Grief and Solidarity - Creative Workshop & Open Mic Poetry

A Studio Rawanee & Mehfil with Rawanee Gathering

As the world burns, and people find themselves helpless as their own people - or other people - struggle, heavy grief sets in.
For those of us who believe in our common humanity, solidarity becomes important.
We gather together to speak to this grief and show solidarity toward each other.
Our guide is proportion and clarity as we reclaim our agency as humans through structured creative exercises and reflection:

• Reflections on classic poetic texts
• Guided reflective writing
• Colour-based mapping
• Optional, moderated storytelling and open mic M
This in-person Studio gathering explores our common grief, humanity, responsibility, and resilience with clarity and proportion anchored in the principles of justice, moral partnership and agency.
Held during Ramadan under Rawanee’s seasonal theme of Salaam wa Noor - peace and illumination, clarity and proportion, the conversation is broader.
The reflections apply to everyone, notwithstanding faith and cultural perspectives - recognising that our struggles as humans are often similar.

Open to everyone - all backgrounds, cultural, and faith perspectives.No artistic or poetic experience required.

Limited spaces.

About the facilitator:

Muniba Mahmud is the slightly relentless engine driver behind Rawanee — a writer, poet, performer, and facilitator whose work explores identity, spirituality, migration, and social justice without flattening their complexity.

Over the past five and a half years, she has grown Rawanee from an idea into a credible cultural platform spanning publications, live events, a podcast, and a collaboratively written poetic play. Through it, she has convened artists, thinkers, and community voices across borders, with a particular commitment to global-majority expression.

Studio Rawanee is an extension of that work — a practice-based space where language, structure, and creative exercises are used to explore resilience, proportion, and ethical clarity in lived life. Muniba brings both intellectual grounding and careful facilitation to the room, creating spaces that are serious without being stiff, reflective without being sentimental, and creative without being chaotic.

Fuelled by chai and an enduring curiosity about how text and culture intersect, she is committed to making the arts more accessible, authentic, and representative.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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