A central part of our work in 2021 has been listening to different groups and communities talk about the idea of the public good. What it means, what they want for their communities and who is responsible. We’ve been listening to people, and we’ve also been supporting other facilitators to listen to their own communities and then come together to reflect on what we’re all hearing.

As the central coordinator of this work, Millie gets to see the group reflections and control the bigger picture story about the common themes emerging (she’s written up some of this here). This is what research does: it aggregates ideas and then spits them out in ways that are often unrecognisable to participants. It reveals common themes, strong ideas and helps the whole become more than the sum of the parts.  

But, we believe the individual stories themselves are powerful, and that participants should have the opportunity to have their perspectives and language heard without being filtered by us. So we invite participants in this project to write their own blogs, and it is our great pleasure to share with you the reflections of the incredible artist Kuweni Dias Mendis.

Rootedness ~ navigating the complexity and coherence through connectivity. Building a culturally safe places as a public good.

As a woman of colour and culture my artistic activism voice is creating culturally safe spaces for people of colour. When I started my conversations with Australia reMADE as a part of their New Public Squares Project I shared my interests to hold space for women of colour and find out what was important to them. As the conversations progressed I felt I was heard, acknowledged and my voice mattered. 

I held conversations by creating a space for women of colour to talk and to create art as a way to make the best outcomes of the time together for all involved. These sessions were carefully curated so the women were able to express themselves creatively through imagery around themes that sometimes had no language. 

I reached out to a group of women from varied professional backgrounds to be a part of the public squares program. When we got together most of us didn’t know what we were going to unearth. I was there to listen and ask questions, and they were there to talk and doodle as they listened to the group. These women were utterly courageous to turn up the first day and the next few sessions as the conversations progressed. After our sessions we shared a common meal together and continued to keep in touch through a chat called “Women for Women”. 

The first conversation

In our first conversations we unearthed the need to belong without needing to fit in. To me fitting in is when we have to squeeze ourselves into a mould that’s already made for us by the dominant culture, then there’s fear of being left out hence we pretend to be somebody else. Belonging is when we can take our whole self, the magnitude of who we are to spaces, knowing we are accepted and we matter when  it’s safe  to be ourselves without compromising. 

And we talked about the need for inclusion. Inclusion in public spaces, workspaces, universities and any organisation with cultural safety. We want spaces where people and programmes see and accept people of colour as we are without needing to culturally fit in for the dominant culture. Where different types of intelligence and experience of different backgrounds are accepted equally without being dismissive. 

We acknowledged the need for a physical Space for Women to gather as women of colour and culture for talking and healing, connecting and sharing, building capacity with women of different age groups, different life cycles and different experiences to support each other.

In these doodles from the first conversation the fully formed trees that were rooted spoke to me, the pathways that emerge in our journeys, river of life, the Sun that meant energy, source of life and hope stayed with me.