The Earth Is Not Empty

What the night is

The name answers back to terra nullius, the colonial idea that African land was ever empty or unclaimed before it was taken. It wasn't. It was full of people, systems, knowledge, and time.

Lunga Mkhila hosts a live playlist tracing the commons through Afrikan music, and a mural grows on one long canvas through the evening as people add to it. Whatever we make together will be finished as a permanent public artwork later this year.

Who you'll hear from

• Dr Lebohang Liepollo Pheko welcomes us and opens the evening, sharing what The Earth Is Not Empty means tonight.
• Molefi Makananise opens us with a water performance and a poem, on pre-coloniality and the energetic power of water.
• Mpho Makhubela, Lawyers for Human Rights, on the founding of Johannesburg through extractivism and forced migration.
• Mamosweu Tsoabi, an Extinction Rebellion activist from the Vaal, on the living effects of mining and how communities are fighting back. She is also a renewables practitioner working with solar cookstoves and a biogas digester, and joins us with comrades from the Vaal.
• Tinashe Goronga, Campaign Against Racism, on structural racism, health equity, and building solidarity across movements, joining us all the way from Zimbabwe.
• Hamza Hamouchene, in conversation with Madison, speaks from his new book, Towards Palestinian Liberation, drawing the thread between the struggle for Palestinian liberation and our own fights over land, energy and the commons.
• Sera Farista, an intersectional activist from WITS and the Climate Justice Charter Movement, closes us out with a vision of what could come next.

Come as you are, and take part as much or as little as you like. Afrikan Indigenous snacks and eats will be shared through the evening, all vegan. A cash bar will be available.

How the evening moves

• 5:00pm

  Doors and welcomeArrive, settle, meet people

• 5:30pm

  OpeningMolefi Makananise opens with water and poetry, then Dr Lebohang Liepollo Pheko welcomes us and shares the theme

• 6:00pm

  Where we've beenHistory carried through song and conversation, with Mpho Makhubela

• 7:05pm

  Where we areVoices from the Vaal, Tinashe Goronga, then Hamza Hamouchene

• 8:30pm

  Where we could goSera Farista, visioning together, closing in song

• 9:00pm

  Close