“It was very important for me not to pretend to have surmounted the pain and terror of that time of my life, very important not to pretend that it left no mark on me. It marked me forever.” ― James Baldwin, 1976 This workshop series is a continued exploration of memory as an imagined, contested, and…
Read MoreWriting Strategic Optimism: A Creative Writing Workshop Series
This workshop series ran from Jan 15 – 30 2023. When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything. – Waymond Wang, Everything Everywhere All at Once In this workshop series, Kandaka Editor-In-Chief Amuna Wagner invites you…
Read MoreHigh Priestess in Low Tides: A Zine From Cairo To The World
“these words they have egos and things to prove themselves, don’t they? we plant them & as they bloom we become intoxicated by their fragrance — so much so that reality shifts.” – Alok V Menon
Read MoreArchiving the Women Who Made Me Possible (after Sitawa Namwalie and Aleya Kassam)
This article was first publishes on Skin Deep in January 2021, and edited by Nkenna Akunna. Check out their amazing work! This article was made possible by donations to the Black Creatives Fund. Donate now. [Trigger Warning: Homophobia, Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia] * Let me tell you about Haneen and Channah, my aunts who are like mothers to…
Read Moreschwarz – a personal approach to contemporary black Germany
“schwarz is exemplary of the kind of mindful discussions that should be taking place in Black communities: discussions where nobody is shouting above anyone else to declare that the racism they’ve experienced is more damaging than what someone else has faced; where people are free to speak their piece and be heard; and discussions underpinned…
Read MoreWomxn Doing It For Themselves: Cuntview With Nes
In this episode of Womxn Doing It For Themselves, we sat down with filmmaker Sarang Nes. She told us about her short documentary Cuntview, filming a naked vulva in a vulva shaped church, and shared an alternative feminist interpretation of Eve & Adam’s life in Paradise. About the film: Even though cunt is understood to…
Read MoreWhat’s next?
Winter doesn’t seem a great time for starting new adventures, but here we are. We have built enough steady groundwork this year to dare the jump. 2020’s madness had us rethink health, communal care and our needs as a socially distant collective. Together, we were pushed (or – ventured?) towards the edges. In 2021, we…
Read MorePrivilege and Fragility (my intentions were good though)
I’m a white cis able-bodied woman, my partner is a white cis able-bodied man. It often feels like writing about my experiences takes up too much space on this blog. As part of my work on Kandaka I have published „If you look like me“ (2018) and „The right time and place to be a…
Read MoreYou Know My World Was Never Flat: Toolkits for Liberation
Dear Friend “Before you were artist/activist/feminist/socialist/revolutionary/she/he/they/queer/polyamorous/heterosexual/agnostic/atheist/believing/firefighter/activator/organiser/reader/…/…/… you were once a child. A child that was curious, not nasty. A child who questioned, but was not judgemental. Let this be our common ground.” Community is the only way through. We manifested this in our residency K I N O T I T A in spring. Holding…
Read MoreWomxn Doing It For Themselves – Conversations with Kat
In January 2019, Valia, Vee and I sat down in a Palestinian restaurant in Central London and decided to start a podcast. We were going to call it Kandakat doing it for themselves – Exploring activism in everyday practice. Vee had been experimenting with sound; Valia and I had been looking for ways to capture…
Read MoreCreating Alternative Realities
On Sundays at 7 PM Cairo time (UTC +2:00), we write. Pandemic dystopias have us rethinking life and our expectations of it. In our creative writing session, we dare to give into the alternative realities we have been longing for. To reimagine ourselves in different futures and kinder worlds and write them into our new…
Read MoreK I N O T I T A
This residency ran from April 1st – May 30th 2020. Thank you to all who made it wondrous. The apocalypse is best prevented in κοινότητα – kinotita – community. In these weeks of stillness, it is easy to get lost in our anxiety and future fears. Many of us are frustrated and scared, which can…
Read MoreThe Virgin Complex
You will feel it he said The ache he said You will grow and know he said What it is to want and be wanted he grabbed Haunted by hands too big and feet kicking against the waterDon’t say my name Don’t be nice Hold me and go fast fuck yeah that feels good even…
Read MoreWaves of Identity: An Egyptian Woman’s Struggle to Define Herself
(2019) Sitting on the steps of the sidewalks, I was waiting for the bus to take me to the capital’s airport.I said to my friend: “I hope I still belong in Egypt.” I had not visited Egypt in three years and had moved away seven years ago. I had become accustomed to losing and…
Read MoreModesty Verses
modesty verses this sex ting’s esoteric, belonging to a few. not for girls like me who sprouted perched in pews. when The Bible says you cannot, you repress & grit your teeth. else demons go come and get you, drag you underneath. roasting like groundnut, legs crossed like a saint; sighing at my…
Read MoreWhen Did You Last Speak To Your Vagina?
What comes to mind when you think of vaginal health? Have you ever heard of vaginismus? Does this term ring a bell, or does it sound like “a condition that’s basically… [the word for vagina] mixed with the word for Christmas”? (as Ella Langley tells us half-jokingly in her newest play Have I Told…
Read MoreAfrica Writes About African Womxnhood
“When I think of what literature can do, and I think of the ways that literature has changed minds and opened imaginations, I want to say that we African writers must centre the African gaze. We must centre the Nigerian gaze, the Cameroonian gaze, the Ethiopian gaze, the Kenyan gaze. We need to be writing…
Read MoreEmilia: Writer. Wife. Lover. Mother. Muse.
The play Emilia is a great example of intersectional feminism – the story follows a black woman countering the stereotypes that are projected onto her by entitled white men. The actresses truly represent an intersectional cast countering racism, ableism, ageism and body shaming, alongside sexism. As such, we believe that inspiring performances like these can…
Read MoreMelanin Permission Slip
Melanin Permission Slip by Jessica Fisher Hmmm, Brown skin, curly hair Intriguing Black? Latina? Native American? All three? Maybe, but surely too pretty to be black And not mixed with something Oh. Does that make it more acceptable to love me? Do you now have permission with the assumed dilution of my melanin? Could your…
Read MoreSudan Uprising – The Voice Of A Woman Is A Revolution
صوت المرأة ثورة Kandaka is the title used for queens in the ancient kingdom of Kush. However, Kandaka the word means “strong woman”. And where can you find stronger women than in Sudan? For four months now (really for many years), Sudanese people inside and outside the country have been protesting for the fall of […]
Read MoreFeminist Fathers
feminist fathers don’t exist in my home loving and supporting fathers do. impressed by independent mothers proud of outspoken daughters sometimes victim blaming always happily bathing in their pool of toxic masculinity though loving femininity (for women) not minding tears (for women) accepting fears (for women) therefore still patriarchal, still entitled and still surprised…
Read MoreThe Western Mandate – What We Can Learn From ‘The Jungle’
How does a production co-produced by the English National Theatre become testament to the devastating situation in Calais Camp? Refugees are literally trying to cross the French-British border to enter the same ‘national’ land in which the production is freely touring. ‘The Jungle’ is a production created by Good Chance Theatre which aims to to…
Read MoreHomoeroticism in Homophobic Islamic Countries: Egypt as a Case Study
“Islam has ended homosexual practices, not homoerotic sentiment” – Homoeroticism and homosexuality in Islam, Sabine Schmidtke In this paper, the relationship between homoeroticism and homophobia in Muslim countries will be explained while mainly focusing on Egypt, through mentioning a brief introduction about Egypt’s history and the rise of Islam, and reflecting the differences between the past…
Read MoreMohini Can Scream
Mohini Can Scream Mohini woke up ten minutes before her alarm. On a normal morning, bombarded with images of the day’s to-do-list, she would have risen by instinct, deactivating her alarm prematurely and shrinking her every movement to not disturb her Sleeping Working Husband. But this morning even began different. Anand’s snoring had crystallised overnight…
Read MoreHow We Understand Feminism
Why do we specifically label our feminism? Because different feminisms imagine different peace. In our opinion, most of the mainstream feminist visions are neither egalitarian nor liberatory. Feminism movement officially arose in what many refer to as the west, in the 18th century. In this context, first wave feminism is usually defined as the wave…
Read MoreGabriele: Mars and Venus
Who am I? Who am I to myself and who am I to others? Does their opinion mold and influence who I am? A few questions that have crossed and constantly cross my mind. Well, I am a son, a brother, a student, a lover and more, but who is really me? I’ve struggled, like many…
Read Moreمقاومة النساء في مصر للتحرش الجنسي بواسطة الفن
“أنا هنا لأربككم” هو عنوان خطاب لمنى الطحاوي الصحفية المصرية والذي ألقته في TEDWomen 2010. وتستخدم منى الإرباك كوسيلة لتغيير وجهات النظر ومكافحة كراهية النساء في العالم العربي وأيضاً في الغرب حيث أن هناك صورة نمطية منتشرة عن المرأة العربية بكونها ضحية ضعيفة ومطيعة ولا تستطيع ان تدافع عن نفسها. وبالرغم من أن هذه الصورة…
Read MoreArt is a Weapon
“I am here to confuse you” is the title of a speech the Egyptian Journalist Mona Eltahawy gave at TEDWomen2010. Mona uses confusion as a tool to shift perspectives and fight misogyny in the Arab world as well as in the West where Arab women are often times stereotyped as being helpless and obedient victims…
Read MoreWhat Can Feminist Theories Tell Us About the Relationship Between Women And War?
TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE AND WAR This essay was written a long time ago and does not necessarily reflect the author’s current views. In 2018, the world is being torn apart by international military conflicts, civil wars and terrorist threats with no lasting peace in near sight. The scholars of International Relations have been discussing and…
Read MoreFutura Free
What do you wanna be when you grow up? Have you started looking at any career options? I am on the verge of finishing my university degree: sketching a trajectory, defining my course of action and giving a shape to my aspirations has become somewhat pressing. In the West, we are brought from the youngest…
Read MoreCOVER ART Has No Gender
How do you view yourself? I see myself as a perfect mix between masculine and feminine as I am always playing with both genders, not only in pictures but in every aspect of my life. People often call me a fag, attempting to put me in the box of the hyper feminine gay man,…
Read MoreBODIES: Farah
“Hadn’t it been for literature, I wouldn’t probably have written this. Right?! It’s so scary how I’m a product of something I produce. I write poetry. Does this mean anything in particular? Probably no. But I write my body, my thoughts, my feelings; and if all of this doesn’t qualify as poetry, I guess I…
Read MoreCensored Women
Where to begin… last year my life completely changed. I shot my first set of nude self portraits in my friend’s bedroom and posted them online for the world to see. After receiving more likes, comments and shares then I had ever gotten on a photograph before I felt uplifted, inspired, liberated and confident. It…
Read MoreMotherhood as Sisterhood
My grandma was a German catholic girl who had to flee what is now Czech after Germany lost WWII. Her family moved to the Munich area and after finishing school, she started working at Föhrenwald, the biggest camp for displaced persons. There, she met my grandfather, a Jewish man who had escaped the Ghetto in…
Read MoreI Don’t Care If You Don’t Like My Face
Follow Kandaka on Vimeo. Filmed and edited by Hannah Wolny Idea by Amuna Wagner and Hannah Wolny Text by Valia Katsi Song: staRo – Milk
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