Kaiya Waerea is a writer, designer, publisher and academic from Aotearoa, now living in London. Their research is concerned with crip feminist methodologies, indigenous knowledge production, and print publishing.
︎ kaiyawaerea0@gmail.com
︎@kaiyawaerea
︎︎︎ Royal College of Art 2022 degree show
︎ kaiyawaerea0@gmail.com
︎@kaiyawaerea
︎︎︎ Royal College of Art 2022 degree show
Ongoing Collaborations
︎︎︎Access Power Visibility (APV) 2020-ongoing
APV are a London-based collective addressing issues around Disability Justice in the UK by exploring notions of radical accessibility, the relationship between power and presence, and accessibility as concept and medium. Formed by designer and educator Arjun Harrison-Mann, artist and producer Benjamin Redgrove and Kaiya Waerea, our most recent project, with Healing Justice London, was called Deaths by Welfare. Here we designed and produced a web archive to hold their 10+ year body of research into the relationship between the deaths of vulnerable people and welfare reform.
︎︎︎Sticky Fingers Publishing 2019-ongoing
Sticky Fingers Publishing is an intra-dependant press based in South East London, run by Kaiya Waerea and Sophie Paul. We are a feminist, queer, disabled-led publisher producing experimental non-fiction at the intersection of academia, visual culture, art, design and performance. Our most recent titles include Masturbatory Reader, an anthology exploring the erotics of knowledge production, and our new periodical Get Rid of Meaning: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Writing. We produce our publication in house on our Riso RP 3700, and work with an expanding roster of guest editors.
Selected Professional Experience
︎︎︎Lecturer, BA Graphic Design Camberwell College of Arts, University of London, 2021-ongoing
︎︎︎Associate Lecturer, BA Design, Goldsmiths University of London 2022-ongoing
︎︎︎Gillie Klieman, ‘Friend’ Graphic and Production Designer 2021-24
︎︎︎Visiting Lecturer, AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES, London College of Communication 2024
︎︎︎ Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art, Kingston University 2024
︎︎︎Visiting Lecturer, MA Graphic Design Communication Camberwell College of Arts, University of London 2022
︎︎︎Abby Nocon, Support Worker 2022
︎︎︎Europa Europa, ‘RCA Degree Show 2022’, Accessibility design consultancy 2022
︎︎︎Sainsbury’s Gallery, ‘Site Writing’ publication designer 2022
︎︎︎Goldsmiths Press, Cover Designer 2020
︎︎︎Sick Magazine, Graphic Designer 2019-ongoing
︎︎︎ Goldsmiths University College Union, Graphic Designer 2018-20
︎︎︎ Goldsmiths Students’ Union, Graphic Designer 2018-20
︎︎︎ Dice Festival, Co-Director 2018
Selected Residencies & Alternative Education
︎︎︎PRAXIS Independant Study Programme, Fluent 2024
︎︎︎Montez Press Writers Residency 2024
︎︎︎Zine Making Residency at the Cornwall Zine Library, the Fish Factory 2022
︎︎︎Writing Survival writing course led by Catriona Morton 2022
︎︎︎Arvon, ESSAY week-long course led by Olivia Sudjic and Sam Fisher 2022
︎︎︎The Politics of Intimacy Residency led by Raju Rage 2020-21
Selected Writing
︎︎︎ How To Sleep Faster #15: PRIVATE, ‘Permanently Differed: A Bibliographic Opera’ with Sophie Paul (London, UK: Arcadia Missa Publishing, 2024)
Taking the form of a three-act play, this essay brings together a cast of gender and indigenous studies theorists, performance makers, and historians, to speculatively examine how the process of privatisation has produced hegemonic gender systems and therefor privatised gender, and what feminist publishing, as an activity of public-making, might do to re-common gendered affects.
︎︎︎Access Questions for Self Publishing
(London, UK: PageMasters, 2024)
AQfSP is a resource for thinking about what accessibility means within self- and independent publishing, featuring interviews with Olivia Spring, Abi Palmer and D Mortimer. This pamphlet was initially self published in 2022.
︎︎︎Counter Signals 5: Systems and their Discontents, ‘No Future for Bad Crips’,
(Chicago, USA & Berlin, Germany: Other Forms, 2024)
Written in 2022 and published here alongside a series of diagrams, this essay engages with Anne Marie Willis’ ontological design to explore Rosemarie Garland Thompson’s eugenics logic. In doing so, it explores the way disabled people are designed out of our social futures, and positions disability itself as an interpretive rupture that re-forms what it means to be in the (material and immaterial) made world.
︎︎︎Errant Journal No. 5: Learning from Ancestors ‘Bitches, witches & dykes: The Teachings of Black Feminist Publishing in Aotearoa’
(Amsterdam, Netherlands: Errant Journal, 2023)
This essay begins with an archival encounter with the newspaper bitches, witches & dykes that ran in Aotearoa from 1980-82. From here, it explores the diasporic movement of both bodies and knowledge, and the mechanisms of forgetting built into sites and systems of knowledge keeping.
︎︎︎Sick Magazine Issue 5 ‘Forming Kinships through Resisting Cure’ with Amy Etherington
(Maine, USA: Sick Magazine, 2023)
Taking the form of a conversation between Amy and myself, this essay explores the potential for kinship between crip and trans experiences through resisting medicalised narratives and curative logic.
︎︎︎ AGIA Eye on Design, ‘The Liberatory Potential of Teaching Design from a Body in Pain'
(New York, USA: AGIA, 2021)
Weaving together some of my experiences of teaching graphic design with and through chronic illness, this article looks at the exclusion of disabled people in the context of the design classroom, and how we might retain the liberatory potential of the classroom in the face of this.
Selected Talks, Workshops & Exhibitions
︎︎︎Imperfect Index 2, 2024
︎︎︎Maximilian William Gallery, ‘Five Years of Sticky Fingers Publishing’ 2024
︎︎︎A Cheap Day Out, Group show 2023
︎︎︎Healing Justice London, ‘Rehearsing Accessible Futures’ Panel discussion hosted by Studio Hyte 2023
︎︎︎Somerset House Studios, Grounding Practices, ’Making (and Holding) a Crip Planetarium’ 2023
︎︎︎AGIA Design Conference ‘Design is Eugenics is Design: Introducing Crip Theory to Design Studies’ 2023
︎︎︎Migrants in Culture, ‘Disability & Access for Visual Organising’, 2023
︎︎︎Broken Grey Wires, ‘Protest Blankets’ quiet space commission 2023
︎︎︎Woke Designers Reading Club Season 4: Designing on Crip Time 2022
︎︎︎Lunchtime Gallery, I’M BORED OF READING I WANT REVENGE, Sticky Fingers Publishing 2022
︎︎︎South Kiosk Gallery, Perspectives on Visibility 2021
︎︎︎Dash Arts, World Within Worlds ‘Science Fiction, Disabled Futures’ zine making workshops 2021
︎︎︎Knowle West Media Centre, Come Together ‘Proxy Politics: Making and Unmaking Perspectives on Access’ with APV 2021
︎︎︎Transmediale Almanac of Refusal, Perspectives on Visibility 2021
︎︎︎Control Shift Network, Perspectives on Visibility 2020-21
Full CV, portfolio, and references available upon request.
Please ask to see my access rider.
︎︎︎Access Power Visibility (APV) 2020-ongoing
APV are a London-based collective addressing issues around Disability Justice in the UK by exploring notions of radical accessibility, the relationship between power and presence, and accessibility as concept and medium. Formed by designer and educator Arjun Harrison-Mann, artist and producer Benjamin Redgrove and Kaiya Waerea, our most recent project, with Healing Justice London, was called Deaths by Welfare. Here we designed and produced a web archive to hold their 10+ year body of research into the relationship between the deaths of vulnerable people and welfare reform.
︎︎︎Sticky Fingers Publishing 2019-ongoing
Sticky Fingers Publishing is an intra-dependant press based in South East London, run by Kaiya Waerea and Sophie Paul. We are a feminist, queer, disabled-led publisher producing experimental non-fiction at the intersection of academia, visual culture, art, design and performance. Our most recent titles include Masturbatory Reader, an anthology exploring the erotics of knowledge production, and our new periodical Get Rid of Meaning: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Writing. We produce our publication in house on our Riso RP 3700, and work with an expanding roster of guest editors.
Selected Professional Experience
︎︎︎Lecturer, BA Graphic Design Camberwell College of Arts, University of London, 2021-ongoing
︎︎︎Associate Lecturer, BA Design, Goldsmiths University of London 2022-ongoing
︎︎︎Gillie Klieman, ‘Friend’ Graphic and Production Designer 2021-24
︎︎︎Visiting Lecturer, AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES, London College of Communication 2024
︎︎︎ Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art, Kingston University 2024
︎︎︎Visiting Lecturer, MA Graphic Design Communication Camberwell College of Arts, University of London 2022
︎︎︎Abby Nocon, Support Worker 2022
︎︎︎Europa Europa, ‘RCA Degree Show 2022’, Accessibility design consultancy 2022
︎︎︎Sainsbury’s Gallery, ‘Site Writing’ publication designer 2022
︎︎︎Goldsmiths Press, Cover Designer 2020
︎︎︎Sick Magazine, Graphic Designer 2019-ongoing
︎︎︎ Goldsmiths University College Union, Graphic Designer 2018-20
︎︎︎ Goldsmiths Students’ Union, Graphic Designer 2018-20
︎︎︎ Dice Festival, Co-Director 2018
Selected Residencies & Alternative Education
︎︎︎PRAXIS Independant Study Programme, Fluent 2024
︎︎︎Montez Press Writers Residency 2024
︎︎︎Zine Making Residency at the Cornwall Zine Library, the Fish Factory 2022
︎︎︎Writing Survival writing course led by Catriona Morton 2022
︎︎︎Arvon, ESSAY week-long course led by Olivia Sudjic and Sam Fisher 2022
︎︎︎The Politics of Intimacy Residency led by Raju Rage 2020-21
Selected Writing
︎︎︎ How To Sleep Faster #15: PRIVATE, ‘Permanently Differed: A Bibliographic Opera’ with Sophie Paul (London, UK: Arcadia Missa Publishing, 2024)
Taking the form of a three-act play, this essay brings together a cast of gender and indigenous studies theorists, performance makers, and historians, to speculatively examine how the process of privatisation has produced hegemonic gender systems and therefor privatised gender, and what feminist publishing, as an activity of public-making, might do to re-common gendered affects.
︎︎︎Access Questions for Self Publishing
(London, UK: PageMasters, 2024)
AQfSP is a resource for thinking about what accessibility means within self- and independent publishing, featuring interviews with Olivia Spring, Abi Palmer and D Mortimer. This pamphlet was initially self published in 2022.
︎︎︎Counter Signals 5: Systems and their Discontents, ‘No Future for Bad Crips’,
(Chicago, USA & Berlin, Germany: Other Forms, 2024)
Written in 2022 and published here alongside a series of diagrams, this essay engages with Anne Marie Willis’ ontological design to explore Rosemarie Garland Thompson’s eugenics logic. In doing so, it explores the way disabled people are designed out of our social futures, and positions disability itself as an interpretive rupture that re-forms what it means to be in the (material and immaterial) made world.
︎︎︎Errant Journal No. 5: Learning from Ancestors ‘Bitches, witches & dykes: The Teachings of Black Feminist Publishing in Aotearoa’
(Amsterdam, Netherlands: Errant Journal, 2023)
This essay begins with an archival encounter with the newspaper bitches, witches & dykes that ran in Aotearoa from 1980-82. From here, it explores the diasporic movement of both bodies and knowledge, and the mechanisms of forgetting built into sites and systems of knowledge keeping.
︎︎︎Sick Magazine Issue 5 ‘Forming Kinships through Resisting Cure’ with Amy Etherington
(Maine, USA: Sick Magazine, 2023)
Taking the form of a conversation between Amy and myself, this essay explores the potential for kinship between crip and trans experiences through resisting medicalised narratives and curative logic.
︎︎︎ AGIA Eye on Design, ‘The Liberatory Potential of Teaching Design from a Body in Pain'
(New York, USA: AGIA, 2021)
Weaving together some of my experiences of teaching graphic design with and through chronic illness, this article looks at the exclusion of disabled people in the context of the design classroom, and how we might retain the liberatory potential of the classroom in the face of this.
Selected Talks, Workshops & Exhibitions
︎︎︎Imperfect Index 2, 2024
︎︎︎Maximilian William Gallery, ‘Five Years of Sticky Fingers Publishing’ 2024
︎︎︎A Cheap Day Out, Group show 2023
︎︎︎Healing Justice London, ‘Rehearsing Accessible Futures’ Panel discussion hosted by Studio Hyte 2023
︎︎︎Somerset House Studios, Grounding Practices, ’Making (and Holding) a Crip Planetarium’ 2023
︎︎︎AGIA Design Conference ‘Design is Eugenics is Design: Introducing Crip Theory to Design Studies’ 2023
︎︎︎Migrants in Culture, ‘Disability & Access for Visual Organising’, 2023
︎︎︎Broken Grey Wires, ‘Protest Blankets’ quiet space commission 2023
︎︎︎Woke Designers Reading Club Season 4: Designing on Crip Time 2022
︎︎︎Lunchtime Gallery, I’M BORED OF READING I WANT REVENGE, Sticky Fingers Publishing 2022
︎︎︎South Kiosk Gallery, Perspectives on Visibility 2021
︎︎︎Dash Arts, World Within Worlds ‘Science Fiction, Disabled Futures’ zine making workshops 2021
︎︎︎Knowle West Media Centre, Come Together ‘Proxy Politics: Making and Unmaking Perspectives on Access’ with APV 2021
︎︎︎Transmediale Almanac of Refusal, Perspectives on Visibility 2021
︎︎︎Control Shift Network, Perspectives on Visibility 2020-21
Full CV, portfolio, and references available upon request.
Please ask to see my access rider.