Dominasian Duo #findyourinnerwarrior story
Let’s Party with the Dominasian Duo
Asian + Double Trouble + Domination= Dominasian.
Dominasian all started one summer when Sophia was trying to find the right kind of representation for South Asian communities. Did you know in 2018 only 3.2% of South Asians were being represented in British media? Think about it. When you were growing up how many brown women/men did you see on TV or in films that you could look up to? Probably very few right? So when Sophia called up Aaliya and asked her to co-create a magazine that spotlights the South Asian community it was a no-brainer.
What do you call a magazine that should empower and represent a whole community though? That’s a lot of pressure. Sophia had a list of 3 words that she kept in mind to help choose the name and one of them was domination. It was during a drive to Sainsbury's when she was playing around with the words that she finally came up with Dominasian. She then googled the name and found it was a porn category featuring Asian Dominatrix women. Some people may have been wary about this, especially growing up South Asian as sex is a very taboo subject but if anything the name expressed strength and power nonetheless. For their first volume, The Blueprint, they paid homage to Sophia's discovery and the taboo of sex in South Asian culture by producing their first shoot inspired by the conversation the name could spark.
However, coming up with a name was the easy part. Unfortunately, there’s no course on how to run a magazine 101 or how to bring a community together. This is something Sophia and Aaliya had to build on their own and figure out. They became the photographers and stylists for the shoots, they became event coordinators and they built their social platforms. Even when they reached out for help not a lot of people were willing to give them advice or point them in the right direction so it was difficult to begin with. With a lot of hard work, trial and error, with help from the amazing community they built and their team, Dominasian has now put out not 1, not 2 but 3 volumes spotlighting hundreds of South Asian artists globally.
They have now not only been able to create magazines and build a community through their social platforms but have recently held an exhibition with curated South Asian artists and highlighted South Asian cultures and traditions with Under Our Mums Feet. Through this, they created a space for workshops and creative networking too. They aim to take events like this globally with strong communities in the US, India and across the world. Sophia and Aaliya said that the community they have created is their biggest achievement as everyone they’ve met has been so authentically themselves, willing to grow, have open-minded conversations and most importantly be proud to be South Asian.
So who wants to party with the Dominasian Duo? Because I definitely want to!