Every Feminist Reading is an Edit

In a two-part workshop, researcher and editor Vijaya Chikermane explores the critical practices of reading and editing with an intersectional feminist lens. Anchored in the writings of thinkers like Sara Ahmed and Toni Morrison, the sessions invite participants to reflect on how narratives are shaped — and how to critically engage, rewrite, or reimagine them.

The first session focuses on Sara Ahmed’s classic text ‘Living a Feminist Life’, with a collective reading of its opening chapter. It will approach critical curiosity as a tool for reading and locating language as a means to both reflect and challenge the structures we inhabit.

The second session turns to Toni Morrison’s dual role as writer and editor, examining her essay ‘Invisible Ink’. Through group discussion and hands-on editing exercises, you will explore what it means to edit with care: to surface what has been silenced, and to make space for narratives that remain unseen.

This is a continued workshop across two sessions offering a layered entry to writing and editing as generative, political, and creative acts.

Dates: 21 Sept and 11 Oct

Time: 4 - 6PM

Venue: WH51, Common Room, Alserkal Arts Foundation (Location Pin)

Note: You may choose to attend either or both sessions. Please RSVP for each session separately.

Bio:

Vijaya Chikermane is a feminist researcher, creative consultant, and the founding editor of Writing Women, an online feminist magazine that features racialized voices in creative nonfiction, and invests in decentralizing knowledge. Her consulting practice specializes in narrative and art-based research to support gender equity projects with community organizations, universities and research institutes. She has lived, studied, and worked between Dubai, Pune, London and Toronto, and holds a postgraduate degree in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and Political Science. While she tries to unlearn her academic inclinations, she now practices curiosity and questioning through workshops, readings, and study circles that recognize multiple lived realities, and ways of knowing.