Nafs & Hazaz present: Ishtar Descends

Friday 14th November | Sui Generis, Dalston £15 | Link in bio

Nafs & Hazaz unite for our first club night collaboration, an ode to the non-binary goddess who held the power to transform gender itself.

@sarrawild, @3phaz_ and @taazdj guide us through the gates.

In the indigenous Assyrian culture of Bet Nahrain (land between the rivers - Mesopotamia), Inanna-Ishtar reigned as queen of the night, queen of heaven, goddess of sex, war, and justice. Their cult was home to those who lived outside the gender binary: the gala priests who sang in feminine dialect, the kurgarra who raised swords in their honour, the assinnu whose “maleness Ishtar turned female.” Gender-blurring devotees of a deity who embodied the complete spectrum of gender itself.

When Ishtar descended to the underworld, they were stripped at each gate until they stood bare.

On Friday November 14th, at Sui Generis (formerly Visions), we follow them down. Stripping away the ordinary world until all that remains is bodies, bass, and the ancient knowledge that gender has always been fluid, that queerness has always been sacred.

Get tickets @tzkrti.world @tzkrti link in bio

📌@spaceshipcolours

Multidisciplinary exhibition curated by Andrew Demetry + Programme of events co-curated with Studio 12

Private View
12 Nov 2025, 6 -11pm

Exhibition Open
13 - 26 Nov
Thursday - Sunday
11am - 6pm

Studio 12
Cornerstone Studios
1 Addington Square
SE5 7JZ

Exhibiting Artists

Adham Faramawy is an artist who works across media including moving image, sculptural installation, performance, print, painting and wall-based works engaging concerns with materiality, touch, and toxic embodiment to question ideas of the natural in relation to marginalised communities. They have had screenings and performances at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London, Serpentine Gallery, London and Lafayette Anticipations, Paris. Selected group exhibitions include; Somerset House, London (2022) and the Bemis Center, Omaha (2023). Faramawy has had screenings at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tate Modern and Tate Britain, London; Serpentine Gallery, London and Serpentine Ecologies Symposia, London. They were shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award 2017 and 2021, were the recipient of the Frieze London Artist Award 2023 and the CIRCA Prize 2025.

Tamara Al-Mashouk is a visual artist who incorporates strategies of hosting, art making and live performance across a range of multi-disciplinary projects. Through large-scale installations, performance and video, her work explores where memory is stored, the body as container, architecture as body. These days she can’t stop thinking about: going home, but // her Saudi Palestinian ancestry x life giving practices x resistance practices x grieving practices // circular economies // carving sites of solace. Al-Mashouk has taken over a Napoleonic fortress in Dover, and projection mapped: a mountain in Las Vegas, a church in Italy and an opera house in San Francisco. She has screened work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; spoken at Tate Britain; and exhibited at Frieze No.9 Cork Street (solo), London.

Tara White is a British-Iranian artist working in a range of media including installation, performance, sculpture, video, print and drawing. They investigate personal migration and labour histories by observing visual and cultural mechanisms within wider structures of imperial legacy. They use oral recollections to interrogate precarious social conditions, producing speculative fiction that narrates and abstracts emotional impulses within the wider political sphere. Tara has exhibited internationally at Southwark Park Galleries (solo), Tate Britain, South London Gallery, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Bluecoat, Forma HQ, Centrale Fies (Italy), Nida Art Colony (Lithuania), W139 Gallery (Netherlands), Printed Matter (USA) and APT gallery, Ingram Prize, Waverton Art Prize and Hari Art Prize. Their work is held at the West Asian and North African Women’s Art Library and Southwark Park Galleries.

Programme of events

15 Nov - 3PM Presentation by Jumana Bawazir (The Right to Soil)

20 Nov - 7PM Performances by Lapis + Nicole Clif (Goldsmiths student day)

22 Nov - 11AM Collective listening in the gallery (Bring a vinyl)

26 Nov - 7PM Closing performance by Mahsa Salali

The Right to Soil is a hybrid work that is anchored in memory, intergenerational testimony, spatial and archival research, tracing the material and temporal wounds of the ongoing Nakba.

Jumanah Bawazir is a researcher and multidisciplinary designer in her own practice. She trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London and is currently an Advanced Researcher at Forensic Architecture (FA), where she focuses on the overlay of open source research and digital modelling to bring forth civil investigations that confront state narratives. Her contributions have supported cases presented before international courts and human rights bodies.

Her own research embraces the space between testimony and architecture, poetry and cartographies of power, foregrounding the interscalar resistance that emerges from forced displacement and enclosure. She has previously taught at the Architectural Association, worked in architectural practices, and has exhibited her work at the Qattan Foundation in Ramallah, the 2023 Sharjah Biennial, among other exhibitions including projects developed at FA.

Overview

A workshop for Queer SWANA playwrights

🎭 CALL-OUT FOR PLAYWRIGHTS!

Are you a queer playwright from the SWANA region with new material you’d love to test in English or your native language.

✨ Join us for the NAFS × HOMNA Scratch Showcase, a space celebrating queer joy, creativity, and the beauty of our languages and stories.

We’re inviting short plays or extracts (5–15 mins) featuring dialogue between just two characters; keep it intimate, bold, and true to your voice.

💡 New to playwriting?

If you’d love to participate but don’t know where to start, join our two-day Playwriting Workshop on 14 & 22 November to learn how to structure, write, and develop your idea into a short play!

💰 Participation Fee: £15 (for workshop participants only)

📅 Key Dates:

📝 Deadline for draft submissions: 14 November

🎭 Workshop Dates: 14 & 22 November

🎟 Final Scratch Showcase: 10 December

📩 Send your draft or expression of interest to:

👉 homnaparty@gmail.com

💬 A separate actors’ call-out will follow, depending on the language and nature of the plays

🌈 Let’s make magic together — Queer SWANA stories told in our own voices.

Under rose petals and starlight, we summon the spirits of another time.

On November 28th, Nafs & Hazaz unite to transport you through veils of history to the clandestine queer cabarets of 1920s Cairo, where divas reigned and desire spoke in a thousand languages.

At Roses of Elagabalus, we gather beneath the benediction of the mountain god - إِلٰه الْجَبَلِ - whose high priest ruled Rome in defiance of every convention. This space, named for an emperor who challenged every boundary, becomes our temple for one night.

Cairo’s roaring twenties belonged to the divas, a scene of sequins and kohl, of performers who moved between genders with ease, culminating in legends like Umm Kulthum herself. We resurrect that world, if only for an evening.

From 7pm, we feast. SWANA flavours and stories linger in the air as @__itsmesamir and @tarekelazhary take the stage, cracking open the present to let the past pour through. This is cabaret as ritual, as resistance, as homecoming.

At 10pm we descend to a hamam of music by @_hibasalameh and @bodurbodurbodurbodur. We dance until 2am.

This is more than a night out. This is a portal.

28.11.25 | Roses of Elagabalus, Dalston | Dinner & Cabaret: 7pm-10pm | Club: 10pm-2am

Free entry - book a table @rosesofelagabalus for dinner and cabaret performance

??@spaceshipcolours

Workshop / Collaging Eco-Systems

Join us for an engaging evening of creativity and reflection as we explore the themes of identity, earth, and re-imagining our future selves through collage art

@kismetscraft and @florenza.mp4 will invite you to use collaging techniques to create your own metaphoric gardens, addressing what you wish to compost, what they are currently seeding, and what they hope to harvest in the future.

Through a playful, creative, and DIY approach to making art, we’ll reclaim materials, images, and texts. Collaging becomes a way to dismantle the narratives imposed on us and to imagine futures that are self-made. We’ll work with the fragmented parts of ourselves, our communities, and our lands, reassembling memories and connections.

Expect visual, sound, and comfortable vibes whilst we manifest change and growth for ourselves and the community. Tea, coffee, and snacks will be provided.

📹 @sc.att.er.ed.see.ds
Curation@_habibtati_xoxo

EL SWAP

72 Rivington Street

Nov 9 from 11am to 6pm GMT

Overview

Presenting: EL-SWAP ✨ CLOTHES AND BOOK SWAP

Presenting: EL-SWAP 🧺✨

Hosted by @nafs.space & @riyam

Got pieces in your wardrobe that once sparked joy but now sit untouched? Maybe they’ve never even been worn, just not your vibe anymore? This is your chance to refresh your wardrobe without adding more clutter!

Bring up to 5 clothing items to swap for up to 5 new ones. When you arrive, you’ll receive a token for each item you bring; then simply exchange them for someone else’s treasures.

✨ Please make sure your clothes are washed, clean, and in good condition, ready to be loved again by someone new!

To keep things fair, we’re introducing a tiered token system with 4 colours corresponding to value ranges between £5–£20. You can also buy extra tokens if you spot something irresistible or want to upgrade your swap!

Feeling creative? Visit our upcycling station run by the incredible @the.zeina, who will help you elevate or totally transform your pieces.

We’ll also have a book swap table, so bring as many books as you like to exchange and explore new reads.

🎟️ Entry: £5, which includes one token.

All leftover items will be donated, and any profits will go to community causes we care about.

Description goes here✨ Migrant Connections Festival 2025 ✨

Join us for the sixth Migrant Connections Festival in collaboration with Stockwell Park Community Centre!

📍 Where: Stockwell Park Community Centre
📅 When: Saturday, 27th September
⏰ Time: 2PM – 8PM

This day is all about celebrating migrant creativity, resistance, and solidarity. Expect powerful performances, art, and conversations as we come together with migrant creatives, artists, organisations, activists, and campaigners.

✨ NAFS Takeover ✨

From 5:30PM – 7:00PM, NAFS will be curating a special lineup featuring incredible acts from:

🎤 @vincentj_official
🎶 @layalmusic
🔥 @mustkika

Come through to connect, dance, and resist through joy. ❤️

Description goes hereJoin us for a transformative 90-minute workshop under the full moon, where we will explore sound, movement, and reflective journaling and reconnection.

What to Expect:

- Guided meditation and gentle breathwork

- Movement practices to enhance connection with your body

- An immersive sound bath featuring inspired soundscapes and live instruments from South West Asia and North Africa

- Reflective journaling prompts to facilitate personal insight

- An optional sharing circle to foster community connection

Your Facilitator:

Yasmine(she/her) is a certified Yoga Teacher and Sound Healing Facilitator with a background in Psychology and Mental Health. She has led workshops around the world, and is passionate about creating accessible spaces that centre body awareness, emotional grounding and community connection.

This workshop is not only a journey of personal healing but also a space for collective solidarity and remembrance. As we gather, we acknowledge the profound impacts of the ongoing genocide in our communities today in Palestine and Sudan and across the global south.

This space offers a moment to reflect on personal and collective histories. By coming together, we aim to foster resilience and understanding in the present. As we gather as a community, it will allow us to reflect and grow together on our paths toward emotional grounding, support and self-awareness. If you are a community worker or activist, we highly encourage you to join us.

first-come

Tickets

Limited availability- tickets are first-come come first-served, including free tickets.

Low income- Purchase a ticket at a lower fee (on UC/Benefits/low wage job)

Free tickets - if you cannot purchase a ticket due to fees, we are happy to provide a ticket; no one turned away.

Fees are to cover our costs, time and energy as well as cover transport.

@nafs.space x @clashmagazine 🎶

We’re taking over the @breadandbutterlounge in Shoreditch (Rivington Street):

When you ask?
📆 Saturday, August 2nd,
🕣2–6PM

You’re all invited 🫶🏽

We have incredible lineup of SWANA DJs playing tracks they love and sounds inspired by the region:

✨ @kibriis 
✨ @saba_kia 
✨ @lanamawlood 
✨ @graceeenylilteeny

Come through for good music, good company, coffee or a cold beer and start your weekend with us.

No tickets needed ; just bring yourself and your friends.

NAFS Takeover on @foundation.fm 🧿✨
Tune in for Foundation Friday on

📅 June 20th 2025
🕣 6–10PM
Workshop 1 Netil House
1 Westgate Street
E8 3RL

4 hours of sounds from SWANA souls.
We’re bringing you a curated lineup of DJs, centring queer joy and resistance.

@taazdj
@_habibtati_xoxo
@saba_kia

No tickets needed - just show up! We have a few free drinks; first come first serve

Live on foundation.fm — tap in and feel with us. 💿🌍

Edited · 15w

Description goe🌿✨ NAFS is honoured to be hosting the Nomad Stage at Shangri-La presents: The Wilding at Glastonbury 2025 🌀💫

A new dawn is rising… and what we water will grow. This summer, we’re cultivating joy, resistance, celebration, and collective care through SWANA sounds, stories, and spirit 🌞🌧️🌱

We’ll be bringing the magic of the Queer SWANA diaspora to the fields – expect genre-bending sets, healing frequencies, and bold voices from our community. 🌸🪘🕊️

For secrets, stories, and updates, sign up:

👉 www.weareshangrila.com/signupforjoy 💌s here

Join us to launch Shubbak Festival 2025 with 3EIB in collaboration with Creative Space Beirut, Nol Collective and Trashy Clothing & Nafs Space

We kick off with a celebration of the bold creativity of SWANA fashion with 3EIB in collaboration with Creative Space Beirut, Nol Collective and Trashy Clothing. The People’s Catwalk brings together SWANA designs showcased in an alternative public fashion show featuring members of the Arab and SWANA community of all ages, shapes, sizes, and (dis)abilities. Bodies and fashion come together in an embodied conversation around the role of design in preservation, education and intentional connection.

This event will also feature a performance choreographed by Fadi Giha, accompanied by a soundscape and video installation designed by Sarah Boom - curated by Dania Arafeh.

Following this is a night curated by Nafs Space. More information on the line up to come including a special guest appearance!

Commissioned by Shubbak Festival. Curated by 3eib and Nafs Space. In partnership with Creative Space Beirut and Nol Collective.

DeSAPPHIC SOUNDS is back, and this time we've collaborated with NAFS نَفْس and The QPOCPROJECT to bring you an evening of live music celebrating queer talent from the SWANA (south west Asia and North Africa) diaspora

On our absolutely incredible lineup, we have:

✯ ETAF - Kuwaiti singer-songwriter & multi-instrumentalist. Genre-defying and unapologetically ICONIC, Etaf has carved out a distinct musical identity that is as daring as it is innovative. Expect playful, uplifting and powerful energy

✯Rita L’Oujdia - Moroccan singer-songwriter, musician and producer. Taking inspiration from her multicultural upbringing, her music blends global rhythms and genres, creating a unique sound that defies boundaries

✯ anonymous - our third and final artist wishes to keep their identity a secret, a mirage coming from afar to deliver a message that will almost reach you, but not quite. She dances between the lines until the whole page blurs and nothing is left but the illusive margins. We promise, you won’t be disappointed

***********

NAFS نَفْس is a platform dedicated to celebrating and uplifting Queer SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) creatives. Through exhibitions, workshops, and cultural events, we create spaces for our community to connect, express, and advocate for change

The QPOCPROJECT is an organisation and community space for all black and brown queer people

Venue access: Bar Doña is on basement level and is accessed via one flight of stairsscription goes here

🚨 DALSTON SWANASTORE TAKEOVER 🚨

Your fave London/SWANA collectives are coming together for one night only 🥵🥵

Expect Arabic beats, electrifying vibes, and pure community magic as we showcase some of the most exciting talent from the region!

🎧 On the decks:
Bar: @Sarra Wild, @NourPalestina and @Lana Mawlood
Basement: @1000raks, @Persia Joon and @Sonsonic

+ some surprise special guests 👠

Brought to you by @3EIB, @NAFS, @Bledi and new-on-the-scene @Pusswana ~ taking you on a sexy sonic journey across the SWANA soundscape.ription goes here

NAFS is proud to collaborate with Shadow Sisters, a grassroots collective dedicated to providing self-defense training for marginalized communities. Through this partnership, we’ve hosted self-defense workshops tailored for Queer SWANA individuals, creating a space where our community can build confidence, reclaim their power, and learn practical tools for protection.

Yalla Visa was a vibrant fundraiser celebrating queer artistry, resilience, and collective action. This special event brought together a diverse lineup of talented queer musicians in support of singer-songwriter ETAF, helping them secure a global talent visa to stay in the UK.

The night was filled with electrifying performances, powerful storytelling, and a shared commitment to uplifting queer talent. 85% of proceeds went directly toward ETAF’s visa application, ensuring they could continue sharing their music with the world, while 15% was donated to Operation Olive Branch, standing in solidarity with those resisting oppression.

More than just a fundraiser, Yalla Visa was a celebration of community care, mutual aid, and the power of collective support. It was a testament to the strength of the Queer SWANA community—coming together to fight for visibility, belonging, and creative freedom.

In collaboration with SWANA Healing, NAFS hosted a deeply moving in-person healing session centered on grief, reconnection, and reclaiming traditions as a form of self-regulation and collective care. Facilitated by SWANA healing, the session provided a sacred space for the community to meditate, express, and create together.

Through shared moments of reflection, laughter, tears, and artistic expression, we explored the ways our cultural practices can sustain us through loss and resilience. This gathering was a testament to the power of coming together—to grieve, to heal, and to honour our roots.

A collaborative book club by NAFS and PoA, celebrating literature by and for Queer SWANA voices. Each session explores powerful texts that reflect our histories, identities, and resistances, fostering deep conversations on storytelling, representation, and cultural memory. More than just a book club, this is a space for community, reflection, and collective learning—where our narratives take centre stage.

Description goes hereIn collaboration with SPACE 4 SWANA, NAFS hosted a powerful exhibition that showcased the incredible work of Queer SWANA artists. The opening night marked a vibrant celebration of resistance, culture, and self-expression, bringing together a community of creatives and supporters. We are grateful to everyone who attended, and to the talented artists who contributed their work, as well as @3eib for providing the space. This event is a testament to NAFS’ commitment to elevating Queer SWANA voices and creating spaces for artistic and cultural dialogue.

Stay tuned for more events, exhibitions, and opportunities to engage with the dynamic world of Queer SWANA art.

NAFS was honored to host an immersive event at SPACE 4 SWANA by @3eib, bringing together the Queer SWANA community for a day of connection, creativity, and cultural celebration. Attendees experienced a rich blend of activities, including dolma making, art healing, and film screenings, all designed to foster healing, community engagement, and artistic expression.

We extend our deepest gratitude to the artists, performers, and facilitators who made this event possible, and to everyone who participated and attended. This event reflects NAFS’ ongoing mission to create dynamic spaces where Queer SWANA voices can thrive and share their stories

A celebration of resilience, chosen family, and queer defiance, WE ARE FAMILY spotlights short films from the SWANA diaspora, exploring themes of migration, exile, and belonging. Too often told we don’t belong—neither here nor at home—our filmmakers challenge this notion, carving out space for love, resistance, and connection on their own terms.

Presented in collaboration with FRINGE, this screening highlights the ways in which Queer SWANA individuals navigate alienation and prejudice, both in the region and the West, while finding strength in community, identity, and self-determination.

Because no matter where we are, we are family. 🧿💚🧿

Through art, performance, and community, we honor the full spectrum of our experiences, embracing both grief and joy as acts of resistance and resilience.

As part of Southbank Centre’s You Belong Here program, in collaboration with Counterpoints Arts, we curated a powerful day of dance, music, spoken word, and performances, centering Queer SWANA voices. With an incredible lineup of artists, DJs, and speakers, this event was a testament to the strength of our community—a moment of collective healing, expression, and solidarity.

At NAFS, we continue to create spaces where our stories take center stage, where we reclaim our narratives, and where we remind each other: we belong here.

A day of togetherness, reflection, and action as we explore how grief can be transformed into love, resistance, and change. Through a carefully curated program of talks, vendors, and a special screening of Michel Khleifi’s Maloul Remembers its Destruction, we honor our histories while looking toward collective healing and solidarity.

The day will culminate in a transformative performance featuring 15 artists, uniting to channel sorrow into strength, grief into love, and pain into actionable change—embodying the very essence of this gathering.

Join us as we come together to hold space, create, and build a future rooted in care, resilience, and defiance.