This event is a space for South Asians, people of the global majority and allies to come together in solidarity to explore the impact of colonisation on our homeland and communities in the diaspora.

  • What are the oppressions/resistances of the past & present?
  • Whose voices get heard in forming our collective memories?
  • What impact did colonisation have on the psyche?
  • What are the parallels that can be drawn to now?

Join us to reflect on the past and reimagine together, and how we can move beyond past mistakes. There will be an exhibition, a two-part panel discussion, artistic offerings and open mic in true DON’T SLEEP ON US style.

You can come alone, and you won’t feel alone.

Speakers:

Tasnima Uddin is an international labour organiser, and works for a driver-led global federation, working with driver unions from Panama to India. She has previously worked with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and stateless communities in Assam, India, advocating against citizenship deprivation. She has recently completed the bar course and is a leading member of the Save Brick Lane campaign.

Syma Tariq is an artist-researcher in London who works with aural archives, audio experimentation and writing, including the projects A Thousand Channels (2015/2022/2024) and live-radio spaces R22 is Burning (2020) and Café Univers (2017). Her recent exhibit Delay Lines, shown as part of “Everything is different, nothing has changed” at the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, combined archival and contemporary field recordings to deal with east London’s historic and complex anti-racist and social justice struggles. She has collaborated with several arts platforms including Colomboscope, Sri Lanka; Nottingham Contemporary, UK, Radio Al-Hara, Palestine; and Radio Appartement 22, Morocco, as well as universities, festivals, music and cultural organizations and schools. Her recent PhD at CRiSAP, University of the Arts London, focused on the 1947 Partition of British India and its ‘sonic’ condition, leading to her ongoing project Partitioned Listening.

Artistic offerings:

Amrit Kaur‘s music has been described as the place “where Punjabi folk meets Aretha soul” Praised by Rick Rubin for her live ability, named a BBC Music Introducing artist and listed one of BBC Asian Network’s Sound of 2020 artists, Amrit’s notable performances include Glastonbury Festival, TEDx, All Points East Festival, Jaipur Literature Festival (India) and the UN General Assembly with Skip Marley.

Sara Haq is a London-based artist, photographer, sacred medicine practitioner, writer and workshop facilitator. Her work is multi & interdisciplinary in approach, and she will be reading excerpts from her medicinal writing, as an artistic offering to open our space. Sara’s work is always reflective of personal experience and processes and often explores intercultural relationships & ecologies, power dynamics, transformation and the interactions between art, nature and social change, eg. the use of photography, drawing, writing, movement and imagination as healing and clearing tools. Her recent experiential research, explores the relationships between creativity, healing, sacred medicine and (cultural) psychosis. Sara has exhibited both nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions including: Wellcome Collection (2021), Tate Modern, The British Library, Daily Life Ltd, National Maritime Museum and Bromley By Bow Centre.

Roots and Endz is a co-curated project and series of events exploring contemporary South Asian culture and the intergenerational, intersectional impact of colonisation, supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Can’t make the event in person? Book a free livestream ticket here.

 

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If you have any access requirements, please contact our box office team on 020 7613 7498 or email