Roots & Reclamation

This event is being held on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. We acknowledge and pay respect to the culture and expertise of First Nations peoples here and across the continent.

Join us for a celebration of art, creativity, and performance by six women who will be showcasing their work in public for the first time.

'Roots & Reclamation' aims to support new creatives share their work in a supportive and celebratory environment. This showcase is the product of a year long collaboration between the six women.

When: 2pm-6pm AEST, Sunday 13 April 2025
Where: APAX Warehouse, 213a High Street, Preston (entrance is located off a laneway via 30 Garnet St)

The event is open to the public and free to attend. However, capacity is limited so please register your attendance.

Light refreshments to be provided by FALASTINI Food Truck.

This event is proudly supported by the City of Darebin's Community Grants Program.

ACCESSIBILITY

The venue is wheelchair accessible, but does not have an accessible restroom. The path to the entrance is also along uneven surface. Unfortunately we won't have Auslan interpreting available. If you have specific accessibility needs, please get in touch by emailing a.gawthorne@gmail.com and we will do our best to make sure they're considered.

GETTING THERE

The entrance is located via a laneway off 30 Garnet St. Look for sign saying “APAX” on the right hand side. There will be people to greet and direct you at the start of the event.

Unrestricted street parking is available nearby on Sundays. The venue is an approximate three minute walk from Bell train station, or a five minute walk from the 86 tram stop (heading to Bundoora RMIT, alight at Bell St/Plenty Rd stop).

OPTIONAL DONATION

As part of the showcase we're collecting donations for the Djirri Djirri Wurundjeri women's dance group. These will help fund Djirri Djirri's annual Murrum Turrukurruk (Coming of Age Ceremony) and other cultural experiences. Donations are completely optional and can be made when you register.

COLLABORATING CREATIVES

Aly Jeon

I was adopted from Korea to NSW in 1988, during the height of Korean intercountry adoptions. I’ve only recently started learning about the history of Korean adoption and asking questions about my own history. All my life I was told, and believed, a certain narrative about Korea, adoption, and my beginnings. Like many Korean adoptees, I’m slowly finding out a lot of what I believed wasn’t true. 

'Off the Record' is a collaboration that attempts to retell my story and some of the stories of people within my community with our own voices using interviews, film photography, and archival materials.

Imaan Khan

My art piece explores the notion that being fragmented doesn’t mean broken. Like a mosaic, my many selves — memories, emotions, identities — come together in a chaotic yet whole composition. Through collage and layering, my piece embraces complexity, showing that wholeness isn’t about uniformity but the integration of all parts

Safiah Rind

Anisha Senaratne

My installation and performance piece explores the constant growing pains of life. 

Inspired by the Buddhist and Hindu concept of Saṃsāra— the endless cycles of birth and death— my piece reflects the journey of shedding old skins and embracing new ones in the pursuit of unapologetic authenticity.

Through the altar, I honour what’s made me who I am, and invite others to do the same. 

Through sharing my music, I practice standing in vulnerability, joy and strength.

Mehak Sheikh

Khwaish — urdu for “yearning” or “a wish” is a collection of mixed-medium pieces that draw on two threads of inspiration — one is my recent trip to Lahore, Pakistan for the first time as an adult to reconnect with ancestral land and the second is my hope to deeply learn from and implement principles of Islam in my life. 

I want my work to be a gentle invitation to the community to reflect on historical context, faith practice and how we relate to it in our world today. I’m sharing Islamic themes that occurred to me as I walked through some key historical sites in Lahore. My work is essentially a mental narrative coming to life. 

I’ve wanted to focus on Islam through my pieces because it has been one of the most stable aspects of my life, when many other parts have been unstable and tumultuous, so I hope it brings comfort to the community as it does to me.

Zenia Vasaiwalla

I migrated away from India at a young age, and ever since, have been trying to find ways to connect with my culture and home. One way I do this is through memory, photographs and stories. This has grown into an obsession with the archiving of personal history, especially against the tide of capital ‘h’ History and state-based narratives about the nature of migration and culture. 

Out of this, TRACE — an ode to the diasporic experience in Australia — was born. There is no one story of migration like another, and indeed, no one impact of this on the ways we live our lives. 

TRACE holds a space for those living in between cultures to explore their hopes, dreams, losses, challenges, triumphs, fears and regrets. Through our stories, told in our own words, we can shape the way we understand our place in the world. 

This is why TRACE is an aspirational archive — it is not only a record of what happened in the past, but an ongoing conversation on how our lived experience can and should inform the present and future.