Kenyan multidisciplinary artists the Nest Collective are premiering the London chapters from an anthology series of evocative documentaries collectively titled The Feminine and the Foreign! They will do this in a Thames-side garden, and then host an unforgettable party in collaboration with Brixton club night LOCAL to celebrate Black love, community and togetherness!
South London meets Nairobi in a hidden palace in Deptford for this one-off special!
From 2-4pm:
(last admission 2.20pm for the film)
Internationally renowned filmmakers, fashion practitioners, visual artists and DJs the Nest Collective have collaborated with activists and artists in London, Cape Town and Frankfurt, all the way from their home in Nairobi, Kenya, to create this series of brief, evocative documentaries.
The anthology of voices, collectively titled as The Feminine and the Foreign, offers intimate portraits of people who have pushed back against the forces that oppress and violate minority communities worldwide, with a focus on feminist, queer and migrant rights. The Nest started their interviews with Black activists in London, exploring the intersection of ideas and action between local and pan-African experience, and sought to understand how different generations of Black Londoners relate to London as their home, asking how young activists can develop their practice in a public arena unforgiving of mistakes. These London chapters, the first to be seen, will be seen for the very first time at Shipwright!
The Feminine and the Foreign pieces offer thoughtful and compelling portraits of Black activism in London, eliciting memory, tenderness and solidarity.
The world premiere of the Feminine and the Foreign will be followed by a Q&A with the film co-directors Mars Masaai and Dr. Njoki Ngumi, two members of the Nest Collective, and also feature insights from documentary protagonists Ama Josephine Budge and Indie Max. Their interactive conversation will be chaired by writer and journalist Hannah Azieb Pool, Artistic Director of Bernie Grant Arts Centre.
4pm – 10pm
South London party starters LOCAL will fire up the DJ decks, curating a dance journey to take us through to sunset and beyond!
Featuring:
The Nest Collective (Nairobi)
Lil C
DJ Biggy C
Ayebaitari
James Massiah
Artists
The Nest Collective
— A multidisciplinary arts collective
— The Feminine and the Foreign
Q&A hosted by
Azieb Pool
— LIFT Trustee
ABOUT THE FILMS
VOL. I
In Which A Filmmaker Tells Us How To Dismantle Empire
Featuring Veronica McKenzie, a writer, director, and budding historian, with work including ‘UNDER YOUR NOSE’ (2017) about UK black LGBTQ+ history, and MONICA LOOSE ON A CRUISE which was a BFI Flare 2019 selection. Veronica wrote, produced, and directed her debut feature ‘NINE NIGHTS’ which won the Pan African Film Festival Narrative Feature Director Award 2019 and is currently on Amazon. In 2021 Veronica completed a two-year National Lottery-funded Haringey Vanguard BAME LGBTQ+ history project working with the London Metropolitan Archives and recently won the JETS European initiative for the UK, with her feature in development Proper Charlie.
VOL. II
In Which A Writer Shows Us How Community Is Lifesaving
Featuring Phil Samba, a health promotion specialist, researcher, social activist and writer with over five years of experience working in public health. His work primarily focuses on reducing the health inequalities of people of colour and in particular, improving the sexual and mental health of queer men of colour and increasing accurate visibility and representation for Black queer men.
VOL. III
In Which A Theatre Maker Shares The Recipe For Dreams That Come True
Featuring Indie Max, a creative explorer. His work spans acting, music, producing and now directing theatre. He has been a member of Sounds like Chaos for 10 years, devising and performing in shows such as ‘Phenomena’, ‘Wow Everything Is Amazing!’ and ‘Fire in the Machine’. He has also performed with a number of collaborators including The Science Museum, Lyric Hammersmith, Manchester International Festival & The Unicorn Theatre.
VOL. IV
In Which 2 Young Londoners Attend A School For (Good) Troublemakers
Featuring Iman Ahmed. Imam works as a camera trainee in film and tv and has worked across a range of productions. She is an alumni of London Screen Academy, a film school founded by some of the UK’s most successful film producers at Working Title Films.
And Nimrod Wansavi-Francisco, a 20-year-old social activist from the Netherlands based in South London. At the Advocacy Academy, he learned the basics of community organising theory over a six month intensive programme. With the skills he learnt and alongside three queer people of colour, he launched ICONIQ, a safe space for queer young people of colour with/without the intersection of faith. Difficult familial relationships, rejection and estrangements are a reality for some of those in the queer community, meaning a traditional Christmas spent with family is off the table. And so they launched Queermas, a space with their chosen families, the people who can understand them and love them unconditionally.
VOL. V
In Which A Beauty Queen Reminds Us That Everyone Comes From The Stars
Featuring Miss saHHara, a British Nigerian singer/songwriter, fashion model, beauty queen, the founder of TransValid.org, and Miss Trans Global. A keen beauty and fashion enthusiast, she has cat-walked for numerous designers at London Fashion Week, graced the covers of several magazines, hosted and appeared in shows across Europe and Asia.
In 2011, Miss saHHara was the subject of a Sky Living documentary exploring the lives of trans women participating in beauty pageants in Thailand. In 2014, she was crowned the first ever Super Sireyna Worldwide, a global transgender beauty pageant, which made her the first black trans woman to win an international beauty competition. At the pageant, she represented her birth country Nigeria, to draw attention to the negative attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community in Africa. As part of her advocacy, she started TransValid Organisation. A global awareness project for transgender people and allies to tackle misconceptions, fear, and violence against transgender people worldwide. TransValid empowers the community by using media forums and outreach programs to educate members of the public. She is currently the President and Executive Producer Miss Trans Global, an annual event providing a platform for a diverse heritage of transgender women from all works of life. The pageant’s key goal is to raise awareness about the plight of transgender women in the UK, Nigeria and globally.
VOL VI
In Which An Alchemist Illuminates That Black Worlds Are Worth Saving For Black People
Featuring Ama Josephine Budge, a British-Ghanaian speculative writer, artist, scholar, curator and pleasure activist whose praxis navigates intimate explorations of race, art, ecology and feminism, working to catalyse social justice, environmental evolutions and troublesomely queered identities. Ama is a PhD candidate in Psychosocial Studies with Dr Gail Lewis and Dr Margarita Palacious at Birkbeck University of London. Ama is the recipient of the 2020 Local, International and Planetary Fictions Fellowship with Curatorial Frame (Helsinki) and EVA International (Limerick), and will be researching the topic Pleasurable Ecologies – Formations of Care: Curation as Future-building. Ama is also a member of Queer Ecologies 2020 and initiator of the Apocalypse Reading Room project. Her visual art and written work have been commissioned, exhibited and published internationally including with Jupiter Artland, Casco Art Institute, the Architectural Review, the Feminist Review, Aperture, Whitechapel Gallery, Duke University Press and more.
Important Ticket Information
- Please note, your ticket will get you into all activity on site at Shipwright.
- There is no re entry once you are in.
- We will only admit audiences in to see the film until 2.20pm, to avoid disruption.
- After this we will admit audiences in at 4pm for the dance party.
- There will be some tickets available to buy on the door , priced at £15 – cash and card taken.
Credits
Commissioned by LIFT, Institute for the Creative Arts at the University of Cape Town, the British Council and LIFT Tottenham. Supported by British Council’s Sub-Saharan Africa new Art new Audiences programme, the Goethe-Institut London, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, We Are Lewisham and the Albany. Presented in association with Shipwright.
We Are Lewisham is presented by Lewisham Council and the Albany as part of the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture 2022.
London photography and filming by Timi Akindele-Ajani.
Event photography by Christa Holka.
Artwork by Leon Davis (@xtrava.ganza)
Shipwright
Shipwright, one of the few remaining parts of Deptford’s former royal dockyard, is a home and creative space for artists, performers, and audiences from around the globe.