On the 9th and 10th of August 2022, Iranti commemorated South African Women’s Day with ARTivists and creatives from Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia in an effort to reshape and rethink commemoration days such as this that have historically been binary and heteronormative despite the intersectionality of the political reasons they were founded.
Our take on commemorating this day was to ensure that we bring to the fore the erasure of black queer folks (identifying as women and non-binary) whose connections to movements have rendered them un-prioritised, even within the LGBTIQ movement.
At the core of this commemoration was for Iranti to publish a digital publication that represents these thoughts around movement building, creative and artistic expressions as advocacy tools and strategies.
The 2-day event was aimed at unpacking the interconnection of regional advocacy in women’s/queer movements in the region, and engage on how art influences activism and advocacy in the context of South Africa and the region. We wanted create a community of creatives that can be a resource and show solidarity across movements as we define allyship and the parameters thereof. Importantly, we needed to hold space for wellbeing activities that are informed by artistic expressions (painting, drawing, writing, spoken word, yoga etc) as these formed the basis of the digital publication which we want to develop, which are the collective of art works of the participants at the event.
The space allowed for a myriad of questions to be asked, without necessarily needing answers, but rather to reflect and strategies on the intention we want to set for ourselves as black queer folks and creatives on the continent who have seen how movements and politics have disintegrated. The need for thinking and conceptualising was noted as a great need for us to learn from the ways that other movements have functioned and subsequently failed-LGBTIQ, HIV and Women’s rights movements.
One of the greatest achievements in this space was creating and upholding a safe space-for people to share their experiences and activists and artists whose expressions of art are outside of the norm. It offered and held space for vulnerability of how we question movement building work, feminist identities and ideologies and speaking truth to power about how even within spaces that are assumed to have shared values, have been harmful.
One of the biggest challenges in this political work that emerged from the conversations was the “hero worshiping”/ “heroism” of a specific person and lack of acknowledgment of the roles of others and a movement in liberation struggles. In order for us to full appreciate movement building work, we need to name and uphold each other in order to really practice active and intentional solidarity work.
The event provided an opportunity to grow movements across countries and regions, characterised by healing and wellbeing spaces – spaces for political education and consciousness building for LBQ, trans women and intersex women. We are planning to take advantage of the Namibian Lesbian Week happening in November to solidify the cross-border collaborations and political standpoints.
As part of the conversation, sharing about the different advocacy and organising strategies that some of the activists/collectives/organisations use in their contexts proved to be an invaluable exercise for the participants. From brunches, Pride pop-ups and exhibition spaces, to the use of art to find community and create authentic narratives about the queer community.
The event was an incredible success of art-in-activism. In the coming months, we will be launching the publication, Defining Our Collective Joy. Watch this space!