Abie Soroño‘s work is deeply rooted in her multifaceted identity and experiences. Her identity informs her practice and different intersectionalities as a queer woman and a person of colour from the global south. This intersection drives her focus on issues of technology and community/ies and its convergence with creativity.
Abie is a community and cultural engagement curator who bridges research, arts, and diverse communities through strategic programming and collaborative initiatives. Her work focuses on inclusive community outreach, ensuring that cultural programming serves and represents a broad spectrum of identities, ideologies, and cultures. She has worked on cross-disciplinary events and public engagement, creating inclusive experiences that bridge academic research with broader audiences through both physical and virtual platforms.
Abie’s research and practice centre on Feminist AI, where they examine the technology’s historical development while critiquing its colonial histories and exploring its applications and influences in the creative industries. Through this, she advocates for reshaping AI technologies as available tools to represent and serve marginalised communities more effectively and on their own terms.
She has worked with organisations and institutions such as The University of Glasgow, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Life, Glasgow International, GoMA, South East Integration Network, East and South East Asian (ESEA) Creatives Scotland, Tramway, Architecture Fringe, and BRAID UK (University of Edinburgh).
I’m writing this nearly a year after starting as a Community and Engagement Intern at the College of Arts & Humanities, Glasgow University in August 2024, and the person who walked into that first meeting feels like a stranger I’m still learning to know.
Working with Kevin Leomo—my manager turned friend—has undoubtedly expanded my sense of what’s possible in this world. There’s a particular privilege in sitting with committees, occupying meeting rooms, breathing the same air as people whose qualifications I can only dream of reaching. But privilege carries its own weight, doesn’t it?
I remember my first Collaborations and Cultural Activities Committee meeting like a scar that’s learned to tell stories. I felt out of place—no, that’s too gentle. I felt like an imposter wearing borrowed clothes, questioning my right to occupy that chair, convinced I had nothing substantial to contribute while colleagues around me carried decades of wisdom I was still learning to recognise.
Every meeting after, the same questions haunted me: What am I doing here? What do I bring to this table? But Kevin guided me through every awkward pause, every moment of self-doubt. Now when someone asks what I do for work, there’s genuine pride in explaining that I work with communities and creatives. That pride took months to earn, and it still surprises me sometimes.
The Beautiful Constraint of Limited Hours
Working in this part-time role, I got to collaborate across the entire university. The nature of working only a few hours a week – a privilege that felt both expansive and constraining – created its own tensions. I had ideas brewing, events I wanted to birth into existence, collaborations that lived in my imagination but never had enough time to breathe into reality.
There’s a particular frustration in having a vision, but lacking the hours to make it dance. Still, I’m proud of what I contributed: my community networks that became bridges, my digital skills in creative design and direction, and especially my work on the Creatives of Colour Festival 2025. Becoming the keeper of its visual soul and identity felt like the most honest work I’ve done in years.
I hope that visual language – the logo, the graphics, the colours that carried our message – becomes my legacy for this team, something future interns can build upon, rather than starting from a blank canvas.
The Double-Edged Sword of Institutional Power
The institution holds power, gives me power, but this power can turn against me like a rock I can’t put down. It weighs me down with a kind of guilt that settles between my ribs where comfort should live.
At the same time, I value this internship as reparations for colonial histories scattered across so many countries. Whether I was present at events, delivering programming, or ensuring everything planned went smoothly, there was always that familiar nervousness—maybe I did something wrong, maybe my efforts weren’t enough. But seeing our banners and posters across campus and along University Avenue? That visual presence felt like claiming space we’d earned through sweat and care.
A Small Revolution Through Presence
I’ve treated this internship as a small revolution through the meetings I attend. Whether I’m contributing substantial insights or simply present, bearing witness, it’s fulfilling to occupy space where I can actively participate and be given room to exist authentically.
I do feel like I didn’t maximise every opportunity; after a year, I always hoped I’d done something more, joined more committees, reached out to more people, contributed with greater depth. But that’s the nature of part-time work: you can never really give it your everything. There’s always that lingering sense that you’re dancing between worlds, never fully inhabiting any single one.
Kevin’s flexibility saved me countless times, accommodating my erratic schedule as someone juggling odd hours, weekend work, multiple projects and responsibilities that don’t fit neatly into traditional work weeks. I’ve held guilt for balancing multiple identities and wearing different hats, but there’s such joy when my various jobs converge; whether that’s my roles at Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Life, or other ad hoc projects coming together in unexpected, beautiful ways.
From Rejection to Recognition
I initially interviewed for this position over a year and a half ago, but didn’t secure the role until last August. I’ve now worked as a College of Arts & Humanities Community and Engagement Team member for nearly a year—this role feels like it was meant for me, like the universe was waiting for the right moment to align our paths. Working alongside Kevin Leomo throughout, with Taylor Song when I first started, Zein Oweis who joined us at the start of the year, and Sara Bucheeri who worked with us on Creatives of Colour Festival 2025, and of course Zahra Khosroshahi who co-curated the festival with Kevin; such joy and privilege.
Working with possibly the best and most diverse team in the university (and yes, I’m completely biased) will forever highlight my first year staying in Glasgow. There’s something sacred about finding your people in professional spaces that weren’t designed to hold us.
Gaza Doctors Under Attack: When Work Becomes Witness
Our last event, “Gaza Doctors Under Attack,” shattered me in ways I’m still learning to understand. It made me realise how vital it is to work with diverse communities, to meet people who are changemakers bringing their voices to tables that weren’t built for them, to listen—really listen—to stories that demand we examine our own complicity.
The whole event featured testimonies from doctors and medical professionals with real experiences in the thick of war, people holding impossible responsibilities of aid for genocide victims. It broke me into a million more pieces, but being with each other, held by people who share the same values and actively change the landscape of working in a complicit university: this became sacred ground.
I overheard people leaving the red walls of Gilmorehill Halls saying how hard the film was to watch. But here’s what I think: it’s even harder to live your life not seeing these things, not holding yourself accountable to what you can do with the privilege and power you carry.
Small efforts—boycotting, participating in BDS, attending demonstrations, sharing content on social media—when done together, become lighter. Slowly, these drops of effort across the ocean become ripples that might, someday, become waves.
The Best Team I May Ever Work With
Working with this team may be the best professional experience I’ll ever have, and it’s both heart-breaking and fulfilling to know I’ve experienced something this rare. Genuine peer support without competition, authentic connection and warmth that extends beyond work hours, collaborative care that reshapes how you understand what’s possible in professional spaces.
Even after my role finishes, I hope I’ve touched my colleagues in some meaningful way. I was officially a Community and Engagement Assistant with the College of Arts and Humanities, but this role invited me into more communities than I knew existed and I engaged with worlds I never imagined I’d access.
I hope future interns from the Global Majority hold space for their identities to shine; not using identity when convenient, but becoming who they are and navigating professional worlds as people of colour with dignity, authenticity, and unapologetic presence.
The Growing Edge
Working as part of this team was more than a few hours a week of work. It became a lifelong set of values and friendships that reshaped how I approach working with different people, cultivating sensitivity and empathy that will follow me wherever I go next.
This discomfort I’ve learned to hold – the tension of working within complicit institutions while trying to create change from the inside: it’s the growing edge. It’s where transformation happens; one honest conversation, one authentic relationship, one small revolution at a time.
To the future interns reading this: I hope this reflection serves you in some way. I hope you enjoy your time as much as I did, and I hope you find the courage to hold the tensions that matter, to ask the uncomfortable questions, to occupy space with intention and care.
The work continues. The revolution is small but steady. And sometimes, that’s exactly enough.