Mission
An Ontological Pursuit.
Ontology is the study of being. It is a branch of philosophy that investigates the nature of existence. It aims to discover the foundational building blocks of the world and characterize reality as a whole in its most general aspects.
That’s just a fancy way of saying CoLabs is invested in the independent [not academic] study of reality[ies]. We aim to understand ‘reality’ as the complex set of narratives given to us by systems of oppression. And then, most importantly, we aim to navigate our way past, through and in-between all we’ve been taught about what ‘is’. Hopefully to find ourselves looking towards what [else] can be.
Healing Justice.
Healing Justice is a political strategy launched in 2006 by the Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective to respond to generational trauma and systemic oppression by building community and survivor led responses rooted in southern traditions of resiliency. In 2019 The Urgent Action Fund – Africa, started the Feminist Republik which uses a healing justice framework to integrate collective healing in political organising processes across the African continent.
CoLabs’s approached to Healing Justice and its centrality in our work follows the assumption that the pursuit of wellbeing – of being free from the systems and frameworks that repeatedly harm and injure us – is integral to any movement for social justice. We make the assumption that any work for liberation is or should be aimed at creating the conditions for the wellbeing of all life [across the multiverse].
Featured
Latest Notes
View Archive [ -> ]
-
I’m Kai. I am the founder, curator, Chief Visionist [I really like that one] and editor of Somayina CoLabs –… Read more.
3–5 minutes
ABOUT US
The Personal Is Political
So what drew you to activism? Is not a question we are unfamiliar with. The answer is not unfamiliar to us either. It is often a moment[s] of injustice that made us look around and think ‘this is unacceptable, this needs to change – and I can help change it”. Fuelled by anger, fuelled by outrage, fuelled by a deep, sometimes voracious energy with the soul goal to shift something, to shift you, shift the world around you, to shift you in relation to the world around you.
Often times the ‘you’ that needs to shift gets left behind in the scuffle as you move to shift the world around you.
And initially this is not a ‘bad’ thing per se. There is much to do OUT THERE. This position feels intuitive – especially as people of the Global Majority who are familiar with the urgency and sacrifice of liberation [movements]. There isn’t room for self-indulgence. We get free first – and once we’re free, then we can tend to the self and the internal landscapes that first responded to the call to organise for social justice.
But these internal landscapes, these untended to selves – these are the selves that we give the responsibility to shift societies, to decolonize, to change the world. And in small and big ways [and all the ways in-between], these selves do – change the world[s]. AND, as so many of us have seen, these selves have also been responsible for replicating and upholding the very systems we aim to dismantle. Whether that’s in our families, our relationships, our consumption practices, the organisations we build, the systems we implement, and so much more.
CoLabs , by ways of narrative practices that zoom into the ‘how’ of life and [social justice] work and love – aims to tell the story of what is so we can better see the story of what lives beyond.
fUNDING
CoLabs is currently a self-funded project. If you’re interested in funding us or inviting us to work on a project with you please email kai@kaunquest.org
We’re open to co_lab_oration.
the Kitchen table: where we share
We all derive inspiration from various places and people. Amplifying the voices of folks whose work resonates with us is an integral part of what we do at CoLabs. The list can seem disjointed – from metaphysics, to psychology, to politics, to astrology, to pop culture and more – but ultimately this work helps us to better understand ourselves, society and the world[s] in general. Come back periodically for more reading, listening and watching suggestions
Still by Anahita Sarabhai
Book
” is born of this winding adventure, traversing through galaxies of inner heartscapes, that often lead you back to yourself, to home.”
Hope, Questioning, and Getting Lost with Bayo Akomolafe
Podcast
“Author, poet, and professor, Bayo Akomolafe digs into the very notions of activism, hope, and living a life of questioning. This conversation with Prentis and Bayo challenges us to investigate perspective and to peak into the cracks of realities ruptured.”
Thick: And Other Essays
Book
“In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Professor Tressie McMillan Cottom is unapologetically refusing to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work”
Thea Anderson Astrology
Substack
“This will be the place to find out what I think about the astrology of the current political scandal, the crossroads of Black Femininity post-respectability politics, civil war astrology, books, trends, etc.”
The Tapestory Project
Archive and Cartography
Tapestory is an archive of African and South Asian queer feminist expression. Tapestory is a living breathing growing cartography.
Contextualising Healing Justice as a Feminist Organising Framework in Africa
Working Paper
A study aimed at understanding what Healing Justice means to Womn Humans Rights Defenders
The Wild Edges of Sorrow with Francis Weller
Podcast
Prentis and Francis talk about the hero’s myth, the emptiness of whiteness and how grief rituals and communal ceremonies help reconnect us to the deep echo chamber of the soul.
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
Book
“Doppelganger uses memoir, political reportage, and cultural analysis, to deep into the Mirror World—our destabilized present rife with doubles and confusion”
Somayina CoLabs 