Building on the Safety and Care Assessment conducted in 2024, Bonhishikha aimed to build a pathway to cultivate a movement-focused space for exploring connections and care. Activists, caregivers, artists, and organisers continue to work under intense pressure – emotionally, financially, and physically – while confronting multiple layers of systemic violence.
To bring this collective care vision to reality, Bonhishikha piloted ‘বিলাসিতার প্রণালী – Recipes of Rest’- first of its gatherings where rest is the agenda. This gathering was intentionally designed Not as a conference, a workshop, nor a networking event, but a space to co-dream and co-create what movements could become if we centered care as strategy. Across two months, we hosted four gatherings – three online pit stops and one in-person final resting stop aka retreat for 17 individuals embedded in movement spaces from different communities – climate-vulnerable women, indigenous women, gender diverse, women with disabilities, and otherwise marginalized communities for whom rest is too often deferred or denied. Each gathering was designed as an invitation to try out some tools and strategies for arriving at a more restful place. Using art and play, we came together to explore rest, care, nourishment and needs within our lives and within our movements.
The objective of this initiative is grounded in the feminist understanding that rest and care are not an individual responsibility but a collective practice. Care is political. Rest is resistance. When we rest together, we not only heal – we organize toward futures where care infrastructures are central to how we live, resist, and rebuild.