Transindigenous Assembly

The documentary Transindigenous Assembly by Joulia Strauss follows queer Aboriginal and Indigenous artists and their inventions of the “good life”. Many Indigenous peoples have in common that they embrace trees, drink the sun, talk to the plants, worship their ancestors, and, in order to daydream, forge their own bridges to the sky – just as we will be doing during the film. Transindigenous Assembly takes us on a journey from knowledge-rich island to knowledge-rich island, guided by Joulia Strauss who plays an Ancient Greek lyre along the way while narrating this “Odyssey” from the perspective of an ecofeminist Siren.

In the film you will meet artists who have remained in their Indigenous communities or have variously returned to them and the forms of knowledge they offer. You will meet master teachers whose outstanding teachings on light are as precise as any mathematics. You will meet Aboriginal cultural workers who have emancipated themselves solely through the power of their art, and Amazonian curanderas who work miracles despite the shaman business. Living on the receiving end of the Empire, they have invented lives worth living. The idea of bringing all these protagonists together in one film is intended to inspire an alternative planetary politics. The film also proposes an epistemic and pedagogical shift to help education adapt to these times of failed systems of governances and life on a privatized planet.

The name Transindigenous Assembly is also a suggestion for a post-film gathering, with cooking and learning songs. The assembly is intended to provide a point of access for a possible and necessary non-identitarian political imaginary that helps to overcome isolation through collectivization. The discussion will touch upon notions of indigeneity and our localities.

Invited activists and groups will talk about the film, as well as the practices of care and resistance of the participants will take place during collective cooking with activists and artists Adiba (Kazakhstan) and Kanykei Kyzy (Kyrgyzstan).

Adiba (she/they) is a Berlin-based art practitioner originally from Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her work explores themes of death, transgenerational trauma, post-Soviet identity, and queerness. Through her food-focused happenings, she navigates the intersections of personal and collective memory and uses culinary practices as a medium for storytelling and healing. Adiba will host this happening together with Tolganay Talgat.

Kanykei Kyzy is a trans*activist from Kyrgyzstan. She is part of Nomads or North Eurasian Indigenous Community, a community of indigenous people from the former USSR, the main focus of which is decolonial and intersectional projects. They organize cultural and educational public events, exhibitions and discussions.

Text by Joulia Strauss.