012 | The People of Reset Series: SPECIAL GUEST, RESET CO-FOUNDER AUNTY AWAKE

INSIDE STORIES People in Places Podcast

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Hima Batavia (AKA Aunty Awake) discusses her current works, exploring the ancestral stories we hold in our hair. She shares her deeply personal (and ongoing) journey into self-acceptance, and how the co-founding of Reset (yes, THIS Reset) came to pass. This is a very special episode with a truly remarkable woman. If you're curious about Reset's origin story, you'll want to keep it locked and loaded.
GUEST BIO: Hima Batavia (she/her) is an artist, cultural leader and community organizer based as a settler on the traditional territories of T'karonto. She is a co-founder, former co-director and now board member of a grassroots organization called Reset, which promotes social health through play and justice. Currently, she works with the Global Centre for Climate Action at OCAD University. Previously, she has collaborated with organizations including North York Arts, Artscape, Luminato, TED, Newest Magazine, Centre for Social Innovation, Hyman Digital, Staples Studio, Woodgreen Community Services, Parkdale People’s Economy on curatorial projects, learning experiences, design thinking processes, and festival programming and production.
Her artistic practice focuses on reimagining social systems by embodying a politic of care, interconnectedness, and well-being by applying critical research methods, world-building, decolonial gestures, and durational performance to create immersive and participatory experiences. Over the years, her work has been shown at Summerworks Festival, Geary Art Crawl, Myseum Intersections Festival, The Annex Hotel, and Kajal Magazine and covered in the Toronto Star. Most recently, she was awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant to expand her show, Higher Hair.
The episode begins with a moving and meditative audible excerpt from that durational performance as it was expressed at SummerWorks 2023 and upon which Hima collaborated with Nikola Steer, AKA Paradise.
Find Hima on Instagram @hima_batavia

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RESET is a non-profit social enterprise that addresses loneliness by creating liminal and permanent social infrastructure including adult summer camp, pop-up playgrounds, and more.
The Reset Living Room is located in Little Jamaica at 634 Vaughan Road in Toronto.
Camp Reset is an annual four-day tech-free, "no-work-talk" immersive experience that takes place at a traditional summer camp in Bancroft, Ontario, where participants are invited to choose alternate names and engage in rest and play.
At Camp Reset, Lara Margaret Marjerrison is known as Gem.
After Camp Reset 2023, Gem/Lara found herself pondering what, specifically, brought together 250 people from such diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. The People of Reset Series is an exploration in search of the through-line.
Learn more about Reset.

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INSIDE STORIES exists to foster connection in a world suffering and dying from disconnectivity. It seeks to examine the stories we tell and don’t tell and how that impacts us.
The INSIDE STORIES PEOPLE in PLACES PODCAST examines specifically our relationship with Place and its influence on our ways of existing, our beliefs about ourselves and others, and our sense of belonging…or not.