Bad Brown Aunties is a podcast by two artists, social justice advocates, queer South Asians, and long term friends Thanushka Yakupitiyage and Rage Kidvai. The pair interview prominent people of color, queer, and trans folk from within their New York community about identity, art, culture, and social justice with an emphasis on the “aunties” and … Read More
Welcome to the second episode of The Strumpet Diaries, a smutty illustrated comic sure to fire up your loins and get your bratwursts throbbing, written by Tara Kenny and illustrated by Madison Griffiths. This time we follow Sensible Susan, a bored office worker who gets her after 5 jollies by imbibing on self help books … Read More
Of The Island is a short film by Amanda Yogendran and Vidhya Manivannan that centers four young creatives of the Sinhalese, Tamil, and Burgher Sri Lankan diaspora – Ushka, Rolex Rasathy, ELSZ, and Santhya – who share their experiences of migration, culture, identity, art, and self-expression. “I feel like I always had an alter ego,” a voice in … Read More
Alice Sparkly Kat is a Brooklyn based astrologer with a contemporary, cross-disciplinary practice that ranges from meticulous natal chart readings, to team building workshops, creative writing and art projects, and meme making, all with a view to decolonizing and queering astrology. Kajal staff writer Tara Kenny sat down with her to discuss the pitfalls of … Read More
Manisha Anjali is a Melbourne-based poet and performer whose work draws heavily on Fijian-Indian mysticism and folklore from her heritage. Tara Kenny is a Kajal staff writer and woo woo enthusiast with a specific interest in Sri Lankan black magic and folklore. After connecting digitally across continents over their shared interest in South Asian magic, … Read More
Tamil-American California-based creative Shreya360 first came to our attention in 2016, with a series of illustrations that reimagined different forms of the goddess Shakti for the Hindu festival Navrathri. Shreya360’s latest offering is a poetry and film animation project called bars: a body of poetry “written, illustrated, animated, and exhaled” that celebrates hip hop and … Read More
Thanushka Yakupitiyage (Thanu by day, Ushka by night) is a Sri Lankan born immigrant rights activist, cultural organizer, and DJ based in New York. She leads the U.S. communications work at climate justice organization 350.org by day, and DJs and runs the QTPOC, immigrant centered party iBomba by night. Kajal caught up with Thanu to … Read More
Michelle De Kretser’s The Life to Come, released last September, is the Sri Lankan-Australian Miles Franklin Award winning author’s fifth full length novel. If, like myself, you’re a young(ish) Australian who has benefitted from the country’s long running economic boom, conflates running out of pages on your passport with wisdom, and really doesn’t know when to shut … Read More
To celebrate the release of Kohinoorgasm’s new mini EP Synthwali and the War Empire, Kajal caught up with the enigmatic experimental musician, known offstage as Josephine Shetty, to discuss being welcomed by the QTPOC arts scene, where our tax dollars are going, and music’s role in political resistance. We last caught up with you back … Read More
Junk is the latest epic book length poem written by Native American poet and 2018 Whiting Award winner Tommy Pico. In the poem, “junk“ takes on a double – actually, quadruple – entendre. First and foremost, junk is junk, as in useless stuff. We learn that Pico’s relationship with junk began all the way back on the … Read More
