For me, the past couple of months have been very busy and rewarding in terms of my own work and, as for many people, very challenging and upsetting on a political level. This post is just a quick update regarding the former since, among other things, I use this blog as a tally of what I’ve been up to.
On the latter, there’s much to be said and done and I’ll try to do my bit as we all try to move forward. Orlando, Jo Cox, the Brexit result, the spasms of bigotry following it… The last three weeks alone have given us a lot to try to make sense of. One first reaction was to link up with my friend Philip Normal the morning of the Brexit result and create the T-shirt above.
As well as continuing my PhD research into Duckie’s social-outreach projects, I finished teaching my first undergraduate course in the Department of Drama at Queen Mary University of London, where my study is based. The course was called Interventions and traced various kinds of artistic-activist practice from the Situationist International to Rev Billy and Speaking of I.M.E.L.D.A. It was lots of work but very stimulating and enjoyable.
It’s been academic conference season this past month and I’ve been lucky enough to present research at several events. I’ve been speaking about the process of getting the Royal Vauxhall Tavern listed – the strategic function of that project within the RVT Future campaign and, more generally, the political power of telling stories about queer subjects.
I spoke at the departmental symposium at QMUL; the Queer Performance Now conference at King’s College London; the LGBTQ+ Archives, Libraries, Museums & Special Collections: Without Borders conference (ALMS) coordinated by the Bishopsgate Institute, the University of Westminster and London Metropolitan Archives; and as part of the Queer Futures working group at the International Federation of Theatre Research conference in Stockholm. The last was especially powerful and memorable since I was part of an extraordinary group of queer scholars working together in the immediate aftermath of the Orlando shootings.
A couple of pieces of my writing were reprinted in the Live Art Almanac Volume 4, which is quite an honour. One was a post from this blog called Death by luxury; another was an interview with Christeene for Run Riot.
I’ve also been doing lots of campaigning around risks to queer spaces. The RVT Future campaign is still in full effect – we are currently asking Lambeth Council to give the Tavern special ‘sui generis’ designation as a queer performance space so its use is protected as well as its physical form. (The deadline to help with that is noon this Friday July 1 so please help if you can. We’re confident we’ve covered the bases but the more submissions the merrier.) Our ultimate goal is still community ownership.
The Black Cap Foundation has fought to a standstill the latest commercial redevelopment scheme for the site, and still hopes to reopen the iconic pub to serve the LGBTQ community. The Raze Collective to promote queer performance now has official charitable status. And we’ve formed the loosely structured Queer Spaces Network as a holding form for all these campaigns to engage with City Hall and wider campaigning contexts.
Trafalgar Square, June 29 2016
In that capacity, I recently attended and spoke at a meeting of the Mayor’s Night Time Commission; at a one-day community event called Reclaim Our Spaces at Conway Hall; and in Trafalgar Square as part of an ACT UP event that was pretty much gobbled up by a Brexit protest demo. But that just meant that our messages about queer spaces, PrEP and solidarity with LGBTQ people worldwide reached thousands more than expected (PA system permitting). I’ll try to post the text of what I said soon – not sure if video exists.
I also had the privilege of taking part in the VITO Project, which screens queer movies at the Cinema Museum for an intergenerational audience, followed by an informal Q&A. I discussed John Waters’s Polyester with Stuart Feather, founder member of the Gay Liberation Front, former member of Bloolips and author of a new book about the GLF called Blowing the Lid.
All of this hasn’t left much time for criticism about cabaret or films, or much else journalism. But I can direct you to this podcast about BFI Flare that I recorded for Sight & Sound with the terrific Sophie Mayer and Claire Kurylowski, full details of which are found here. Enjoy!
