Name: The Convivial x Rada Pandeva
Start: 2026-04-30T18:00:00+01:00
End: 2026-04-30T21:30:00+01:00
Location: 18 Lower Market St

A fortnightly community symposium with local speakers and a vegan dinner.
About this Event

Joy as a Radical Form of Resistance & Resilience

“Joy gives us the “energy for change”. It’s our fuel to resist the oppressive structures and status quo that make us tired and apathetic.” — Audre Lorde
We live in a difficult time, full of heavy news and heartbreak, which makes it increasingly challenging not to fall into despair and hopelessness. In those moments, experiencing joy can bring a lot of guilt, too, because it feels like a distraction from injustice and a betrayal of those who are suffering. But what if the openness to joy is a necessary act of resisting a system that is designed to exhaust us, so we disengage completely from the fight for a more just world for all?
In this beautiful evening talk with The Convivial, Rada Pandeva invites you to join an exploration of joy as a radical form of resistance in the face of extractive systems and burnout culture. Together, we will anchor ourselves into collective joy and spend some time cultivating it through joy journaling and a meaningful discussion around our sources of joy.
This event was created to facilitate a space for people to come together and lean into joy as an essential ingredient for building resilience in the pursuit of justice.
"Joy is not a distraction — it is defiance. It is how we refuse to surrender our humanity. In this sense, joy is revolutionary.” — Roger Berkowitz

Speaker:
Rada is an ocean justice activist and disability rights advocate who is also the founder of Thalassophile Project — a platform dedicated to making the Ocean accessible to all. Her name means 'Joy' in Bulgarian, her mother tongue, and she is passionate about taking care of both people and the planet through the practice of joy and pleasure activism.

What to expect