Aug 5, 2022

Desire Lines: Queer Love Across Island Imaginaries on August 19 and 20 at HKW

Desire Lines: Queer Love Across Island Imaginaries
Discourse, performance, dancehall party
August 19 / 20, 2022
In English
Free admission
Program: hkw.de/en/desirelines
Accreditation via

What does it mean to be queer in the Caribbean, Pan-Caribbean and other island imaginaries? Artists, scholars and activists from Jamaica, Trinidad, Latin America’s Caribbean coast and the UK connect with Berlin’s diasporic queer communities and allies to address issues around queer love from a decolonial and intersectional perspective. Presentations, conversations and performances intertwine with a social space for gathering, cooking, partying, and emancipatory imagination.

Desire Lines is a long-term public artwork which foregrounds issues around queer love in the Caribbean, Pan-Caribbean, diasporas and beyond, rooted in lived experience and a wide range of approaches. Activating different forms of collectivity and knowledge, this first iteration combines a discursive space for learning, unlearning and dialogue with a communal space of mutual care, solidarity and celebration. Through talks, discussions, performances, screenings, radio broadcasts, informal interactions and an all-night dance party the contributors will address the coexistence of queerness and homophobia in island imaginaries, with a focus on QTBIPOC (Queer, Transgender, Black, Indigenous and People of Color) practices, experiences and attitudes which unravel the conventional interpretations of gender and sexuality.

With and from Moji Anderson, Beyond Homophobia, DJ Biggy C, Black and Gay Back in the Day, B.O.S.S. (Black Obsidian Sound System), Phil Collins, Kiera Coward Deyell, Faggamuffin Bloc Party, Lalo Gomes / LaLoVe's Kitchen, Andil Gosine, Lyall Hakaraia, Simone Harris, Anna Heitger, Chris Herrera Gallardo, Erin C. MacLeod, Radju Mirski, Jao Moon, Aérea Negrot, Jaevion Nelson, Angelique V. Nixon, Richard Ochoa, Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau, Refuge Worldwide, Sippin’ T, Marc Thompson, Gin Wilson and others

Press photos at hkw.de/pressphotos

Program

Friday, August 19, 2022, 12 noon–8 pm, Conference room

Beyond Homophobia: An Unapologetically Caribbean LGBTQIA+ Space
Presentation by Moji Anderson and Erin MacLeod

Conventional discourses around homosexuality and homophobia in Jamaica are problematic, obscuring the varied, complex lives of its LGBTQIA+ citizens. Thus, Moji Anderson and Erin MacLeod initiated the Beyond Homophobia symposium, followed by two international conferences that expanded to include LGBTQIA+ communities across the Americas. In their presentation, Anderson and MacLeod will describe the growing importance of the conference, as well as challenges, accomplishments and plans for the future.

Black and Gay, Back in the Day
Conversation between Marc Thompson and Phil Collins

Delving into the stories behind a selection of images from Black and Gay, Back in the Day, an online archive honoring Black queer life in Britain, Marc Thompson and Phil Collins will discuss the photographic collection as a manifestation of queer (counter) histories and a repository of communal solidarity, memory and pride.

Faggamuffin Bloc Party: Carnival, Community and Legacy
Presentation by Gin Wilson and Lyall Hakaraia

Faggamuffin Bloc Party’s mission is to increase the visibility of QTBIPOC Pride at carnival and to create a space for growing unity and cultural celebration. In their presentation, founding members Gin Wilson and Lyall Hakaraia will explore the Faggamuffin’s achievements since its inception in 2018.

Erotic Roots & Rebellion
Presentation by Angelique V. Nixon

This project reflects the vibrant LGBTQIA+ activism and creative imagination across the Caribbean region that refuses to be contained or controlled. Angelique V. Nixon uses erotic poetry, storytelling, mixed-media art and decolonial healing justice to challenge regimes of representation and dominant narratives of queer Caribbean lives.

Perras Apocalípticas
Conversation between Jao Moon and Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau

8–10 pm Ostgarten

JamZuela 100
Cooking performance for one hundred people by LaLoVe's Kitchen

Lalo Gomes and the LaLoVe’s Kitchen-troupe (Anna Heitger, Chris Herrera Gallardo, Radju Mirski, Jao Moon, Aérea Negrot and Richard Ochoa) invite the audience to join in preparing a communal meal which combines gastronomic traditions of the Pan-Caribbean region, to serve each other, eat together, and think about food as a site for nurturing a sense of community in our fraught times.

Saturday, August 20, 2022, 12–8 pm, Conference room

(re)Presenting "Murder Music": A Jamaican Activist Analysis of Campaigns to End Homophobia
Lecture by Jaevion Nelson

A lot has been said about campaigns to stop “murder music” coming out of Jamaica. These initiatives sparked much debate about the role of Jamaican music and culture in perpetrating antipathy toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer persons in Jamaica. LGBTQIA+ rights activist Jaevion Nelson will shed light on this discourse and explore ideas around power that are crucial to the nuances of Global South-Global North dynamics in queer advocacy and activism.

Holding Sound in Place
Presentation by Kiera Coward Deyell & Gin Wilson

What could sound system futures look like? Kiera Coward Deyell and Gin Wilson contextualize the work of Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.) in a rich legacy of Black British urban history.

Lady Blake Ophelia Stratum: Igniting Embodied Memories Through Queer Ritual
Performance by Simone Harris

In her performance, activist and queer artist Simone Harris explores embodied memory, ritual and connection to ancestral traditions.

From 10 pm Sweatbox exhibition hall 2

Sweatbox Dancehall Party
With DJ sets by Faggamuffin Bloc Party b2b B. O. S. S., DJ Biggy C, DJ Sippin’ T, charting the course from carnival, soca, ragga, Afro-Caribbean and dancehall beats, to the outer reaches of electronic music rooted in Black and Global South perspectives.

More Information: hkw.de/en/desirelines

Partners

Desire Lines: Queer Love Across Island Imaginaries. Chapter 1 convened by Phil Collins in collaboration with Beyond Homophobia and collectives and individuals from Kingston, London and Berlin.

Supported by the British Council

Presented with Refuge Worldwide

Part of The New Alphabet (2019–2022), supported by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media due to a ruling of the German Bundestag.

Haus der Kulturen der Welt is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and by the Federal Foreign Office.

Visitor Information

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Press Contact

Jan Trautmann
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