ECF Funded Berlin networking and study trip

I received STEP Travel Grant from European Cultural Foundation to attend in person the Transnational Queer Underground exhibition in Berlin, network with international queer artists and complete a programme of self-directed study about Queer and Cabaret Berlin. This is a slightly extended version of my travel report on ECF website.

I visited the Transnational Queer Underground exhibition at Gallery ReTramp. You can download the catalogue in pdf. At the Easter Brunch, I showcased excerpts from my solo musical queer cabaret ‘Tricyclic Transform, as Drag Queen and Drag King including 2 Brecht songs from Threepenny Opera I dreamt of performing in Berlin! I watched performances by both local and international performers who had traveled especially like me. I attended a costume workshop which gave me valuable insight for my drag.

Full performance:

Brecht only:

I followed a program of self-directed study about Queer and Cabaret Berlin. I visited the Schwules Museum of LGBTQ Art, and was particularly interested in rarely found information about Queer cabaret performers persecuted by the Nazis.

I attended a LGBT history walking tour around the neighbourhood where Christopher Isherwood lived in 1929-1933, today still Berlin’s LGBT area. I saw the buildings of the bohemian boarding house at 17 Nollendorf Strasse where Isherwood rented a room, and the Eldorado nightclub (the real life inspiration for Cabaret’s Kit Kat club), now an organic shop 🙂 To learn the full story, I recommend reading ‘Christopher and his Kind’, the real life account of the part of his life fictionalised in The Berlin Novels (or watching the film adaptation). A particular anecdote made my day: Jean Norris, the real life inspiration for Sally Bowles, was a lifelong committed socialist. When the movie Cabaret was out, newspapers including the Daily Mail were stalking her in front of the house she shared with her daughter. The daughter replied ‘you want to talk to my mum about sex, she wants to talk to you about politics’.

Former Eldorado nightclub
Former Eldorado nightclub
Chistopher Isherwood House 17 Nollendorf Strasse
Chistopher Isherwood House 17 Nollendorf Strasse
Plaque at Chistopher Isherwood House 17 Nollendorf Strasse
Plaque at Chistopher Isherwood House 17 Nollendorf Strasse
Tiergarten Memorial for homesexuals persecuted under Nazism
Tiergarten Memorial for homesexuals persecuted under Nazism

I visited local queer-friendly underground art spaces (Sudblock, Silver Future, The Ballery neighbouring Isherwood’s former house, Barbiche, Instinct at Village Berlin), Bertolt Brecht’s House and his and Helen Weigel’s grave in the nearby cemetery, and the Tiergarten Memorial for homesexuals persecuted under Nazism. I attended representations of the Threepenny Opera at Brecht’s own theatre Berliner ensemble, and a musical Alles Schwindel by Mischa Spoliansky, composer of 1920 queer anthem Lila Lied.

Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel grave
Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel grave
Tiergarten Memorial for homesexuals persecuted under Nazism
Tiergarten Memorial for homesexuals persecuted under Nazism

The ECF grant enabled me to experience the Art Scene in a major queer hotspot in mainland Europe, and network in person with artists with whom I had previously collaborated digitally. I was pleasantly surprised by how much space the local LGBTQ magazine Siegessaeule devotes to culture, compared to its London/Brighton counterparts. I aim to pitch the TQU travelling exhibition to contacts from a Brighton conference about museums collaborating with LGBTQ communities, to try and find a host venue in the UK. Lacking time to visit all the LGBTQ history hotspots identified in my research inspired the possibility of crowdsourced contributions to a digital video installation I’m working on, to which worldwide TQU artists could contribute.

Photographs from Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage shown at ‘Bohemian Like Me’ LGBTQ art, Cambridge.

Photographs I took at Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage back in 2014 were shown at ‘Bohemian Like Me’ LGBTQ art exhibition in Cambridge earlier this month. Read a review of the show on Varsity Mag. I lived in Cambridge between 2005 and 2011 and the queer cultural scene was not really visible, so it’s really cool that people organised this show, it got good reception, especially from young people who welcomed the visibility.

Brighton Trans*formed website now live!

www.brightontransformed.org.uk

Brighton transformed website screenshot

Brighton Trans*formed is a oral history project documenting the lives of transgender residents of Brighton and Hove , organised by community publisher QueenSpark Books and funded by Heritage Lottery Fund. A book was published in September with edited versions of the interviews. The website holds each participant’s full length unedited interview, currently in transcript form, with the audio being added as they are processed.

The website is my first freelance project. It is a fully responsive WordPress website, with a custom theme inspired by the book design, and putting the focus on each participant’s portrait. It looks beautiful and scrolls effortlessly on an ipad, so you can enjoy it like an ebook. It resizes to a functional text based website on a smartphone but, given the content-heavy nature, this is honestly not the best platform to enjoy the website.

I am proud to have been part of such an important project, with the website ironically launching the day after Stonewall finally announced they would include Trans* people in their campaigning efforts…

I am keen to work on more digital projects for clients at the crossroads of arts/culture/heritage and LGBTQI community. I will be attending Justin Vivian Bond’s concert at Brighton Dome on Wednesday 18th, and the Brighton Trans*formed event on Thursday 19th at the Marlborough (8pm). Do not hesitate to come and talk to me if you would like to collaborate on a project!