Femme Infrastructure

Author’s note:It’s been a minute since I’ve written here, and this feels like the right way back in.This piece is about gratitude, memory, and the labor we rarely name.

The name Bandung Banter comes from the 1955 Bandung Conference — a historic gathering of newly decolonized nations imagining a world beyond empire.

But when I revisit that moment, I notice who’s missing:the femmes, the care workers, the grief-holders —those who made solidarity possible, but never made the photo.

This space is a reimagining.Not of what happened on stage —but of the quiet labor that’s always held us behind it.

I've spent years watching who stays.

Who checks in. Who checks up.

Who builds the thing without needing to own it.

And the answer has always been the same:

It's the femmes.

In the comments.

In the group chats.

At the door before it opens and after it closes.

First to offer. Last to leave.

Not asked. Not assigned.

Just there.

Holding the room while the rest of us spoke.

Long before I had a name for it, I knew it by feel.

In a WhatsApp thread.

In a crisis response.

In a head nod across a crowded event.

When I finally came across the phrase affective labor

— in Tina Campt's The Visual Frequency of Black Life —

the dots didn't just connect. They lit up.

The foundations of the BlindianProject were poured in the thick of 2020, during lockdown, unrest, and uncertainty.

It wasn't just a platform.

It became a safe space for acceptance in a moment when so much else was unravelling.

Black x Brown individuals and couples showed up. Not because they were new.

But, because the radical visibility was.

People shared the good, the bad, the ugly with strangers, in public, without shame.

And for many, it was the first time they'd ever been seen and believed.

They consoled each other.

Encouraged each other.

Told each other not to lose hope.

And the community grew. Not just because of what was said, but because of how it was held.

Michael Hardt defines affective labor as labor that produces immaterial goods — service, knowledge, emotion.

But more than that, as Guillermina Altomonte writes:

"The products of this labor are social networks, forms of community, and biopower — that is, the power to create society itself."

And if that's true — then the femmes in this space were doing more than participating.

They were shaping a social reality.

It cannot be a coincidence that when I'm mentioned in rooms I've never entered, when my work is shared in places I've never touched,

it's most often by femmes.

In organizing spaces.

In academic rooms.

In gallery backchannels.

In chats, DMs, and whispered recommendations.

They don't just speak up.

They platform quietly.

They carry.

Burnout is not a badge.Care is not a free resource.And unpaid labor is still labor.

We’ve all benefited from the invisible work that holds communities together.

As we move toward becoming a nonprofit, we’re committed to ensuring that labor is seen, valued — and compensated.

This project was built on care.

Now, we’re building the structure to support it.

Some of you will see yourselves in this.

And some of you I might never have thanked properly.

But please know: I noticed. I always noticed.

To every woman, femme, and femme-presenting person

who’s carried BlindianProject, SA4BL, and so many of our shared spaces —

We see you.

We thank you.

This project rests on your care.

This offering is for you.

About the AuthorJonah Batambuze is a Ugandan-American interdisciplinary artist, cultural architect, and community builder working at the intersection of memory, migration, and material culture. His ritual-based practice spans food, film, installation, and storytelling — using gesture, gathering, and refusal to reimagine identity through lived experience and collective authorship.

As founder of the BlindianProject and lead organizer of South Asians for Black Lives, Jonah builds global communities through culture as a tool for solidarity and transformation. His work doesn’t just reclaim Black x Brown intersections, it remixes them.