On the 18th of February, we celebrate Audre Lorde’s birthday! As she has been an ancestor for 32 years, we come together to honor her rich legacy, remember her ocean of work, and celebrate her being. During this evening we focus specifically on the portals opened by her essay ‘Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic As Power’. In this essay, Lorde encourages us to reclaim ways of knowing that have been and still are being violently suppressed and disappeared to prioritise western knowledge systems. Together we explore how we can reclaim and be in practice of these stigmatised and undervalued ways of knowing and being. Further, we navigate the shame felt around recognising them as useful and powerful. How can we give up on the suppression and distrust of what ‘feels right to us’ and surrender to it as vital for our survival?
About the programme
Western knowledge systems glorify the head (as dismembered from our body) and atomise our relationships—rather than value our wholeness and interconnectedness. Lorde dreams for us to re-member what lives underneath this generational-colonial suppression—ready to come up and be known by us. These once native knowledge systems and relationships are stored in our body, the land, sky, waters, nonhuman kin and cosmos. They can be felt through our Erotic power, divine ancestors, sacred intuition, freedom dreams, dancing, poetry and more. They fiercely belong to us. Lorde introduces the soma (body) as the first site where we might begin to reclaim our whole selves as we become -love- embodied again.
Join us on Lorde’s birthday—with a bookshop provided by thebasebookspace; a ritual of re-connection with Henna & Anima Jhagroe-Ruissen (CTRL+ALT+IDENTITY/ECOLOGY); a panel discussion with Dr. Zuleika Bibi Sheik, Anima Jhagroe-Ruissen & Sheila Chitanie (KABRA); bites provided by Het Rode Keukentje with opportunity to donate to Khartoum Aid Kitchen; poetry by Lelie Danesh; and a guided surrender with Pamela Schaap (MAWU)— as through our surrender the rivers, volcanoes, and stars may begin to recognise us again.
Please note: This event centers BIPOC–women, –femme, –trans, –non-binary & –queer perspectives and experiences. We kindly urge those who do not fall within this demographic to be mindful and respectful of the space they take up.
About the speakers, healers and artists
Anima Jhagroe-Ruissen
Anima Jhagroe-Ruissen identifies as a Social Artivist (combination of art and activism). Through Dance and Henna, she challenges dominant narratives and explores alternative worlds that go beyond resistance. She is guided by the lessons that Henna/Mehndi teaches her, and the rhythms that live in our bodies. She is also the initiator of collectives CTRL+ALT+IDENTITY and CTRL+ALT+ECOLOGY. Both collectives fight for a radical eco-socio just world through decolonial ways of working and art.
“In my artistic praxis, I explore imaginaries of our bodies, material environments, and social realities beyond capitalism and colonialism. We dive into other worlds and cosmologies to experience other ways of knowing and being. At the same time we have no choice but to relate to dominant white aesthetics and other forms of oppression. How can we liberate ourselves through henna and dance and what do our bodies and henna teach us?”
Dr. Zuleika Bibi Sheik
Dr. Zuleika Bibi Sheik is a South African poet and scholar of South Indian indentured descent. She is currently Assistant Professor of Decolonial Approaches, Gender and Black Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her particular interest is in ‘decolonising methodologies’, considering the ‘how’ of doing research that is non-extractive, life-affirming and aimed towards social justice and collective liberation. Sheik was awarded her PhD cum laude, for her thesis, Liminagraphy: Lessons in Life-affirming Research Practices for Collective Liberation. Her academic series of essays on Decolonising the Self has featured in the journal Education as Change and Imbiza Journal for African Writing. Her latest poem ‘Senzenina, what have we done?’ is featured on ‘Planting the seeds of Collective Liberation’ (2024) the inaugural issue of OneStateCollective that brings together creatives and activists united for a Free Palestine.
Sheila Chitanie
Sheila Chitanie (she/her) is a cisgender woman, who was born and raised in The Netherlands by an Afro-Surinamese mother and an Indo-Caribbean father. She has been working as a shiatsu therapist since 2018. Shiatsu is a therapeutic form of bodywork from Japan. For her shiatsu studies, she dived into embodiment for racialised and marginalised identities. During her journey of becoming a bodyworker the idea for a BIPOC women’s health center arose. She envisioned a space in which we can work on our liberation from oppressive systems through bodywork, mental health care and spirituality. After learning and evolving the target group was expanded to non-cis and femme people and women of color. In 2021 KABRA was founded. At KABRA you’ll find practitioners who have lived experiences when it comes to exclusion based on (e.g.) their skin colour, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Pamela Schaap
Pamela Schaap is a Ghanaian-Dutch theater maker and holistic healer with a deep passion for personal and collective transformation. As the founder of MAWU, she combines disciplines such as dance, theater, creative writing, mindfulness, yoga, and ancestral rituals to transform personal stories into impactful art. Inspired by her spiritual connection with her ancestors – her purest source of guidance – Pamela brings healing and art together. Her project, Seven Sacred Sundays, an art retreat specifically for women of color, has profoundly transformed lives and demonstrates how art can be a powerful tool for healing.
In addition to group projects, Pamela offers 1-on-1 healing sessions and creates performances that invite audiences to reflect, connect, and embark on a journey of spiritual growth. Guided by the ubuntu principle – “I am, because we are” – she seeks to connect people with themselves and the world around them, grounded in the belief that we are all part of a collective consciousness.
Lelie Danesh
Lelie Danesh is an Iranian-Dutch experimental filmmaker, writer and spoken word artist based in Rotterdam. Her work researches chaos, estrangement and tries to find new boundaries within art. She has performed on multiple platforms, such as Mensen Zeggen Dingen and Poetry International Festival.
The Little Red Kitchen is a food and mutual aid collective working from the belief that cooking is political. They provide free or low-cost meals, host solidarity diners, and raise funds for important causes. By using food to support their community and bringing people together, they aim to be a center of care for those with revolutionary spirits.
CTRL+ALT+ is the umbrella network that supports the collectives CTRL+ALT+IDENTITY, CTRL+ALT+ECOLOGY.
CTRL+ALT+IDENTITY explores the complex position of Women of Color in the netherlands. This position is often undervalued, because of the dominant white perspective about ‘universal values’. A perspective that mainly centers the strength of the individual and causes a color blindness. Not recognizing the diversity of differences enhances structural problems such as racism, sexism, validism and classism. In fact, it leads to dehumanization. Guiding questions within our collective are: How can we reclaim our humanity, make stories visible and create loving worlds with each other that go beyond resistance?
CTRL+ALT+ECOLOGY explores issues about re-relating to this part of Earth (North-West European territory), forms of reciprocity with Earth, and how to process these activities and questions in our daily lives. What unethical choices are we forced to make? What other forms of life with Earth do we still carry within us from pre-colonial times? Important themes we explore are health, sustainability, agriculture, nutrition and spirituality.
KABRA is a studio dedicated to elevating the quality of life of politicized identities. We center independnt BIPOC practitioners who offer services and activities sensitive to aspects of oppression that affect the health and well-being of politicized identities. But we encourage non-BIPOC practitioners who agree with our mission to join us to help as many people as possible, as these spaces are scarce in The Netherlands.
By existing we contribute to a better understanding of the ways in which politics and care are intimately intertwined and in what ways mental health practices need to consider the power structures that we live in in order to be effective. Moreover, we hope to contribute to an expansion of the understanding of care beyond the eurocentric conceptualization that currently prevails in The Netherlands and also starts to include spirituality and community care.
The Base Bookspace is a Rotterdam based nomadic bookshop. It originated from a lifelong love for the written word. The focus is on books by Black authors. Every month five books are added to the collection with a focus on recently published works by young authors. Based in the Netherlands, The Base is looking to offer a platform to upcoming Afro-Dutch writers as well as promoting other Afro-diaspora and African writers. The Base Bookspace is a homebase for the whole community, including LGBTQ+ authors and readers.
The War in Sudan has created the World’s largest Humanitarian crisis. According to the World Food Programme 19 million people are facing extreme levels of hunger and very little international humanitarian aid is reaching the country. In Response to this tragic situation in our native country, we have setup the Khartoum Aid Kitchen initiative to feed the hungry in the greater Khartoum area. Our first Kitchen in Al Hitana Omdurman has been a success. Alleviating hunger in the area by feeding 1,250 of the most needy people daily. The fortified stew we provide with bread is not only intended to provide sustenance but to also be nutritionally balanced. Since our kitchen in Al Hitana opened we have proceeded to rapidly setup new kitchens across the Khartoum State area. With the hope of being able to feed as many hungry people as possible. We currently directly run 12 fully fledged Kitchens as well as 5 partner kitchens which we support by covering their rice needs. We intend to continue establishing new kitchens in the Khartoum area to feed the hungriest, but in order to do this we kindly ask for your generous donations.
