Black Fugitivities: Two-Part Community Event Series
Join Wasafiri for BLACK FUGITIVITIES, a two-part community event series taking place this summer 2025.
Necropolitics – a term coined by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe – refers to how sociopolitical powers dictate who gets to live and die. As the imperial machine of the Global North increasingly grinds us down, how can we choose to move through, and imagine, the world differently? What are the possibilities of going beyond conventional modes of dissidence?
For part one of this series, IMAGINE OTHERWISE: Black Fugitivities, join us for a roundtable discussion chaired by Rivers Solomon – with Vanessa Kisuule, Sarah Lasoye, and Irenosen Okojie – as together they think through and discuss refusal, flight, and evasion as modes of feminist resistance and speculative worldbuilding in relation to their recent work.
When: Thursday, 19 June, 6:30-8:30pm
Where: The Common Press bookshop, London
For part two of this series, we’re pleased to present an online writing workshop hosted by Lola Olufemi, called Writing through Fugitivity.
In this workshop, Lola will guide participants through the historical significance of fugitivity and the utility of speculative writing practices in response to the world. Drawing specifically on Black feminist approaches, this workshop will encourage participants to experiment with speculative reading and writing practices across genres.
When: Thursday, 10 July, 7-9pm
Where: Online, via Zoom
This workshop has 18 spots available, with 6 concession spots specifically reserved for Black writers.
This series is presented in partnership with the Centre for Contemporary Writing (CCW) at Queen Mary, University of London.
Rivers Solomon is an American author of speculative and literary fiction. In 2018, they received the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Award in Fiction for their debut novel, AN UNKINDNESS OF GHOSTS, and in 2020 their second novel, THE DEEP, won the Lambda Literary Award.
Sarah Lasoye is a poet from London, based in Sheffield. Her debut chapbook FOVEA / AGES AGO was published by Hajar Press in 2021, and her work has been featured in literary magazines including: Bath Magg, And Other Poems, Wasafiri, & Basket Magazine. She facilitates writing workshops for schools, universities, cultural institutions and community groups, and is represented by Kat Aitken at Lexington Literary. Alongside writing, she works as a Peace and Human Security campaigner at Medact.
Vanessa Kisuule is a writer and performer based in Bristol. She has won over ten slam titles including The Roundhouse Slam 2014, Hammer and Tongue National Slam 2014 and the Nuoryican Poetry Slam. She has been featured on BBC iPlayer, Radio 1, and Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Blue Peter, Don't Flop and TEDx in Vienna. She has appeared at an array of literary and music festivals and was Glastonbury Festival's Resident Poet in 2019.
Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British author. Her books have won and been nominated for multiple awards. She co-presented the BBC's Novels That Shaped Our World podcast. She has judged various prizes including the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction. Awarded an MBE in 2021, she was named a visionary artist in Red Magazine's The Next 25 Visionaries to Watch by Bernardine Evaristo. She is the Director and Founder of Black to the Future multidisciplinary Festival.
Dr. Lola Olufemi is a black feminist writer and Associate Lecturer based in the Design School at University Arts London: London College of Communication. Her work focuses on the utility of the political imagination in the textual and visual cultures of radical social movements, examining the role cultural production plays in materialist resistance and collective conceptualisations of futurity. She is author of FEMINISM INTERRUPTED: DISRUPTING POWER (Pluto Press, 2020), EXPERIMENTS IN IMAGINING OTHERWISE (Hajar Press, 2021), the forthcoming AGAINST LITERATURE (2026), and a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective. She occasionally curates and is a member of the organising team at the Feminist Library based in Peckham.
These events are held in partnership with the Centre for Contemporary Writing at Queen Mary, University of London.