Sat, Jan 14 – Sun, Jan 15, 2023, 17:00–03:00

Imag(in)ing Queer Utopias

Panel Discussion + Performances by House of Living Colors
Events
© House of Living Colors
Panel Discussion

With Liz Rosenfeld . Artist
GodXXX Noirphiles . Performer
Evan Ifekoya . Artist

Moderation
Prof. Dr. Elahe Haschemi Yekani
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Venue
Aquarium
Skalitzer Straße 6
10999 Berlin

Time
17:00–18:30

Performances

+ DJ Sets
By House of Living Colors

Drag and Performance collective

Venue
Südblock
Admiralstraße 1-2
10999 Berlin

Time
21:00–03:00
Admission from 20:00

Ticket

Free admission with an exhibition ticket for Queerness in Photography, regardless of the day’s validity.

Tickets may be available at the box office of the venue.
First come, first served.

How do we imagine utopia and produce exuberant possibilities in a world that tries to enforce rigid boundaries and limit our existence? How do we perform or visualise such utopias, and practice them in our day-to-day lives? Three artists discuss their strategies for producing spaces for joy, pleasure and expression, followed by multimedia performances and DJ sets, centering and drawing on the knowledge and experiences of utopia among queer and trans BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color).

Elahe Haschemi Yekani is Professor of English and American Literature and Culture with a focus on Postcolonial Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Haschemi Yekani has worked on topics like Diasporic Writing, Gender/Masculinity Studies and Queer Theory, and Popular and Visual Culture. Her latest book Revisualising Intersectionality, written with Magdalena Nowicka and Tiara Roxanne, has been published open access with Palgrave Macmillan.

Liz Rosenfeldare a Berlin-based visual and performance artist who work in drawing, film/video, performance, and experimental writing practices. Rosenfeld’s moving image and performance work approaches flesh as a non-binary collaborative material, specifically focusing on the potentiality of physical abundance and excess, regarding questions connected to the responsibility and privilege of taking up space.

GodXXX Noirphiles aka Adrian Blount parent to Chance Aijuka, Non Binary Femme Boi, Founder/Organizer/Curator/DJ  is based in Berlin by way of San Diego, CA. After attending San Francisco State to obtain their BA in theatre, they performed in New York, traveled across the country with a touring theatre troupe, then moved to Rhode Island to perform with various Brown University programs including the Center for Slavery and Justice, Brown/Trinity and Trinity Repertory theatre. Since being in Berlin, Adrian has taught anti-racist and collective healing workshops with various organizations such as Dice Festival and Conference and AfriVenir, dj’d internationally,  performed at Münchener Kammerspiele, Volksbühne, Gorki, Sophiensaele, Ballhaus Naunynstrasse and English Theatre Berlin (and others) and is the founder and lead organizer of the drag collective House of Living Colors for exclusively queer and trans BIPOC.

Evan Ifekoya's work in community organizing, performance, sound, text and video is an extension of their calling as a spiritual practitioner. They view art as a site where resources can be both redistributed and renegotiated, whilst challenging the implicit rules and hierarchies of public and social space. Through archival and sonic investigations, they speculate on Blackness in abundance. They established the collectively run and QTIBPOC (queer, trans, intersex, Black and People of Color) led Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.) in 2018 and presented exhibitions, moving image and performances across UK Europe and Internationally.

Founded in 2018 by GodXXX Noirphiles, House of Living Colors (HOLC) is an open drag and performance collective particularly for queer and trans BIPoC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) to explore the intersection of gender and performance. Made up of people from various backgrounds and situated within an intersectional ideology and practice, the house was created in response to poor treatment from venues or organizations within the mainstream queer community in Berlin. The collective recognizes how systems of power further marginalize people, and plans their events with the acknowledgement of mental health disparities, physical disability, neuro diversity, race, socio-economic class, gender identity, etc. among performers and audiences.

Part of the Utopia/Dystopia event series curated by Todd & Zoya. for C/O Berlin as part of the exhibition Queerness in Photography.

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