Trikster Blog

Below is a Call for Contributions for the important political festival and gathering Queeristan 2012 that takes place in Amsterdam between May 18 and 20 this year. Queeristan is said to be one of the central meeting places for anti-racist queer critique in the area. This year they have a “freaky” framework for the festival:

All the freaky people
make the beauty of the world
(Michael Franti)

With this message Queeristan is calling out whoever is interested in using freaking beauty to achieve a different queer politics. Together, let’s join forces in a festival that will take place in Amsterdam from May 18-20.

What is Queeristan? Certainly not a(nother) country. Behind it there is a nomadic collective of activists based in Amsterdam whose interests do not exactly rhyme with law&order, nor with setting up new borders. Nonetheless Queeristan is all about providing a space. Not only an autonomous space that dodges logics of profit and commercialization, but also a platform to both explore and counter the normative workings of gender and identity. A safe environment for queers and a factory of resistance. Our critique departs from the simple fact that buying “normalcy” in the guise of being either male or female, a Dutch or a foreigner, gay or straight, either one or the other, simply means to be disciplined by a choice made elsewhere, to be docile towards it, to keep your mouth and your eyes shut.

Although Queeristan strives to bring together all sorts of sexual outlaws, we do not want it to be another gay pride: we are not interested in using the beat of our music to celebrate the “integration” of just some queer lives whose skin color, citizenship, cultural and financial means are played as “assets” within a liberal democracy that trades rights as if it were a stock exchange. Instead Queeristan wants to be a festival where dissent unpredictably materializes and becomes shareable in a performance, in a workshop, but also in a work of art, or in partying all night long. There is no fixed formula for Queeristan. There is a togetherness based on affinity with political projects that focus on the body as the site where social aggregation and exclusion can be concretely addressed. Queeristan discerns the battlefield where a geopolitics of consumerism, migration, human rights is enforced. Queeristan resists.

Amsterdam becomes Queeristan the moment we recompose the space we inhabit to uncover the possibility of troubling our private, individual consumer identity. To start using our bodies and intersect the multiple layers of stories and practices that shape them as they tie them to one another. Therefore Queeristan is calling activists, artists, performers, queers to come up with proposals that aim at re-inventing the modes of encounter, feeling, and understanding our bodies and with interventions that seek to spatially short circuit and re-map Amsterdam beyond its neoliberal rhetoric of gay-friendliness and connect it to other places and struggles.

If Queeristan’s politics resonates with yours, come onboard and share the platform by joining the collective in our weekly meetings in preparation to the festival. Or, if you have exciting ideas for a workshop, a performance, an art exhibition, or other, original formats cooked up by your queer creativity: we are looking forward to receiving your proposals – being aware of the nasty logistic limits of time, space and money – to construct the festival that will form Queeristan this spring.

Please send all your inquires and proposals (max 500 words) to queeristan (at) gmail.com

Deadline for submissions is February, 29 2012.

On that freaky note – it is worth mentioning that the German artist and theorist Renate Lorenz’s long awaited book Queer Art – A Freak Theory is out in just a couple of weeks. 2012 is a freaky queer year indeed.

Read more on Oslo Queer Festival’s homepage!

This summer between July 20-26 the 4th Copenhagen Queer Festival will take place at Gøglerskolen at Kigkurren. The organizers have just presented this years theme: “Fuck money: Commercialization – Mainstreaming – Anticapitalism”. This is what they write on the festival’s homepage about what to expect of this year’s festival:

“Copenhagen is this year hosting the World Outgames and the games are beginning the weekend that the Queerfestival is ending, on the 25th of July. The Outgames has gotten a lot of focus and media attention in Denmark, and Copenhagen has been busy labelling itself as “gay-friendly/pink-city”. We see this only as a capitalistic attempt to make money on the expected 5-10.000 participants, but at the same time the World Outgames is charging 2200 dkr (290 euros) just to participate in a conference. So we decided that its time for an anti-capitalistic queer perspective!

Copenhagen Queermanifestival

With the Copenhagen queer festival we wish to create a queer space. But what is queer? How do we define it, use it, make it part of our lives? How do you define “queer” in relation to “non-queer”? these are just some of the questions we want to work on understanding during the festival. We wish to create a forum where people from all over the world can exchange impressions, viewpoints and ideas. Where we can play, learn, teach, move our boundaries and go places we didn’t know existed.

The festival is strictly D.I.Y. meaning that YOU as a participant must take an active part in making the festival successful. A few things have been planned in advance by the organizing group, but otherwise it is up to the participants to decide in unity how they want the festival to proceed. It is expected that everyone help out as much as they can to ensure that the festival will be a fun and enlightening experience for all.

Non-profit is another keyword for the festival. We wish to create a space which is not based on money, as we find this is the case in society today. The festival is open to all, whether or not they have money.

To create a place that is free for all it is important that we all try radically confront some, if not all (?) of the structures exiting in society today. We need to help each other to break free from structures and norms imposed on us by the capitalist, heteronormative, racist society. At the festival we need to respect each other, listen and think before we act and keep in mind that calling the festival “free” and “queer” doesn’t automatically make it so. We expect everyone to analyze their own actions and what effect they have on other people.

And even though the list is long, we still won’t tolerate racism, sexism, heterosexism, homo/bi/queer/hetero/trans –phobia, in other words: No discrimination based on sexuality, age, gender, ethnicity, class and so on. There will be room for those who make room for others.

Despite our political agenda we must not forget that the festival is also about having fun and meeting new exiting people of all genders and sexualities

We hope to see you in late july for a great week of discussions, workshops, parties and politics!”

It is still some time until Copenhagen Queer Festival starts in late July, but the preperation and fun has already begun. On Saturday April 5, an open Skill Sharing Day will be held at Den økologiske produktionsskole (map) at 11 am, with workshops relevant when arranging queer events. This will be a great opportunity to learn about self defence, conflict resolution, performance, and other relevant issues, while having a good time.

On Tuesday April 15, there will be a Political Discussion Evening at 8 pm, at the same place. The evening starts out with different presentations on what’s queer about queer activism, art, festival, politics, and manifestos today, leading up to an open discussion on the platform and code of conduct for the queer festival this summer. One of the editors of Trikster, Mathias Danbolt, will hold a short talk on the history and politics of queer manifestos.

The events are open and free, so come and help shape the festival!

Århus Queer Festival will be held for the first time this summer from June 6-8. Here is their invitation to participate (in Danish):“Vi er en mangfoldig gruppe queers af forskellige køn, aldre, sexualiteter og kvaliteter. Lige nu er vi i fuld gang med at planlægge den spændende nye festival i Århus. Og du skal være med! Måske bliver vores økonomi ikke til betaling og honorar. Men vi kan tilbyde aktivister og kunstnere kost og logi, og selvfølgelig et super queer party og masser af oplevelser!Har du lyst til at være med? Send en mail til queeraarhus@gmail.com.”