Radar: Queer Clash Mornings
Calling all QTIBIPOC* creatives, artists, performers & producers!
*We use QTIBIPOC to stand for Queer or Questioning, Trans, Intersex, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour.
Raze Collective and Artsadmin are teaming up for another series of Queer Clash Mornings, specifically for QTIBIPOC folks! QTIBIPOC artists and arts workers are some of the most underrepresented and undervalued in our sector. Now, more than ever, it’s crucial for us to come together to share resources, exchange ideas, chat, and build solidarity within our community.
Each month we’ll invite a different (and brilliant!) QTIBIPOC host to join us to talk about their journey, their experience navigating the sector, and the unique skills they’ve gained along the way.
Come along and chat with us about all things art-making, producing, and network building, from QTIBIPOC to QTIBIPOC.
Sessions will be hosted by Gayathiri and Seyi from the Raze Collective producing team and Benji and Nene from the Artsadmin Artist Support team.
Biscuits, drinks and WiFi provided!
- Thursday 12 September
- Thursday 17 October
- Thursday 7 November
- Thursday 5 December
- Thursday 16 January (guest co-host: crazinisT artisT. Online only, BSL interpreted)
Previous guest co-hosts: Jesualdo Lopes (September), Reena Kalsi (October)
- Our building is wheelchair accessible. Read more about Accessibility at Toynbee Studios.
- All toilets at Toynbee Studios are gender neutral.
- A relaxed performance kit with yoga mats, blankets, cushions and ear defenders will be available.
- The first-floor accessible toilet has a wheelchair-accessible shower with a fold-down shower seat and an ergonomic sink that is adjustable in height.
- BSL interpretation will be provided for January’s session.
Benji (he/him) developed his interest in art and social justice first through his BA in Anthropology & Visual Practice at Goldsmiths, and then his MA in Global Creative and Cultural Industries at SOAS. Throughout this time, his attention has been captured by work and spaces where decolonial, artistic, and ethnographic practices are pulled into conversation with one another.
Gayathiri (they/them) is a poet and Raze Collective’s Access Coordinator. Gayathiri won the Disabled Poets Prize 2024 and they’re a member of the Southbank New Poets Collective. They’ve previously done access bits with Queer Youth Art Collective, Selina Thompson LTD and Inclusive Tamil Arts.
Nene (they/them) has worked alongside festivals, cabarets, galleries, artist-led collectives, and student unions. As their practice developed, they became more interested in deepened creative processes that attempted to create more sustained support for their communities. Structures that attempt to go beyond capitalist and imperialist designs and attempt to foster prosperity, art-making, and tenderness.
Seyi is a Creative Producer at Raze Collective who focuses on the inclusivity and celebration of often marginalised communities such as the LGBTQAI+ community and those who are racially othered. Having grown up rarely seeing herself represented in mainstream arts and media, Seyi seeks to produce arts and culture that centers the queer and/or black experience.
Seyi has experience producing theatre, cabaret, musicals and community events. She’s worked extensively in stage management & production roles with Raze Collective, The Cocoa Butter Club, Mighty Hoopla, The Yard Theatre, Bloomsbury Theatre & Camden People’s Theatre. She’s currently working with Transmission Roundhouse to produce a podcast which explores daily struggles creatives with intersectional identities may face, whilst emphasising the joy that comes from being part of a marginalised group
Raze Collective is a charity dedicated to nurturing and developing innovative queer performance in the UK.
They create cultural opportunities for LGBTQIA+ artists, audiences and the wider public. They value the diversity of the queer cultural scene and work with artists, producers and organisations who share their values and ethos.
Raze was formed by grassroots performers, producers & audience members in the face of the closure of LGBTQIA+ venues. They’re called Raze as the organisation was established in response to those queer spaces being razed.
Reena Kalsi (she/her) is a Creative Producer, working across Theatre, Live Art and Music. Much of her practice is centred around inclusive access and visibility, always thinking about who isn’t in the room and why.
Having gained great experience at Battersea Arts Centre, Artsadmin, Roundhouse and now Barbican, Reena continues to create representative programmes of work and work with organisations to disrupt and drive change.
Jesualdo Lopes (he/him) is a Lisbon-born multidisciplinary artist of Bissau-Guinean heritage whose journey has led him to become a versatile force in the realms of events, community activism and film.
In 2021, Jesualdo established The Blacker The Berry Project, a collective championing Black LGBTQ+ artists across the globe through creative intervention such as exhibitions, club nights, workshops, and residencies. Since then, the collective has made a significant impact through its policies, having pioneered The Blacker The Moses, an exclusive retreat for Black working class creatives in collaboration with the family-run yoga facility Vale de Moses in the Portuguese mountains Portugal, as well as the country’s first known Safer Spaces Policy and Black Pride this year.
In addition to his work, Jesualdo is the Events and Outreach Lead at the London LGBTQ+ Community Centre. His enthusiasm for creating safe, intergenerational, and intersectional spaces within the LGBTQ+ community is a testament to his ongoing commitment to making a difference and fostering inclusivity.
Sadie Sinner (she/her) is the Founder and Creative Director of The Cocoa Butter Club and recognised as the UK’s sixth most influential cabaret performer (2020). On-stage, she is known for her welcoming, witty and warm demeanor, plus powerhouse vocals. Off-stage, Sadie is a pioneer in conceptualizing cabaret productions, creating the Black Burlesque School and now the inaugural Black Burlesque Festival.
Evelyn Carnate (she/her) is an award-winning international cabaret performer, director and producer. She was the Miss Burlesque UK 2019 Winner, Founder/Headmistress of Soho School of Burlesque and Co-founder of queer Asian cabaret company The Bitten Peach. She is also head of entertainment for a bar company with multiple venues across Glastonbury Festival.
Some recent highlights of her cabaret career include: producing and directing The Bitten Peach shows at Underbelly Festival and Theatre Royal Stratford East, producing a resident show at Crazy Coqs, creating The Bitten Peach cabaret courses for new performers, teaching burlesque at Soho Theatre Drag & Cabaret Lab and University of The Arts London, and becoming an ambassador for the charity Cabaret Vs Cancer. Last year, she also started fundraising for Endometriosis UK and is passionate about raising awareness and empowering fellow #EndoWarriors through her #BurlesqueForEndometriosis projects.
Born 1981 in Ho, Ghana, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi [ aka crazinisT artisT] is a trans woman with the pronoun sHit if not She. Va-Bene lives in Kumasi, Ghana but works internationally as a multidisciplinary “artivist”, curator, philanthropist and a mentor across several countries. She is the founder and artistic director of crazinisT artisT studiO (TTO), Our Railway Cinema Gallery (ORCG), perfocraZe International Artists Residency (pIAR) and Trans African Ambassadors Network (TAAN). All of which aimed at radicalising the arts and promoting exchange between international and local artists, activists, researchers, curators, and critical thinkers. As a performer and installation artist, crazinisT investigates gender stereotypes, prejudices, queerness, identity politics and conflicts, sexual stigma and their consequences for marginalised groups or individuals. With rituals and a gender-fluid persona, She employs her own body as a thought-provoking tool in performances, photography, video, and installations, ‘life-and-live-art’ confronting issues such as disenfranchisement, injustice, violence, objectification, internalised oppression, anti blackness, systemic indoctrination and many more.
crazinisT has performed and exhibited across the globe including countries such as Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Switzerland, South Africa, Germany, Netherlands, Cape Verde, USA, Spain, Brazil, Italy, France, Sweden, Hungary, Belgium, Luxembourg, Japan, Finland, Portugal, Denmark, Austria, Romania, Kosovo and UK/Ireland.
sHit has also been featured in several, publications and magazines such as the I-D Vice London, I-D Vice Dutch, Financial times, King Kong Magazine, CCQ London, Maimi Rails, ‘Freeflowingvisuals’, TRT WORD Film Documentary, This is Africa, Art Ghana, Lost At E Minor, CNN, BBC, The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Tageszeitung (TAZ), Horizonte da Cena, Radio FRO, Reuters, Hyperallergic etc.
Date and time
12 September 2024 – 16 January 2025
11am–1pm
Booking
Free, booking required
Book online
Venue
Toynbee Studios
28 Commercial Street
London, E1 6AB
Tel: 020 7247 5102
Plan your visit