Colouring session facilitated by Mercy Thokozane Minah for Black, Coloured, Indian and Indigenous Mages (people of marginalised genders – trans women and men, non-binary people, cis women) who are survivors of harm.
This offering hopes to be a container which facilitates ease, joyful play and co-created softness for people who are survivors of harm. The facilitator of this container, Mercy Thokozane Minah, has found that survivorship often entails existing as people who are routinely taught that who they are is vulgar, illicit, illegal, unworthy of dignity, safety, softness, joy, respect, compassion and life. Mercy is curious about what it would look like to facilitate a space in which survivorship is treated as a status that holds dignity and is worthy of safety, softness, joy, respect, compassion and fortification of life through intentional and restful play.
How:
Offering survivors/people with experiences of survivorship space to be comfortable, playful, at ease and soft/held in softness through an intentional colouring session. The group will be offered lined artwork featuring Black queer intimacy and deep care and crayons and kokis to quietly colour in for an hour and 30 minutes. Participants are encouraged to bring blankets, pillows and/or any other items of comfort.
Mercy is a nonbinary, queer multidisciplinary maker who creates art in visual, literary and theatrical mediums. They have been a queer culture worker for over five years, making art that documents and reveres Black, queer, and trans intimacy, with a focus on the relationship between intimacy and liberation. To Mercy, art is a crucial tool for galvanising and enacting necessary resistance against oppression and modelling possibilities of liberated realities.
Date and Time: 30 April 2026 at 13:30
Duration: 90 minutes
Tickets: R100 (Free for anybody who is unable to afford it)
Body Politic: Access/Praxis
We are non-institutional and unfunded in order to create ethical spaces where our issues with establishment may be addressed. We centre the experience, knowledge and practices of artists and practitioners from systemically oppressed identities.
We have invited facilitators, practitioners and artists, whose research includes access and care, to propose workshops or performances around the following themes: conflict resolution, transformative justice, intersectional realities, accessibility, accountability, body autonomy, consent practice in performance, trauma-informed content and survivorship.
The two-day programme includes workshops on the micropolitics of care and food as indigenous memory, talks on disability, death, collective artistic research and ethical allyship in the face of ongoing genocide as well as hybrid offerings.
We look forward to sharing space with you.
April 30th (Minor Hall)
10:00 - Safiyya
13:30 - Mercy
15:30 - Marie
April 30th (Main Theatre)
13:00 - Sasha
14:15 - Nicola
May 1st (Main Theatre) 10:00 - Sanelisiwe & Wanelisa 12:30 - Pushing Hands 14:00 - Jair
May 1st (Main Theatre)
10:00 - Sanelisiwe & Wanelisa
12:30 - Pushing Hands
14:00 - Jair
Kopano Maroga (they/them) is a South African performance artist, writer, educator and cultural worker. They are a dual PhD candidate at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound in Brussels, Belgium, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa and an incumbent interfaith minister through The Thread Interspiritual Seminary. Their debut poetry collection, Jesus Thesis and Other Critical Fabulations, was released through uHlanga Press in 2020, shortlisted for the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences award for Best Fiction (Poetry) and later translated into German through Akono Verlag in 2023.
Louise (she/they) is a queer, disabled performance artist, curator, writer, activist, therapist, and educator based in Cape Town, South Africa. Their research is dedicated to themes of consciousness, posthumanism, crip queer aesthetics, Wicca, anti-speciesism, trauma and healing, and social justice. They have taught disability and gender justice as well as transformative justice in South Africa, Switzerland and Sweden.
Mercy Thokozane Minah is a nonbinary, queer, multidisciplinary maker who creates art in visual, literary and theatrical mediums. They have been a cultural worker for over five years, making art that explores Black, queer and trans intimacy with a focus on the relationship between intimacy and liberation.
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Community Agreements for All Who Are Attending, Participating, Organising and Facilitating at Body Politic: Access/Praxis.
We are gathered, warmly welcoming each other, for the purpose of community building and research into access, accountability and the micropolitics of care. We agree together that this sharing of our lived experience will expand definitions of access as liberation: physical, ethical, emotional, practical, spiritual, and technical. We acknowledge that, on the path to sharing, liberation, and the cultivation of all forms of freedom for all people, it may be challenging to learn to listen and to think through unexpected experiences of others' habits and beliefs and desires. We are therefore committed to building a process that works for all by utilising the following tools, strategies and structures.
Understanding and Care: We listen, read and watch with the focused intent to understand. We acknowledge that everyone is on their path and that by listening we may understand and empathise with people we did not know we were connected to or whose narrative we may learn from. We show care for ourselves and each other when we share our access needs and reciprocate support.
Accountability for Self: We speak from our own specific and unique experiences, using “I” or “we” statements. We acknowledge that we all have our own biases and perceptions and that all of us are working to become more aware and curious as to how we may be safer for ourselves and others. Consent: By acknowledging systemic power dynamics, we understand that consent-based action is always informed, voluntary and reversible. There is no urgency to complete or to conclude anything. We enter curiously, patiently and lean into the mystery of the moment. We each determine what is right for us and what may not resonate with us for now. We are enthusiastic about sharing reflections and giving and receiving feedback.
Agreement of Care and Confidentiality
I agree with the following and am committed to using them as a framework while at BP:access/praxis.
I agree that it is important to protect another person's right to privacy and that confidentiality is essential when engaging in some of the closed discussions that will happen in this space. I know that, during my time at Body Politic: Access/Praxis, I will hear personal and possibly sensitive information. I understand that it is important to retain confidentiality around everything that I might be privy to. This may include any information, personal stories or contact details. Confidentiality extends beyond the space of the body politic.
I agree that it is my accountability process to check in around my own comfort level while hearing triggering stories or in case of disagreement. I can take a break, rest or leave at any time.
I am aware and acknowledge that Body Politic operates an active safeguarding and welfare ethos.
I agree that Louise, with Kopano and Mercy, may conduct internal safeguarding enquiries where credible concerns arise.
I agree that, should they believe there is credible risk to the safety of the space, they reserve the right to implement measures such as the removal of the person in question.
I agree that, if at any time the event coordinators receive reports or complaints either through formal or informal channels about me, I will make myself available for discussion and will respect their guidance or decisions.
I agree that, should I be aware of anyone in the facilitator line-up, groups or space who is known to me as being a harm-doer, I will approach and report to the coordinators with the intention of creating safer spaces.
In case of any situation where I am unsure about what to do next, I will ask one of the coordinators, Kopano, Louise or Mercy.