Queer Clash Diary

Relaxed Activities

Ben Walters  – Badge Cafe
Badge Cafe offer crafty utopian hangouts where people can relax, create and connect by reusing old books and magazine to make badges. It’s welcoming, easy and fun and you can stay for as long or as short as you like, making as many or as few badges as you like. You might just surprise yourself. 
@badgecafe

Aurelie aka Soulful Queen – Tarot
Aurelie aka Soulful Queen Tarot is a Tarot Reader and Life coach student from the South of France, with Cameroonian Heritage.
She has called East London her home for the past 10 years, and dedicated 4 of those years to studying Tarot and symbolism.
Her sacred purpose is to allow people to find guidance and to uncover sides of their story that they might not be aware of (yet), with a life coach approach.
After an encounter with her, querents leave clear-headed, happier, and with more hope than when they came to her
@soulfulqueentarot

Alizée Ndiaye – Pochette making
Alizée, a Multidisciplinary Creative/ Culture Curator  from France, shifted from social work to London’s creative scene in 2019. She founded Don’t Touch My Heritage (DTMH) to uplift black and brown artists. Co-directing The Palace Of The Dogs since 2022, she focuses on costume/set design and Art curation. Her works focus  on decolonization and positive storytelling, aiming for equity.
@alizeendiaye

Jasmine Kahlia – Zine making
The work of acclaimed Audiovisual Artist Jasmine Kahlia has been shown across the UK and abroad in Spain, Germany, and the USA. Jasmine has made a substantial contribution to the UK arts sector since 2016, and some of the biggest institutions in the country have platformed Jasmine’s work, despite Jasmine avoiding press and social media.

These include Wellcome Collection, Centrala, Britten Pears Arts, Haringey Culture, Resonance FM, Rich Mix, London Metropolitan Archives, Theatre Deli, UAL, Sage and BALTIC Gateshead, Lighthouse Arts Centre, Sound UK and Alexandra Palace, amongst others.

Jasmine’s proved excellence within music, short films and literature and has had work archived at Iniva, London Metropolitan Archives and been commissioned by Haringey Council, Sound UK, Tiata Fahodzi and Raze Collective. Jasmine works across around 19 different artforms to bring work to life. Jasmine has led many successful installations, commissions and exhibitions, and has been recognised for the standout pieces:

• 5 WAYS 2 RUN [Edinburgh Fringe of Colour] August 2021
• Everythin is Temporary [2018], Archived in: Goldsmiths, UAL, Baltic Gateshead, Sittingbourne Library, Wellcome Collection and Iniva Library, amongst others.

Read Jasmine’s zines online here.

Organisation stalls

Battersea Arts Centre is a home for extraordinary artists, young people and communities. Based in the old Battersea Town Hall near Clapham Junction, it programmes word class theatre and performance.

Marlborough Productions is a catalyst for queer culture and community. They are a leading UK producer of queer-led, intersectional performance, parties, heritage and radical community gatherings. Led by Co-Creative Directors Tarik Elmoutawakil and David Sheppeard, Marlborough Productions is a pioneering organisation that advances equality and social justice through producing intersectional queer culture.

Artist Talks

Travis Alabanza
Travis Alabanza is an award winning writer and theatre maker. Their recent work includes Sound of the Underground at the Royal Court, and the Khalak Prize winning memoir – None of the Above.
@travisalabanza

Katy Baird
Katy Baird is an artist and her new solo show ‘Get Off ‘ will be at Battersea Arts Centre in May. Katy is also a producer and is the Artistic Director of Home Live Art. She lives in hastings and proudly identifies as an ‘old, queer, fat, femme deviant’ 
@thenewlookkatyb

Ray Young
Ray Young is an award winning trans-disciplinary performance artist, theatre maker and writer. Their practice exists at the boundaries of activism, queerness, race and neuro-diversity, holding space for those at the intersection of multiple realities, through collaboration and resistance to traditional form.
@rachaelraymck

Speed Dating

Shepherd’s Bush
Shepherd’s Bush is a Drag Sheep exploring what it means to be human and all of the quirks and eccentricities that go with it. Shepherd’s Bush is the alter ego of queer transgender woman Claudia Coelho. Claudia is co-founder of LGBT+ Safe space Their Majesties and manages Queer Croydon, a network that amplifies queerness in the borough and beyond.
@itsshepherdsbush

Asifa Lahore
Asifa Lahore is a drag artist, performer, singer and DJ. She performs across  the UK and internationally, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be LGBT, South Asian and Muslim. Asifa was featured in Channel 4’s documentary Muslim Drag Queens, and film & television credits include Queer Parivaar (Iris Prize winner) and Always (BAFTA nominated). Asifa is passionate about disability rights. She is severely sighted and suffers from Retinitis Pigmentosa. Her activism on intersectionality, race, sexuality, gender, disability and religion has led her to speak at Lost Lectures, Channel 4 Diversity Festival, Women of the World Festival and the British Library.
@asifalahore

Highway to Infinity Final Level (mixed reality installation)

Meet Ish (they/them) and help unlock their memories on a surreal road trip video game about identity, nostalgia, and memories. Highway to Infinity is a work in progress videogame and one part of a 30 minute immersive mixed reality-audio experience created by Symoné in collaboration with Sammy Metcalfe. 

This is a one-on-one experience lasting 20 minutes. There will be 5 slots to experience it, with one audience member allowed in at a time. Booking slots will be made available to people with tickets for Queer Clash Diary via email on Friday 1 March, and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Each audience member may bring along one guest – either a friend or an access support worker.

The experience is partially captioned and includes sensory experiences such as: moments of darkness, loud noises, physical touch/interaction, redistricted eyesight (if eyes are covered), low lit setting, audio/headphone experience. It is led by the participant, and is slow paced.

Funded by Arts Council England, Attenborough Arts Centre, and Marlborough Productions 
Supported by Raze Collective and Screen South

Age: 16+
Content Warning: Brief nudity and glitching screens

Symoné
Symoné is a Guinness World Record-holding interdisciplinary artist, cabaret performer, alt-circus artist, visionary game designer, theatre maker, and a member of Pecs Drag King Collective. She has performed in 10 different countries from the West End to India with La Soiree, Peaches, Kurt Geiger, Jon Hopkins, and Chris Cox. In addition to her circus and cabaret practice, she has also created 2 theatre productions commissioned by Arts Council England, The Place, Trigger Stuff, and Cambridge Junction, Euphorica, a queer-nature movement and costume based performance and UTOPIAN (t&c’s apply) a surrealistic pop-circus adventure about power roles. Symoné is currently engaged in the development of a mixed-reality installation piece, “A Dream Within A Dream,” in collaboration with Sammy Metcalfe.
@symoneforever

Digital showcase

Three Years Old, Bilansu

A poignant movement piece that encapsulates my journey through eating disorder recovery. It serves as a culmination of my efforts to embrace facets of myself that I’ve long concealed, granting them the freedom to occupy space and simply be in their authentic essence.

Bilansu‘s artistry spans mediums—photography, film, and installation—infusing self-portraiture & storytelling into their work. The allure of self-documentation drives them inward. Amidst perceived stasis, they delve into introspection, unraveling ideologies transcending binary structures, illuminating the human experience.
@bilansu


Yard Gal, The Palace of the Dogs and Don’t Touch My Heritage

Yard Gal, an eco project, linked  a previous movie called  SoftBwoi exploring masculinity. In Yard Gal, we concentrate on Black Femininity and its influence by the white and male gaze on black fem today. With a decolonial approach, Yard Gal challenges expectations, authentically portraying how black fem experiences in a raw and genuine manner.

Don’t Touch My Heritage (DTMH) and The Palace of The Dogs are creative platforms dedicated to empowering black creatives. Through various mediums such as pictures, films, music, and events, these platforms actively showcase and celebrate black culture, providing a vital space for black artists to express themselves and emerge as culture creators. Established in 2019 by Alizée Ndiaye, DTMH is a platform created for and by the diaspora, embodying a commitment to fostering creativity within the black community. 

The Palace of The Dogs, founded by Danny Bailey, emerged in response to the limited artistic freedom in the acting industry. This platform aims to dismantle colonial practices through its engagement with media and art.
in 2023, these two platforms joined forces as sisters, collaborating to curate  exhibitions, thereby solidifying their shared mission to elevate and amplify black voices in the creative sphere.
@thepalaceofthedogs @dtmh___

Bodiless Thing, Wet Mess

Horny for confusion, more chaos, more unknown than known, our mannerisms maximized by a thousand. The ego, the bodiless thing, the crotch grabbing, rubbing its quivering flesh against the rough surfaces of the city scape. Wet Mess exposes us to the euphoria and the alienation of oneself in a frenzied yet blasé pursuit of masculinity. A Bodiless Thing takes us on a muscle fuelled carb killing search for belonging, which makes us question to what extent our material existence determines who we think we are and how we fit into the world. Can we really be that horny, sweaty, binary defying, ridiculously camp person beyond our flesh suits? Cum join the escape and get ready for this transcendental mess.

Wet Mess is an artist who works across visual art, drag, dance, theatre, including choreographing videos for Will Young and London Grammar. Recently they were part of Travis Alabanza‘s Sound of the Underground (Royal Court) which received 5 stars in the Guardian; and winner of Not Another Drag Competition (RVT) 2021. Their film work has been funded by Jerwood Arts and screened at London Short film festival, ICA and The Photographers gallery.
@wet_mess