Occupations of Uninhabited Space: Solidarity with Migrant Domestic Workers in the Tai Po Fire

In November 2025, a devastating blaze in Tai Po, Hong Kong — the deadliest fire in the city in recent decades — claimed 168 lives. Among those killed were at least 10 migrant domestic workers (nine Indonesian and one Filipina). Many more workers were injured, displaced, or dismissed by their employers in the aftermath.

✊ Occupations of Uninhabited Space is a fundraising film screening and discussion in solidarity with migrant domestic workers affected by the incident. The event brings together films that examine the conditions and spatial politics of migrant domestic labour, followed by a conversation with Kanlungan, a registered charity empowering Filipino and East & Southeast Asian migrants across the UK; Migrante UK, the overseas chapter of Migrante, which is a global alliance of organisations that uphold and advance the rights of overseas Filipinos; alongside artist-filmmaker Justyna Kabala.

The term 'Occupations of Uninhabited Space' is borrowed from an object constituted of 'complex concentric shapes made of wire, which moved and changed slowly and inwardly when suspended from the ceiling', created by the character Takver in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. It invites us to imagine an alternative, non-propertarian and mobile way of inhabiting this world with other people.

Together, we will reflect on how migrant domestic labour is represented on screen and experienced off screen, in Hong Kong, the UK, and across the globe.

📅Date: Tuesday, 10 February
🕖Time: Doors open 6:45 PM | Event starts 7:00 PM
📍Venue: Pelican House, 144 Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London E1 5QJ

Films:

• Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso (Come to Me Paradise), 2016

  By Stephanie Comilang
  - A sci-fi documentary about Filipina domestic workers who occupy public space in Hong Kong on Sundays.

• A Message from Migrant Workers, 2022

  By Cristina Cayat, Jonalyn Molina, Lyn Lopez, Maria Christina Anire & Marichel Tomines
  (Members of Guhit Kulay Hong Kong Filipino Artist Collective), with Justyna Kabala and Tom McCaughan.

  - A short animated documentary film that presents five personal experiences of migrant domestic workers, developed in collaboration with five Filipino artists who also work as domestic workers in Hong Kong.

All proceeds will be donated to Bethune House, an NGO providing shelter and support to women migrant workers in Hong Kong, including those affected by the Tai Po fire.