dec 5, friday
6:00 PM – 6:15 PM
songs of solidarity opening
formal opening of the space by Wikitoria Love (Te Atiawa, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi)
Wikitoria Love (Te Atiawa, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi) stands as uri of Te Whanganui a Tara, shaped by the stories of Te Aro Pā and the enduring legacy of Parihaka. Her path is guided by the generations who pushed back against state power, land theft and the long shadow of silence. Solidarity with Palestine sharpened her understanding that Indigenous struggles mirror one another, and that the fight for liberation travels across oceans. From Pōneke to Gaza, her commitment is to truth and whenua, and to the lessons this land carries: that resistance is in our blood, remembering matters, and we get ahead by standing together.
formal opening of the space by the SOS team and introduction to the kaupapa.
6:15 PM – 6:35 PM
Coastal Lines Press Poets
playback of recorded poems from Gaza
Ahmad M. ElKhuwaja
Khaled Al-Qershali
Nour Abo Aisha
Samah Zaqqout
Shahd Alnammi
Sondos Al Saqqa
Taqwa A. Al-Wawi
6:40 PM – Flavours of Solidarity
collective kai – palestinian by whānau – bhagya and sam
honouring our kaupapa through sourcing, sharing and tasting.
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
kōrero – strengthening solidarity from pōneke to palestine
pōneke-based collective/community organisation/activists – finding ways to build transnational solidarity with Palestine and Palestinian
- Falastin Tea Collective (Francesca and Luke)
- Justice for Palestine (Reem Al-Ansari)
- Samuel Leason
- Uni Workers for Palestine (Carley Dove-McFalls)
mc’d by teirangi klever – (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa) brings heart, humour, and advocacy to everything she does. A poet and photographer with a passion for Indigenous rights, Teirangi took home first place at the WOMAD Slam and even managed to get blocked on Instagram by Immigration Minister Erica Stanford, which she considers a badge of honour.
8:30 PM – 11:30 PM
dec 6, saturday
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
panel discussion – Global South Uprising: how to build transnational solidarity?
panelist: ben k. c. laksana
Ben K. C. Laksana recently completed his Ph.D. at Victoria University of Wellington, where he examined the entanglements of sociology, education, youth and social movements in contemporary Indonesia. As a scholar and educator shaped by the Global South, his work draws deeply on Freirean traditions of critical education. He remains committed to challenging dominant and oppressive narratives and continues to pursue forms of teaching and research that sharpen political understanding and open space for collective struggle.
For Ben, he sees solidarity not as a sentimental gesture but a relational practice that binds people across uneven conditions, tangled histories and fragile political openings. It grows through the quiet, persistent labour of sharing resources, a labour that often unfolds far from any spectacle. Through these everyday acts, solidarity becomes an orientation that takes shape in practice, as people recognise the threads that link their struggles and choose to act together to meet material needs. In this sense, solidarity becomes a way of holding open the future. It is a discipline of hope, sustained in moments when the world gives little reason for it, and it keeps alive the possibility that collective action could reshape what seems unchangeable.
panelist: ces
Ces is a first-generation Filipino migrant living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is a community organiser of Gabriela, Migrante, and Aotearoa Philippines Solidarity— Filipino mass organisations collectively advancing the national democratic struggle of the Filipino people. Ces is a healthcare professional and she acknowledges that her migration story is rooted in the systemic corruption and worsening crisis in the Philippines. While she is aware of her privileges, her activism is grounded in the idea that caring for her community, here and back home, is an act of love and a refusal to accept the conditions that keep Filipinos in struggle.
panelist: eric mokuma
Eric Mokuma is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Due to ongoing conflict and instability in his country, he was resettled with his family in New Zealand last year under the CORS (Community Refugee Sponsorship) program. They are now happily living in Wellington, where he is pursuing his passion for new technology and web design. Eric loves learning, creating, and exploring new ideas.
panelist: Nadia Abu-Shanab
Nadia Abu-Shanab (English/ Irish/ Palestinian) is a mum, daughter, sister, educator, writer and political organiser.
mc’d by richa – a campaigner and community organiser who has worked with various organisations and movements. She is particularly interested in exploring how educational processes play a role in movement building, as well as how the left can become better educators in the process of building power.
12:15 PM – 1:15 PM
kōrero/discussion – Hindutva and neoliberal multiculturalism in the settler colonial context of Aotearoa – with Professor Mohan J. Dutta and Richa
Whānau can also join online to listen to this rich kōrero/discussion
join link: https://meet.nikau.io/rooms/eds-n3m-jwy-wsw/join/
access code: lyu2st
mohan j. dutta – Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication at Massey University and Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE). He is the architect of the culture-centered approach (CCA), a transformative framework that places subaltern voices—marginalized communities systematically erased by neoliberal, colonial, and fascist structures—at the heart of theory, research, and social change. By inverting hegemonic academic extractivism, CCA co-creates knowledge with the poor, Indigenous, migrant, and racially oppressed to dismantle interlocking systems of power.
Dutta’s decades-long activist-academic praxis explicitly confronts white supremacy, Hindutva, and far-right Zionism as interconnected ideologies of erasure rooted in settler-colonialism, casteism, and racial capitalism. His writing and organizing challenge the Sangh Parivar’s anti-Muslim violence in India, the apartheid logics of Zionist settler-colonialism in Palestine, and the global rise of white nationalist authoritarianism. Through CARE’s activist-in-residence programs, white papers, protests, and solidarity campaigns, he works alongside Palestinian, Muslim, Dalit-Bahujan, and Indigenous communities to build infrastructures of resistance and imaginaries of liberation.
Repeatedly targeted by Hindutva networks, far-right Zionist lobbies, and white supremacist trolls for this solidarity work, Dutta continues to foreground academic freedom as a site of decolonial struggle. His scholarship and activism remain uncompromisingly committed to a world without borders, castes, or empires.
facilitated by richa – a campaigner and community organiser who has worked with various organisations and movements. She is particularly interested in exploring how educational processes play a role in movement building, as well as how the left can become better educators in the process of building power.
2:00 PM-3:30 PM
collective bamboo wind chime workshop with visual artist Jieying Cai*
*registration required, maximum participants – 15, please click here to register
Jieying Cai (she/her) is Ganzhou born Chinese installation based artist working with weaving, photography and natural dyes.
While bamboo is the inhabitants of Asia, harakeke is the beating heart of Aotearoa. This work uses the migration of bamboo from Asia to Aotearoa, muka and Kauri bark as a symbol of solidarity. Bamboo is a weed in Aotearoa, growing to heights of 10-20 meters therefore blocking off sunshine and becoming a tall fence line for neighbours. The act of sawing them down is weeding. Using bamboo in weaving therefore becomes a form of resistance, storytelling and diaspora identity.
The strong winds of te Whanganui-a-Tara cause the bamboo to sing with the Kauri bark. Muka strong enough to pull up the sun suspends the two.
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
WORKSHOP: (Do not) burn your journals! with Nadine Hura (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Pākehā)*
*registration required. please click here to register
Nadine Hura (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Pākehā) share tips on journaling and how to become an archivist of your own experience in a way that will NOT make you cringe later.
Full of inspiration and prompts, this practical workshop will help you understand how to generate morning pages that you can use and adapt later into zines, essays, rants, poetry, fiction and non-fiction.
5:00 PM – Flavours of Solidarity
collective kai – srilankan by whānau – bhagya and sam
honouring our kaupapa through sourcing, sharing and tasting.
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
BOOK LAUNCH: “Our Climate Glossary” by Borneo Laboratory, from Borneo to Aotearoa New Zealand
Hosted by Wellington-based writer and curator Sophie Jerram.
The publication Our Climate Glossary brings together poems, essays and drawings made since the residency On Reciprocity held at Borneo Lab, Kuching, Malaysia in March 2025.
Curator of Borneo Lab Wendy Teo Boon Ting, editor Mandy Ariawan and other contributors will speak on translating lived experiences of cultural reciprocity into a joyous publication containing the writing of 30 contributors from South-East Asia, Northern Europe and Aotearoa New Zealand.
2:00 PM – 6:00 PM
*registration required, please use contact us or email songsofsolidaritybooks@gmail.com
Climate Justice Aotearoa
Falastin Tea Collective
Freedom Shop Collective
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
POETRY : what will WE build from the ashes?
mc’d by Nadia Solomon (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāpuhi) – a creative writer, poet, and professional yapper. She has been a panelist, interviewer and performer at writers festivals and art events, and was a 2023 Verb Wellington micro-residency recipient. Nadia self-publishes her work through Instagram and zines, and has had work published in Salient Magazine and Pūhia.
amongst many things, nadia also gifted the title – “what will WE build from the ashes?”
poets
8:35 PM – 9:00 PM
music: jazeerabad
With disconnection rife, and so abundantly visible in our current zeitgeist, rock outfit Jazeerabad seeks to create resonance and harmony through their eclectic range of influence and writing centred around narrative and storytelling. Human seeks to connect. Without it, it ceases to be.
Love is the fabric, man is the thread. Jazeerabad is the needle.
9:10 PM – 9:40 PM
music: hara
hara is Indonesian singer-songwriter Rara Sekar’s solo project. Her music blends inspiration from folk with Indonesian traditional music, cinematic pop, ambient and field recording with a focus on exploring themes of ecology, vulnerability and politics. Her work is an interdisciplinary practice that weaves together music, social-cultural research and critical pedagogy.
dec 7, sunday
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Come learn about nonviolent direct action with Lo (Climate Liberation Aotearoa)
about Climate Liberation Aotearoa (CLA): CLA is a direct action climate organisation working as part of the A22 network for a livable future. our primary campaigns are around
1) resisting destructive Fast Track projects like the proposed coal mine in Denniston Plateau
2) decarbonising transportation by regulating cruise ships and international shipping and aviation
3) using deliberative processes to engage with communities and support communities to take direct action.
about Lo (organiser of this workshop): Lo is an Armenian-American activist working against the polycrisis of climate destruction, imperialism, and capitalism. They also once yelled at David Seymour and that was pretty cool.
what will you learn in this solidarity workshop – Come learn about nonviolent direct action and practice some techniques that you can use while taking any kind of action for a better world!
- Suitable for newcomers or experienced activists.
- Please wear comfortable clothes that you can move around in!
11:45 AM – 12:30 PM
FILM SCREENING: “मैं तुम्हारा कवि हूँ ( I am your poet)” 2011, 42 mins
featuring Ramashankar Yadav (Vidrohi) Directed by Imran Khan and Nitin Pamnani
12:30 PM – 12:45 PM
Poetry Screening: While We Wait by Neha Rayamajhi
While We Wait – a mix media poem, born in response to the September 8th Uprising. It is an homage, a home, and a hope for the martyrs, the grief, and a healthier future of Nepal by Neha Rayamajhi – a cultural worker, poet, daydreamer – born in Kathmandu and raised by Nepal, currently living in so called boston – the unceded lands of the Massachusetts and Pawtucket people.
1:45 PM – 2:45 PM
Children’s Event: “Sandy Can’t Draw” with Ar-Em Bañas
Ar-Em Bañas is a Filipino (Tagalog, Bicolano, Hiligaynon, and Filipino-Chinese) storyteller and designer based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. For the past six years, they have worked in advertising, animation, publishing, and game design, and have created books, marketing materials, moving images, and tabletop games. As of this moment, they are most fascinated by fibre arts and zines.
Event: Join us this afternoon for a storytelling session of the children’s book, “Sandy Can’t Draw“! Read by the Filipino illustrator, Ar-Em Bañas, the session will be followed by a drawing and colouring activity for kids. “Kita-kits!” [Tagalog slang for “see you then!”]
3:00 PM – Flavours of Solidarity
collective kai – indian by whānau – bhagya and sam
honouring our kaupapa through sourcing, sharing and tasting.
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
wānanga/workshop – matike mai with erin matariki carr*
Erin Matariki Carr is of Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Awa and Pākehā descent and lives in her home rohe between Tāneatua and Ōhiwa in the Mataatua Region. Matariki has a legal background and is currently a researcher and facilitator working at the interface between te ao Māori and western legal traditions. Her focus has been on the Matike Mai Aotearoa movement for constitutional transformation, and she is the co-lead of RIVER Aotearoa, a Research Fellow for Te Tai Haruru, the Aotearoa Centre for Indigenous Peoples and the Law at the University of Auckland and a community Tiriti educator.
*registration required, registration click me
for more info and resources about matike mai, click here
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Online Discussion: South Asian Queer and Feminist Worldmaking from Nepal: Kaalo.100 (EkSekEyk) and Queer Unschool South Asia
In this presentation, Helena Knox and Aziz Sohail will talk about Kaalo EkSeyEk, an independent art space founded by Knox in 2016 out of a need to provide a space for experimentation, alternative art-making and bringing people together in the spirit of radical hospitality. Since then, it has established itself as a safe-brave thinking and creative ecosystem for our diverse and transcultural family of versatile artists and activists. It is queer/femme led and hosts otating exhibitions, workshops, mentorships, concerts, reading circles, discussions, and experimental artist- and community-led projects.
both helena and aziz will be joining online for this session!
online link: https://meet.nikau.io/rooms/eds-n3m-jwy-wsw/join/
access code: lyu2st
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Songs of Solidarity (Sasha and Prayash from Other Kitaab Ghar) is thrilled to share our closing session but with a hope of new beginning— and critical transnational — collaboration announcement for the SOS Festival!
South Asian Queer and Feminist Worldmaking from Nepal: Kaalo EkSekEyk and Queer Unschool South Asia (QUSA)
In this presentation, Helena Knox and Aziz Sohail will talk about Kaalo EkSeyEk and Queer Unschool South Asia (QUSA)
Kaalo.101/Kaalo Ek Sey Ek
Kaalo.101/Kaalo EkSeyEk – an independent art space founded by Knox in 2016 out of a need to provide a space for experimentation, alternative art-making and bringing people together in the spirit of radical hospitality. Since then, it has established itself as a safe-brave thinking and creative ecosystem for our diverse and transcultural family of versatile artists and activists. It is queer/femme led and hosts rotating exhibitions, workshops, mentorships, concerts, reading circles, discussions, and experimental artist- and community-led projects. (for more information about kaalo.101 and their work – please visit the website, follow their social – instagram)
Queer Unschool South Asia (QUSA)
Queer Unschool South Asia (QUSA) – In 2024, Aziz Sohail organised the first Queer Unschool hosted and in collaboration with Kaalo EkSeyEk. Queer Unschool South Asia is a month-long rotating residency-pedadogical program that brings South Asian cultural workers together. We ask the question, in this time of militarized borders, authoritarianism and attack on queer rights, can we make an otherwise space of existing and dreaming?. (for more information about QUSA and their work – please visit the website, follow their social – instagram)
Both Kaalo.101 and QUSA work through contexts of friendship, redistribution, hospitality and collectivity. In this conversation, Helena and Aziz will reflect on the work of these organisations and projects and discuss future ideas to of sustaining this, even amidst great precarity.
About Helena
Helena is becoming Hunter (they/them), lowbrow baby and the co-founder of the independent art space KAALO.101 in Patan (Lalitpur, Nepal). Their professional and private life revolves around this space, art, activism and their community.
Coming from an academic background in art theory & transcultural studies and a PHD degree, they dedicate their work to intersections of activism, research and unapologetic praxis: they are passionate about facilitating, living and researching within the transcultural context of Nepali countercultures and intersections with traditional works and communities. Through their work, they attempt to challenge systems of oppression, academic theories, methodologies, and assumptions, highlighting collaborations and coexistence within the framework of knowledge production and queer worldmaking.
Beyond their activities in Kaalo.101 and the art field, they hustle as a freelancing Digital Manager, designer, website builder, social media expert, and content writer. They look back on versatile professional engagements with art magazines, curators, cultural institutions, and corporate clients from small start-ups to large-scale enterprises.
About Aziz
Aziz Sohail is a Pakistani-passport holding curator and writer whose work builds interdisciplinary connections between art, history, archives, literature, theory, and biography and supports new cultural and pedagogical infrastructures. Their research and resultant projects honour and recognise the power of queer and feminist collectivity, sociability, joy, and wayward encounter and unfold through slowness, collaboration, and tentacularity.
They are currently a PhD Candidate in Curatorial Practice at Monash University working on ‘We Cannot Cross Until We Carry Each Other: Queer Curating as Making Kin in South Asia and its diaspora(s)’. As part of their PhD, they founded Queer Unschool South Asia.
when: 7th december, 2025 (sunday),5:30pm NZT | 10:15am NPT| 10:30am PKT
where: online
online link : https://meet.nikau.io/rooms/eds-n3m-jwy-wsw/join/
access code: lyu2st
2:00 PM – 6:00 PM
community infoshop/market*
*registration required, please click here
Aotearoa Philippines Solidarity
Climate Liberation Aotearoa
Freedom Shop Collective