Kaiya Waerea is a writer, designer, publisher and academic from Aotearoa, now living in London. His research is concerned with crip feminist methodologies, indigenous knowledge production, and print publishing.
Alongside Sophie Paul, Kaiya is a founder of Sticky Fingers Publishing, an intradependant feminist press based in south east London.
︎ kaiyawaerea0@gmail.com
︎@kaiyawaerea
Alongside Sophie Paul, Kaiya is a founder of Sticky Fingers Publishing, an intradependant feminist press based in south east London.
︎ kaiyawaerea0@gmail.com
︎@kaiyawaerea
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 Writing
︎︎︎ Montez Press Writers Residency, ‘Unfurling Whakapapa Takatāpui’, (London, UK: Montez Press, 2024)
The first essay in an ongoing research project titled Unfurling Whakapapa Takatāpui, this text is an attempt at using the epistemological form of the koru to bring together desperate archival material through time and space. It looks at Patrica Grace’s Potiki, and the first feature story about a trans person in the feminist magazine Broadsheet, to think through how stories give us clues to our own indigenous trans possibilities.
︎︎︎ 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.
Selected Residencies & Alternative Education
︎︎︎Fluent, PRAXIS Independant Study Programme, (Santander, Spain), 2024
︎︎︎Butch Lineages Core Programme (London, UK) 2024
︎︎︎Montez Press Writers Residency (London, UK) 2024
︎︎︎Writing Survival writing course led by Catriona Morton (Online) 2022
︎︎︎Arvon, ESSAY week-long course led by Olivia Sudjic and Sam Fisher (Devon, UK) 2022
︎︎︎The Politics of Intimacy Residency led by Raju Rage (Online) 2020-21
Selected Talks, Workshops & Exhibitions
︎︎︎Design & Disability, Victoria and Albert Museum (group exhibition) 2025 (upcoming)
︎︎︎Guest Practioner, Central Saint Martins Fine Art Department (lecture & Q&A) 2025
︎︎︎Imperfect Index 2 (panel) 2024
︎︎︎AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES, London College of Communication, Sticky Fingers Publishing (panel) 2024
︎︎︎Maximilian William Gallery, ‘Five Years of Sticky Fingers Publishing,’ Sticky Fingers Publishing (solo exhibition) 2024
︎︎︎A Cheap Day Out (group exhibition) 2023
︎︎︎Healing Justice London, ‘Rehearsing Accessible Futures’ hosted by Studio Hyte (panel) 2023
︎︎︎Somerset House Studios, Grounding Practices, ’Making (and Holding) a Crip Planetarium’ (workshop) 2023
︎︎︎AGIA Design Conference ‘Design is Eugenics is Design: Introducing Crip Theory to Design Studies’ (lecture) 2023
︎︎︎Migrants in Culture, ‘Disability & Access for Visual Organising’ (lecture) 2023
︎︎︎Woke Designers Reading Club Season 4: Designing on Crip Time (8 week workshop) 2022
︎︎︎Lunchtime Gallery, I’M BORED OF READING I WANT REVENGE, Sticky Fingers Publishing (solo exhibition) 2022
︎︎︎South Kiosk Gallery, Perspectives on Visibility (solo exhibition) 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 (workshop) 2021
︎︎︎Transmediale, Almanac of Refusal, Perspectives on Visibility (online exhibition) 2021
︎︎︎Control Shift Network, Perspectives on Visibility (commission & online exhibition) 2020-21
Selected Design Work
︎︎︎Holly Revell 2024
︎︎︎Maximillan Williams Gallery 2024-25
︎︎︎Europa Europa (accessibility consultancy) 2022
︎︎︎Sainsbury’s Gallery 2022
︎︎︎Figs in Wigs 2021-24
︎︎︎Gillie Klieman 2021-24
︎︎︎Goldsmiths Press 2020
︎︎︎Healing Justice London 2021
︎︎︎Sick Magazine 2019-ongoing
︎︎︎Goldsmiths University College Union 2018-20
︎︎︎Goldsmiths Students’ Union 2018-20
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 Writing
︎︎︎ Montez Press Writers Residency, ‘Unfurling Whakapapa Takatāpui’, (London, UK: Montez Press, 2024)
The first essay in an ongoing research project titled Unfurling Whakapapa Takatāpui, this text is an attempt at using the epistemological form of the koru to bring together desperate archival material through time and space. It looks at Patrica Grace’s Potiki, and the first feature story about a trans person in the feminist magazine Broadsheet, to think through how stories give us clues to our own indigenous trans possibilities.
︎︎︎ 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.
Selected Residencies & Alternative Education
︎︎︎Fluent, PRAXIS Independant Study Programme, (Santander, Spain), 2024
︎︎︎Butch Lineages Core Programme (London, UK) 2024
︎︎︎Montez Press Writers Residency (London, UK) 2024
︎︎︎Writing Survival writing course led by Catriona Morton (Online) 2022
︎︎︎Arvon, ESSAY week-long course led by Olivia Sudjic and Sam Fisher (Devon, UK) 2022
︎︎︎The Politics of Intimacy Residency led by Raju Rage (Online) 2020-21
Selected Talks, Workshops & Exhibitions
︎︎︎Design & Disability, Victoria and Albert Museum (group exhibition) 2025 (upcoming)
︎︎︎Guest Practioner, Central Saint Martins Fine Art Department (lecture & Q&A) 2025
︎︎︎Imperfect Index 2 (panel) 2024
︎︎︎AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES, London College of Communication, Sticky Fingers Publishing (panel) 2024
︎︎︎Maximilian William Gallery, ‘Five Years of Sticky Fingers Publishing,’ Sticky Fingers Publishing (solo exhibition) 2024
︎︎︎A Cheap Day Out (group exhibition) 2023
︎︎︎Healing Justice London, ‘Rehearsing Accessible Futures’ hosted by Studio Hyte (panel) 2023
︎︎︎Somerset House Studios, Grounding Practices, ’Making (and Holding) a Crip Planetarium’ (workshop) 2023
︎︎︎AGIA Design Conference ‘Design is Eugenics is Design: Introducing Crip Theory to Design Studies’ (lecture) 2023
︎︎︎Migrants in Culture, ‘Disability & Access for Visual Organising’ (lecture) 2023
︎︎︎Woke Designers Reading Club Season 4: Designing on Crip Time (8 week workshop) 2022
︎︎︎Lunchtime Gallery, I’M BORED OF READING I WANT REVENGE, Sticky Fingers Publishing (solo exhibition) 2022
︎︎︎South Kiosk Gallery, Perspectives on Visibility (solo exhibition) 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 (workshop) 2021
︎︎︎Transmediale, Almanac of Refusal, Perspectives on Visibility (online exhibition) 2021
︎︎︎Control Shift Network, Perspectives on Visibility (commission & online exhibition) 2020-21
Selected Design Work
︎︎︎Holly Revell 2024
︎︎︎Maximillan Williams Gallery 2024-25
︎︎︎Europa Europa (accessibility consultancy) 2022
︎︎︎Sainsbury’s Gallery 2022
︎︎︎Figs in Wigs 2021-24
︎︎︎Gillie Klieman 2021-24
︎︎︎Goldsmiths Press 2020
︎︎︎Healing Justice London 2021
︎︎︎Sick Magazine 2019-ongoing
︎︎︎Goldsmiths University College Union 2018-20
︎︎︎Goldsmiths Students’ Union 2018-20
Full CV, portfolio, and references available upon request.
Please ask to see my access rider.