Power, Subcultures & Queer Stages

The symposium ‘Power, Subcultures & Queer Stages’ examines the relationship between sexual identity and style, camp and spectacle, cultural appropriation and genderfuck, live art and activism.

Redressing the hierarchy between what counts as ‘high’ art and worthy of art historical inclusion, the symposium will be looking at the contemporary history of queer visibility and invisibility in public spaces, as well as current queer live art, club culture and drag performance. Throughout the presentations, we will explore the connections between the performance of sexuality and the performance of style, as well as how communities of affect, dissidence and resistance have been preserved and gained visibility through the creative expressions of those that constitute them.

Presentations by Daniel Lismore, Jonny Woo, La Erreria (House of Bent), Malik Nashad Sharpe and keynote lecture by Dr. Shaun Cole, Associate Dean and Course Director at London College of Fashion. Moderated by Giulia Casalini & Diana Georgiou (co-directors at CUNTemporary).
#queerstages

This event is part of the live art club night and multi-disciplinary exhibition Deep Trash: Royal Trash taking place on Saturday 29 April 2017 at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. For more information visit http://www.cuntemporary.org/deep-trash-royal-trash/

The programme is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Bios

Daniel Lismore
Daniel Lismore is a London based artist, fashion designer, celebrity stylist, writer and campaigner. He studied photography before becoming a model. He has been shot by some of the world's most famous photographers including Mario Testino, David LaChapelle and Ellen von Unwerth. He is known for elaborate and extravagant ensembles that brilliantly combine haute couture with his own creations, vintage fabrics, found objects, chainmail, ethnic jewellery, millinery and more in an expression of eccentric, creative energy.

Lismore has been named by Vogue as England's most eccentric dresser, and selected as one of Out 100. A prominent fixture on the London fashion and art circuits, he is both a tastemaker and friend to artists ranging from Stephen Fry and Debbie Harry, to Boy George and Vivienne Westwood who have contributed to his first book Be Yourself, Everyone Else Is Already Taken published by Rizzoli (2017). In this publication, he shares the 32 3D sculptures that comprised his first US museum exhibition, co-curated by Savannah College of Art and Design. Lismore is an active campaigner and was part of the H&M Close the Loop campaign to encourage recycling of clothes, supports the climate change charity Cool Earth and has worked closely with Vivienne Westwood on her climate revolution projects. He has appeared in numerous TV shows and films including a cameo in Absolutely Fabulous the Movie. He is an ambassador for Tate who hosted his first two exhibitions featuring his self portraits, he is also a brand ambassador for Illamasqua, the cosmetics brand and the founder of Sorapol, the couture fashion house.

Jonny Woo
Jonny Woo has been a central figure for reviving the cabaret scene in the UK and for taking alternative drag performance to mainstream audiences since 2000. He has performed at the ICA, Bistroteque, Soho Theatre, and in a variety of international festivals, also curating events for MTV, Selfridges and The Royal Opera House. He has most recently become the co-owner of the East London pub, club and performance venue The Glory, and he is the producer of ‘Un-Royal Variety’, an anarchic, queer take of the annual Royal Variety Show, which also takes place on a yearly basis. The first episode of the Un-Royal Variety was hosted at the Hackney Empire in November 2016 and involved over 80 performance artists in one evening, with guests including Le Gateau Chocolat and Bourgeois & Maurice.

La Erreria (House of Bent)
A transnational collective based in Spain whose core are Anna Maria Staiano and Graham Bell Tornado. Queer and ecofeminist politics, collaborative processes, a love of nature that is totally unnatural and an aesthetic that combines punk, baroque and retro-modernist elements inform their work. Their eclectic and experimental practice includes performance, video, music, body sculpture and literature. Recent works centre around the concept of antitainment - entertainment with a social conscience - and the cross-pollination and subversion of popular forms such as rituals, cabarets and fashion shows.

They hold workshops and participatory events, such as The Coronation, ‘How to Heal…’ and the 'P.I.N.Q. Park' opening ceremonies. These are public actions led by Graham´s alter ego, the transgender shaman Geyserbird, who invites participants to engage with queer rituals celebrating diversity in all its forms: biological, sexual and cultural. Anna Maria designs body extensions and performative pieces - based on gender, masquerade, transformation and the interaction between body and object - which aim to alter sensory experiences and symbolic imagery. The pieces trigger unexpected interactions in their performances. Her trans-disciplinary practice is the focus of Impure, their latest publication, a collaboration with a host of queer/trans/feminist artists, performers, photographers, writers, curators and activists.

Websites:
https://erreriahouseofbent.wordpress.com
www.grahambelltornado.com
https://annamariastaiano.com

Malik Nashad Sharpe
Malik Nashad Sharpe is an experimental choreographer originally from New York City, now based in London. His work exists and operates at the nexus of Blackness and Queerness, and colludes desire, violence, melancholia, joyousness and the advent of allostatic load in order to find ulterior futurities and to manifest other possibilities for his body. He currently makes work under the alias Marikiscrycrycry--three cries like three cheers for the melancholic, conflictual, gay af black boy.

He has performed his work widely including at Secret Project Robot Art Experimental (USA), Panoply Performance Lab (USA), Otion Front Studio (USA), CLOUD at Danslab (USA), Rich Mix (UK), Theatre Utopia (UK), Hackney Showroom (UK), AKC Medika (HR), Bushwick Open Studios (USA), 62' CTD (USA), Brooklyn Arts Exchange (USA), Five Myles Gallery (USA), Toynbee Hall/ArtsAdmin (UK), ShuaSpace (USA), Krannert Center for Performing Arts (USA) and Bonnie Bird Theatre (UK). In 2016, he formed choreographic duo EEMA with Montreal-based Ellen Furey. Their first duet "NO NATIONALISM" is being supported by Vermont Performance Lab (USA), Studio 303 (CA), and Hackney Showroom (UK), and will premiere at Montreal's Theatre La Chapelle in 2018. Malik is an Associate Artist at Hackney Showroom, and Fierce FWD.

Website: http://maliknashadsharpe.com

Shaun Cole
Dr Shaun Cole is Associate Dean Postgraduate Communities at London College of Fashion. He was formerly Head of Contemporary Programmes at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he curated exhibitions, including ‘Graphic Responses to AIDS’ (1996), ‘Dressing the Male’ (1999) and ‘Black British Style’ (2004), 'Volume' (2007). He was consultant on exhibitions A Queer History of Fashion (FIT, New York) and Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s (V&A, London). He has lectured and published on extensively on men's fashion and queer style and his publications include ‘Don We Now Our Gay Apparel’: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century (2000), The Story of Men's Underwear (2010) and co-editor of Fashion Media: Past and Present (2013). He is currently researching a new book Gay Men’s Style: Fashion, Dress and Sexuality in the 21st Century for publication in 2019.

Moderators

Giulia Casalini is an independent curator and producer based in London. She is the co-director of the queer-feminist arts organization CUNTemporary, as well as the founder of Archivio Queer Italia, the first platform for queer arts, theory and activism in Italy. She has been nominated Live Art Associate UK for her on-going commitment to showcasing performance art, and since 2017 she is on a year-long producers’ residency at the Live Art Development Agency.

Diana Georgiou is the co-director of CUNTemporary, organizing events, screenings and exhibitions at the intersections of feminism and queer both in London and abroad. Her doctoral research in the Visual Cultures department at Goldsmiths University of London focuses on the relationship between auto/biographical art-writing and feminist discourses on subjectivity.

CUNTemporary

CUNTemporary is a non-profit organisation that works with individuals and groups that explore feminist and queer art practices and theories. CUNTemporary provides a newsletter and daily listings of events related to feminist and queer art practices in the UK. The events team curates talks, screenings, exhibitions, performances, events and club nights with the participation of a multidisciplinary and international group of artists, performers and theorists, mainly in London, but also around the UK and abroad. We welcome networking and collaborative opportunities from curators, academics, artists, activists, institutions and alternative venues.

WEBSITE: www.cuntemporary.org
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/CVNTEMPORARY/
YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/user/CuntemporaryEvents

Deep Trash

During a time when public and private spaces are narrowing their ability to accommodate the concerns and lives of non-normative and non-binary subjects, events such as Deep Trash are crucial in bringing together a community of people interested in the themes of sexuality, gender, creativity and politics, with an intersectional and transnational approach.

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/DeepTrashClub/

General Information & Press
CUNTemporary
Arts | Feminism | Queer
info@cuntemporary.org | www.cuntemporary.org

Deep Trash: https://www.facebook.com/DeepTrashClub

Venue Information
Queen Mary University
Arts Two Lecture Theatre
Mile End Rd, London E1 4NS

18:00-20:30
free entrance