Priyanka (she/they) is an Eela Tamil anti-disciplanry arts, cultural and community educator living and working on unceded Darug land. Her story starts in Jaffna, ancient capital of the northern part of the mango-shaped island known as Sri Lanka, where her family fled as refugees as a result of state-sponsored genocide.
London born, western Sydney raised, Priyanka is Amma to three small(ish) children, a recovering high school teacher, a performing artist and a former evangelical. Her poetry, prose and social and cultural commentary centre the intersections of personal lived experiences: the chronic injury of displacement, class solidarity, misogynoir, rejection of Whiteness and detangling from toxic theology. She is deeply committed to personal and community experiences of joy, healing and intergenerational healing through Tamil indigenous practices.
Priyanka is the founder of we are the mainstream, an anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-casteist collective for and by First Nations, women and gender diverse people of colour that focuses on re-writing, re-righting, re-claiming and re-naming their narratives outside of white heteropatriarchy, by creating cross-community spaces for creative and critical conversations and collective care.
She can be found online at @thepriyankaproject, drawing, singing and cooking with friends, rummaging through council clean ups or local op-shops or adding to her handmade earring collection.