support groups for young queer people in country Victoria, Sometimes she writes. Lian Low Lian Low is a writer, editor and spoken word artist based in Footscray, on Kulin Country, in Melbourne. She previously edited Peril - Australia’s leading online platform for Asian Australian writing, arts and culture. In 2015, she collaborated on the performance text of the Malthouse Theatre’s sold-out dance premiere of Do you speak Chinese? She also completed a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship and was a festival artist at the Melaka Arts and Performance Festival in Malaysia. She’s currently working on a memoir that traverses her travels to Singapore, Malaysia and life in Australia.

Hope Mathumbu Hope Mathumbu is a queer black South African-Australian. She is passionate about her community development and volunteers widely in various sectors, driven by her belief in the Black South African humanist philosophy of Ubuntu. Margaret Mayhew Margaret Mayhew is an artist and a proud para-academic who was raised on stolen Noongarabal land in northern NSW. In between her part time/casual jobs she does messy queer performance, soft sculpture and volunteer with Melbourne Artists for Asylum Seekers. Meiki English Meiki English is a Melbourne based writer, performer, and theatre maker. In 2010 she completed an honours degree in Linguistics, focussing on the spirit song languages of North West Arnhem Land. Since then, in between working as a teacher, tutor, and education writer, she’s been exploring embodied performance practices including ensemble physical theatre and contemporary circus. She keeps thinking she’s moving on from words, but every time somebody breaks her heart, a poem falls out. Nicole Monks A Wajarri Yamatji woman from WA, Nicole Monks is a trans-disciplinary artist and designer of Aboriginal, Dutch and English heritage currently based in Sydney. Her Practice is informed by her cross-cultural identity within the current epoch. Nicole has exhibited at Boomalie Aboriginal Art Co-operative and in 2012, she presented her first international exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. In 2014 she exhibited at the Parliament of NSW Aboriginal Art Prize and won the UNSW Art & Design Residency. Shauna Osborn Shauna Osborn is an award winning Numunuu (Comanche)/German mestizo artist, researcher and wordsmith. She earned a BA from the

University of Oaklahoma and an MFA from New Mexico State University. Her debut poetry collection Arachnid Verve focuses on the acrobatic nature of Southwestern life. Shauna creates contemporary work in her tribal language to help ensure its survival, fund tribal development and language immersion opportunities through grant writing, and creates indigenous literary projects. Shauna’s list of honours includes 2015 Artists in Residence for A Room of Her Own Foundations’ Waves Writing Retreat, a National Poetry Award from the New York Public Library, Alternating Current Press Luminaire Award for Best Poetry, and the Native Writer Award from UNM Summer Writers Conference. Kylie Supski Kylie Supski is a Polish-Australian poet and spoken word artist. She performs live frequently all over Melbourne. Kylie’s interests also expand into theatre. In 2015 she collaborated on an immersive theatre production “The 10c’s” by Metonia Theatre. In 2014 she was also involved with “Queering the Body” production at Theatre Works and “The Gl ry” project by VCA during 2014 AIDS Conference. Kylie’s inspiration comes from her personal experience, and the people she is surrounded by. She enjoys a diverse repertoire and many of her poems discuss her personal experiences as a transgender woman. Kylie is passionate about personal autonomy, and exploring the beauty of being alive. The audio version of her poetry was recently published by The Girls on Jey G-force newsletter (May 2016) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4l25zYhO8s) Sangeeta Thanapal Sangeetha Thanapal is a writer and social media activist engaged in anti-racism work in Singapore and Australia. She is the originator of the term ‘Chinese Privilege,’ which situates systemic and institutionalized racism by people of colour in Singapore. She initiated the online conversation on racism in the country and two years after she went public with her work, the state has recently begun a serious exploration of racism. Her work focuses on applying concepts of Critical Race Theory to the Singapore context. In 2015, she was interviewed by peer-reviewed journal ‘boundary2’ on “Chinese Privilege, Gender and Intersectionality.” She also started a petition to reinstate Thaipusam as a holiday in Singapore, which gained 10,000 signatures in one day. She has spoken at panel discussions held by the

Association of Women for Action & Research (AWARE), and guest lectured at the National University of Singapore (NUS). She holds a Master of Arts in Social & Political Thought from the University of Sussex. She has recently moved to Melbourne to work on her PhD and can be found @kaliandkalki. Vicky Tran Vicky is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and she is currently residing in Germany. She loves monkeys, sloth, food and likes to go to the cinema alone. Sophie Utikal Sophie Utikal (*1987 Tallahassee, Florida) is a bachelor in statistics, and she worked at the radio station M94.5 and musicmagazine MUSIKEXPRESS and co-founded with three friends an internetstartup and worked several years as a manager of a fast growing company. Just in time she quit her job, took the money and moved to Vienna to study art. Now she is in the class of Hans Scheirl at the Academy of Fine Arts and likes to work collectively together on issues related to herself. www.sophieutikal.net Sista Zai Zanda Sista Zai Zanda is a storyteller, an educator and a radio producer who has performed internationally. Her current project, the Pan Afrikan Poets Café, is a monthly spoken word event that provides a platform for everyone to come together and celebrate new, cutting edge and classic African literature.