This workshop is part of the Vagina Museum's South Asian Heritage Month Programme. The event is open to people of all backgrounds and of all genders, but is run by and primarily for folks of South Asian descent.

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Languages of Belonging

A poetry workshop exploring the work of trans & queer South Asian poets. We'll look at how shared language (or lack thereof) creates intimacy and/or distance. We’ll think about the languages of words, food and silence. There’ll be time for collective reading, discussion and writing. No prior writing experience necessary!

Facilitator Biography

Gayathiri Kamalakanthan (@unembarrassable) is a Tamil poet and producer. They're interested in how language shapes belonging and how we might use it to build freer futures. Gayathiri runs Word-Benders, a poetry workshop centering trans and queer poets of colour. Their work has been awarded the Disabled Poets Prize and the Faber & Adlyn Publisher’s Prize. Their novel-in-verse, Bad Queer, is forthcoming with Faber.
gayathiri.co.uk.

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South Asian Heritage Month at the Vagina Museum

Since 2022 the Vagina Museum has been in Bethnal Green in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, a vibrant and largely South Asian borough. Bangladeshis, and people from other parts of South Asia, have been a part of this community since the 1950’s, when the government encouraged Commonwealth citizens to move to the UK to help rebuild the country after World War Two.

Although we have South Asian volunteers and approximately 9% of our visitors identify as South Asian, there are currently no people of South Asian descent working for the Vagina Museum. We're a small team, but it is precisely this lack of representation that can lead to the kind of universalising narratives of which we are so critical. It is our responsibility, then, to put in the effort to bridge that gap. 

This isn’t about putting on one seminar or one exhibition, having one diversity hire or making one statement of solidarity. It has to be intentional and ongoing. With that in mind, we’re prioritising South Asian artists, poets, healthcare workers, and other organisers during South Asian Heritage Month with the aim of building our connections and networks within the community such that those relationships might continue to flourish after South Asian Heritage Month.

As this year’s theme suggests, we’re looking to put down some roots and see where those take us.

Find the whole programme on our website.

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