Here’s a bit of info on my recent and upcoming activities.
The live version of my doctoral research with Duckie, offering pragmatic pointers for anyone wanting to crack on with utopia but wondering where to start.
It’s about the neoliberal wobble, the technology of queer fun and the power of homemade mutant hope machines: adaptive DIY grassroots projects that create better worlds one day, one show, one dance at a time.
Includes blackboard, index cards and glamorous assistant. More fun than your average talk (less fun than your average show).
The next talk is on Saturday 14th March at south-east London’s premiere queer-space hope machine, The Chateau, as part of the fab And What? Queer Arts Festival. It’s pay-what-you-like and your ticket includes free entry to Qeltic, the Chateau’s queer St Paddy’s Day special afterwards.
Dr Duckie: How To Build A Hope Machine, Sat 14th March, 7pm, The Chateau SE5 8TR, pay what you like. Click here to book.
• Last month, I presented the talk as part of the awesome New Queers on the Block performance Brighton weekender alongside great new work by markisiscrycrycry and Oozing Gloop. Here’s New Queers’ awesome Xav de Sousa glamorously assisting…
• I also had the privilege of presenting the Dr Duckie concepts at this year’s HIV Prevention England conference, alongside representatives of two incredible HIV-related hope machines: Esther Ndungu from Catwalk4Power (combating stigma for women living with HIV) and Will Nutland from Prepster (supporting access to PrEP). Ben Collins of ReShape/IHP chaired.
Watch our conference presentations here.
I wrote several pieces on queer film for the new Sight & Sound – well worth buying for the Tilda Swinton cover feature (by Isabel Stevens) alone.
• It’s also got the print version of the piece I wrote about the campaign to save Tilda’s friend Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage. I got to visit this beautiful queer engine – a deeply moving experience. Read the article here and support the campaign here.
• And my review of And Then We Danced, the potent new feature set in the world of traditional Georgian dance, out in the UK on 12th March. Read the review here.
• And I wrote about the raw, gentle and strange ending of Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the magazine’s Endings column. Read the article here.
• Meanwhile, at the Barbican, I’ll be introducing the thorny 2005 feature A Year Without Love, set in the mid-90s Buenos Aires S&M scene, this Thur 5th March at 6.30pm. Click here to book.
• Urban Claims and the Right to the City is a great exhibition based on research charting community activism in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, and London. It features the voices of a spectrum of people involved in grassroots campaigns fighting for more just and pleasurable cities.
I’m one of the 13 contributors, offering reflections on the queer civic value of the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, the Posh Club, the weekly Black Cap vigil and the power of fun. See my contribution here.
Urban Claims and the Right to the City, Conway Hall WC1R 4RL, until Thur 19th March. Click here for more info.
• I’ll be speaking about queer fun as a social technology at an OutLaws/qUCL panel event next month, alongside UCL Urban Lab‘s Ben Campkin and Lo Marshall (rescheduled from last month).
Queer Spaces and Queer Fun: a Joint OutLaws and qUCL Seminar, UCL Laws WC1H 0EG, Fri 29th April, 6pm. Click here to book.
Thanks for reading!
