(*SOLD OUT*) Nat Raha presents the first iteration of a performance work commissioned for EAF 2023 x TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, addressing the history and development of island prisons across the globe through the colonial project of the British Empire.
The work travels from Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth, to outposts of ‘empyre’ such as Spike Island, Ireland, and to the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. The performance will take the form of a sonically expansive, trans-historical poem-letter addressed to ancestors incarcerated for anti-colonial revolt. Raha considers what the rise and fall of these carceral islands can teach us about contemporary abolitionist struggles, addressing international connections and strategies in anti-colonial revolt from a transfeminist perspective.
After the performance Nat will be joined for an in-conversation with Lola Olufemi, a black feminist writer and researcher from London. Lola is co-author of A FLY Girl’s Guide to University (Verve Poetry Press, 2019), author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (Pluto Press, 2020) and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Hajar Press, 2021). The conversation will situate the conversation beyond the work, institutional interest in poetry and the role of poetics in relation to abolitionism.
Free event. Optional £5 donation will be split between Glasgow Prisoner Solidarity and Bent Bars Project.
Supported by the Scottish Government’s Festivals EXPO Fund. This performance is cocommissioned with TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, under the title ‘honey, milk and salt in a seashell before sunrise’, curated by Iarlaith Ní Fheorais. The festival takes place in Galway, Ireland, from 3–19 November 2023. TULCA Festival of Visual Arts is supported by The Arts Council of Ireland, Galway City Council and Galway County Council.