creating spaces and communities
A Decolonial, Creative Community for Complex Identities.
In-Between Lines is a lived-experience organisation for those who belong to multiple ethnicities, cultures, or families. We run exhibitions, conversation panels, workshops, and poetry nights. Our online presence involves reviews, blog posts, social media and commissions.
Regardless of the method, the aim is the same: to create spaces for complex identities, to uplift marginalised experiences, and to challenge institutions to make real change.
150+
Attendees
4+
Exhibitions
Our History
It began as a student project at the University of Exeter. We met as Student Fellows at the Exeter Decolonising Network and were given free reign to undertake any decolonial project that we had time for. After talking about our experiences over coffee, we quickly realised how deeply our experiences resonated with each others, despite the difference in our intersections. Thus the idea to create something centered around these complex identities was born.
Our movement started with a number of exhibitions in Exeter, Cornwall and London. We made a display of art and text about common issues such as hair, colourism, beauty, and family It was fascinating to learn about the different attitudes towards race, culture, and family across the country, and to share our experiences with so many different groups.
As a movement, we pay homage to our roots and are explicitly decolonial. We explicitly look for perspectives that are overlooked by mainstream media. In-Between Lines does not hope to act as a guide in itself, but rather the creator of spaces where complex individuals can share their own stories.
Our Team
Meet the creators behind the community
Zoë Lambert
Transracial adoptee and Third Culture Kid
Esther DeGrande
Mixed-heritage individual
Anthony Lynch
Mixed heritage adoptee
Our Aims
Why was in-between lines created?
01
Community
To Bring People Together
To provide spaces for individuals with complex identities to explore and celebrate their perspectives together.
02
Experience
To Provide Resources
To provide resources, events, and workshops for people with lived experiences to help them explore their identity.
03
Decolonise
To Engage Institutions
To encourage and challenge large institutions to acknowledge complex identities, decolonise, and to embed marginalised voices in decision-making processes.
04
narratives
To Raise Awareness
To positively change societal narratives around complex identities, and to make space for more narratives.
Our Principles
01
Decolonial Approach
A product of the Exeter Decolonising Network, IBL has always had a decolonial focus. In practice, this looks like:
- Consciously uplifting marginalised perspectives that aren’t covered by the media
- Having real conversations about educational privilege, class privilege, and colourism.
- Paying our creatives and advocating for lived experience within institutions
02
Trauma-Informed Practice
We recognise that many of our community members will have experienced some form of trauma. Our spaces are for people at any stage of their healing journey, while also reminding them of their power to grow.
In-person, this involves curating environments to settings with are comfortable for our communities, while online it’s about preventing hate speech and portraying the wholeness and complexity of lived experience.
03
Connecting Across Difference:
At IBL, we don’t exclude perspectives that don’t fit into conventional categories. Despite our different families, cultures, upbringings, and challenges, we often find that in our humanness, we have the same feelings of loneliness, belonging, solidarity, and healing.
For us, difference is a source of strength, not division
“Decolonizing is about reeducating ourselves in ways that allow us to reconnect with our own souls, minds, and bodies.”
Louis Yako
Recovery can take place only within the context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation.
Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery
“Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.”
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider
How We Use Language
As we engage with sensitive topics, we choose our words carefully. We never intend to cause any offence or make anyone feel less than. That’s why it’s important to explain what language we are using and why we are using it.
Our understanding of Complex Identity relates to someone who has access to multiple ethnic, family, or cultural spaces. This belonging could be biological (genetic), phenotypical (how one appears to others or oneself), or sociological (family/culture they grew up in). Insofar as these identities relate to power structures, intersectionality is included. The presence of trauma, either through early childhood experiences and racial trauma,often complicate the identity struggles of individuals with complex identities
“Third Culture Kid“
The term “Third Culture Kid” is used in two different ways.
Firstly, it refers to individuals who have grown up in a country that is different from the country that issued their passports.
For example, a British citizen growing up in Japan.
Secondly, it refers to individuals who have grown up in a country that is different from the country that their parents have grown up in.
For example, growing up in America with Korean parents.
These two instances often overlap which is why we may use this term to refer to both at the same time. If we are referring to only one of them, this will normally be clarified in the text.
“Transracial or interracial Adoptee”
An individual who has been adopted by a family that does not share the same ethnic background as them.
For example, a child who is ethnically Chinese being adopted by a Phillipino family.
Note: we welcome all adoptees, but we prioritise the stories that haven’t been told, and those tend to be transracial adoptee stories
“Mixed Race / BiRacial / Multi-Heritage”
An individual with two or more ethnic or racial backgrounds.
For example, a child who has a biologically Japanese mum and Mexican dad.
Do you have more questions about our language?
Are there concerns that were not addressed here? We’re here to help.