Olave Nduwanje: Bearing Witness

Busy Being Black

My conversation today is with artist, author, legal scholar and activist Olave Nduwanje. Working across anti-racism, LGBTQ rights, anti-capitalism and disability movements, Olave brings to this conversation a wonderfully expansive understanding of Blackness, queerness and trans identities. Olave calls us to an understanding of Blackness that is capacious, that contains within it the possibilities of everything we are and can be – and she offers that so many of the ideas we’ve internalised about our Blackness are inherently anti-Black.

Olave discusses how her trans body is read by white and Black people alike, as an indication of some promised future; how she’s using her artistic practice to explore intra-communal conversations about intimacy and race; and why solidarity isn’t solidarity, unless you’re willing to give something up. Olave suggests that when we die, we’ll care more about whether we showed up for people than the things we surrounded ourselves with.

Be sure to check out "Olave Talks".

This conversation forms part of a special series funded by the European Cultural Foundation to explore queer Black solidarity across Europe during the Covid-19 crisis.

A special thank you to our newest funding partner, myGwork – the LGBT+ business community. Thank you to our community partners: UK Black Pride, BlackOut UK, The Tenth and Schools Out.

Busy Being Black listeners get an exclusive discount at Pluto Press, an independent publisher of radical, left‐wing non¬‐fiction books. See Busy Being Black's curated booklist here, and use code BUSY50 for 50% off.

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