Radio Emma: Queer Pedagogy

[00:00:42] Speaker A: Hi, welcome to Radio Emma, the radio platform of if I can dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution. Welcome. We are broadcasting live from our office at the Westerdoc in Amsterdam. Established in 2005, if I can Dance is an art organization dedicated to exploring the evolution and typology of performance and performativity in contemporary art. My name is David Kashotu and I'm your host for today and a research fellow of the current biennial trajectory titled Bodies and Technologies. With bodies and technologies, we tackle the complex and plural entanglements between bodies and technologies. Next to radio broadcasts, the field of inquiry unfolds through our collective reading groups in which we have been experimenting with different forms of reading, exchanging embodiment and artistic practices. Today, we will be diving into the topic of queer pedagogy. I have invited three wonderful guests to share their insight on what it means to queer pedagogy and vice versa, departing from the understanding of pedagogical practices as a crucial site where bodies and technologies converge. So I would like to welcome Sora Prustayar, Elio Asteffin and Virgil Ahard. Hi. [00:02:15] Speaker B: Hello there. [00:02:18] Speaker A: So let's start with a quick check in how you're feeling today. And is there an intention you would like to place for today's conversation? Also, this is the moment to introduce yourself. [00:02:34] Speaker B: Shall I go first? [00:02:35] Speaker A: Sure, go ahead. [00:02:37] Speaker B: I'm Elioa Stefan. I'm feeling pretty good. Yeah, I just found out that hormones are going to be super easy, so I feel very like in my body. This is where I'm at and grateful to be in this space. And then I'm a coordinator and one of the founders of in pursuit of otherwise possibilities, which is a queer pedagogy project at the Amsterdam Academy of Theater and Dance. And then also I'm a theater maker and facilitator. [00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. [00:03:21] Speaker C: My name is Roger Ackart. I'm feeling okay. It's a wonderful day. And yeah, just to introduce myself. Yeah. I'm a film studies major. When it comes to my studies, I currently work at Ilia, that's queer archive of Europe, or mostly based in the Netherlands. And besides that, I also have projects like a film festival that's called Human to film festival and also expositions LGBTQ humans of Amsterdam. So that's me in a nutshell. [00:04:05] Speaker D: I'm Sora Brussel. I forget to mention my name because people don't see me. I am the founder of Fight Club and Reclaim our pride. I've been active in activism for now 15 years I think I've been doing a lot of things regarding refugees, antiracism and queer rights and intention. I think joyfulness. [00:04:35] Speaker A: Thank you for bringing that in. Yes. So before we continue affirming even further what we do currently, I would also like to take a moment to invoke those who came before us. So what is your lineage? Could you name some of your ancestry, inspirations, practices, and thinkers? Same circle? Or should we reverse it? Sort up? Let's go. [00:05:02] Speaker D: For you, I hope the same circle, I think, from my ancestors, from my family. I think that my mom is my role model and my sister. They have been along my side when it came to my transition, but also choices in my life that I made. And my name is actually Sorab is called. Is like one of the oldest mythologies in Afghanistan, in the area of Afghanistan. And my first name was Sodaba. That was the mother and the wife of mythology of two heroes, but they were fighting with each other, which was Sorab and Rustam, the father and the son. And eventually she made peace between them. And my parents called me Sodaba, but that's a girl's name or a woman's name. And so when I started my transition, I went back to my own history and on rooting my own colonial heritage and also decolonizing my own body. And then I went back and changed my name into Surab. So that's the ancestral thing from me. And for now, I think I don't want to go back into times of calling dead names, because I think we have so many inspiration. I am being inspired by the people who are alive right now. And one of the people who is Anna Paola Lima, amazing trans woman who opened my doors for my transitioning. So I think we should not always look at people who died as heroes, but also looking at the people who are standing next to us. [00:06:47] Speaker A: Yes. Thank you. That's beautiful. [00:06:51] Speaker C: To follow that up. That's very well said. I think I don't have a very. How do you say that? A deep story in that sense. But of course, I would then also say my mother, of course, because she's been a great support throughout my life and an inspiration. But I also think when I think of lineage and the past, I do think of the people before me, like my background surnamese. And of course, I have ancestry of enslaved people, most likely from West Africa. And I know from my father's side. And I should probably research that better. There has been a person who bought their own freedom because I only went there once to one event in my family in Suriname, where they still celebrated every single day that this family member bought their own freedom in a time where other people were still enslaved. So, yeah, but that's my short story. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Thanks. Yeah, I think for me, what are the lineages I claim, I think, biologically, like, certainly I'm aware of and claim, yeah. Coming from the US being white, so sort of various histories of settler colonialism, for sure, and then also some more recent histories of the ways my parents responded to that and some attempts to break out of that. My parents very much involved with political movements in the. In the US, and then also spiritual searching. And I think one big lineage for me is also having been raised within the Helveti Jarahi in this sort of particular form of Sufi Islam. Yeah. Feels very relevant. And then, of course, bringing in, especially us queer histories and having some family, like, chosen family that's really connected to that, and both the joy and histories of grief and death, mass death and. Yeah, kind of having all of that be a part of me. [00:09:16] Speaker A: Thank you. So the three of you have co founded different initiatives. Could you introduce them further and mention your reasons for creating them? More specifically, what do you feel was still lacking or something that you missed that pushed you to create these platforms? And to which communal needs are you catering? [00:09:42] Speaker C: Maybe I'll start. [00:09:43] Speaker D: We don't have to do great. [00:09:48] Speaker C: But, yeah. So let's just say after I graduated film studies at University of Amsterdam, I worked at several museums, and I just got inspired by the blogs that we had at museum, in particular Amsterdam museum. So I really got this interest into blogging. And then I also loved humans of know use of Amsterdam. So I was like, you know what? I'm doing film. I'm going to start humans of film Amsterdam, because I really liked it. And I also do some photography on the side. So I started doing that, going on the street, photograph people, et cetera. And then I kind of got picked up by some film festivals who were like, oh, my God, can you also interview people here? So it wasn't necessarily a dire need for something that started all of this, per se, was more like the joy of doing something and doing something interesting. But eventually it developed toward that because we founded a stirting foundation. Stirting human is a film because we got interested into starting a film festival where instead of photography stories, you basically show films about human beings. And then as we started doing that gradually along the way, and we still do, we encounter or are approached by people. And that is kind of how we then see, oh, there's something lacking. Oh, there's a dire need for this. So that's kind of how it developed with us. That's what we're doing. [00:11:35] Speaker A: What about you, Saurabh? [00:11:36] Speaker D: Yeah, fight club is actually. I started to explore sexuality. King can be DSM, and I tried to do that in Amsterdam, but there was no space. It's predominantly white, cis and hetero. So I went to other cities like Berlin, Paris and London to visit there. But I found out that I was actually, most of the time, the only trans person or the only person of color. So I came back to Amsterdam and I tried to find spaces where I could explore as a person of color, as a trans person. And I found out that there was actually nothing. And I talked with a community around me, with people, if they had the same desires and wishes. And that's where I started fight club. I was like, we have to create a space that is accommodating the needs of our community when it comes to sexuality, sexual liberation from a decolonized perspective. We started in 2018 or 19. It's debatable. [00:12:39] Speaker A: Time is debatable. [00:12:41] Speaker D: Yes, exactly. It's so westernized also. Anyways, we exist like three, four years now. We started a small festival during Shakespeare Club with SEoC Amsterdam and was pretty successful. And from there, actually, we organized workshops and annual festival and play parties. [00:13:01] Speaker A: More about that later. How about you, Elioa? [00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah, so I co founded with Shimon Adamchek, an organization called in pursuit of otherwise possibilities, or IPOP, which is this queer pedagogy project within the auto day. And we were responding, what needs were we responding to? I think for us, we were responding to some questions around especially what was possible or what might else be possible in a more explicitly queer setting around how we as queer artists were educated, how queer performance history was held, and also how feedback happened. And if there was a possibility, or what might be possible if we didn't have to translate quite so much, if we didn't have to kind of. Kind of contort ourselves to heteronormative needs within a performance education setting. What it might be like to be really held in a more queer communities may be a strong word, but a queer group. [00:14:16] Speaker A: Yes, we'll be unfolding that in a bit. But going back to you, Fergal, because in your introduction, you also mentioned that you're an archivist at Ilia. I must confess, up until yesterday, I didn't know what Ilia was, or like, I didn't know of its existence. So, I mean, take this opportunity to share with us what is Ilia. And what do you do as an archipist? [00:14:42] Speaker C: Yeah, first off, Ilia is a small dutch based queer archive. Small meaning in the sense that it also needs all round workers. So we're not just archiving material, we're also acquiring it, going out there in the community, cataloging it, receiving guests, researchers, et cetera, of people who want to take a look at the material, either mostly for study purposes or research purposes, but also for other reasons. Of course, everybody's welcome. So, yeah, that's Ilia. The purpose of Ilia is basically preserving queer history, and not just from the Netherlands, but also from other countries. For example, a beautiful project that's called open up. There are a lot of eastern european countries that don't get enough funding, for example, and they have a lot of material, magazines from back in the day from the 80s or ninety s, and they want that preserved. So that's one of the things that we also do, but also for other countries, there's also material from Indonesia, Suriname, countries outside of Europe. We take in everything. I do think, or what I've heard is a lot of people think that to have something preserved in an archive, it needs to be some grand antique thing, but we take literally everything. So it can even be a pen from an organization, or it can be like a program booklet or a book, certain objects, t shirts, tote bags, even from some organizations, unused condoms or, like, condom packages, for example, because there are organizations with that mission. So you need to preserve those things. So, yeah, it's very broad, and everything is welcome. [00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah. It also specifically inspired me yesterday you were talking about the personal archive, like, how everything that we do as individual is already archival material. In a way. [00:16:51] Speaker C: Yeah. I think a lot of people don't realize that when they start an organization, you're out there in the public and you are already creating material that can be archived. So you can basically every single time, when you have a booklet, when you have a flyer, when you have something, you can come to the archive and be like, hey, this needs to be archived. Can you take it in? You can totally do that, because that's what you're doing. You're creating programs for queer people so that they can find the place to be themselves. So that's part of the history. [00:17:27] Speaker A: Is there a perspective of the broader LGBTQI plus history you feel like is still underrepresented in the archive? If so, why do you think that is? [00:17:40] Speaker C: Yeah, in general, queer history in general, a lot of that is missing, especially if you go and look for material from back in the 50s or before the 50s or before the 20th century, for example. There's in general, of course, a lot missing. And if you think of the old ages before that, when we weren't even allowed to exist, basically, there's a lot missing. But if you look at it from a nowadays perspective and what we really need today, you do notice, of course, that there's a bigger representation for white queer history in comparison to BIPOC queer history. And especially if you think on a dutch level, because the moment you find something about BIPOC queer histories, more likely is going to be something either from the US or the UK and not as much from the Netherlands, there's just a lot missing out and. Yeah, reasons for that. There's a lot of reasons. An archive itself can also be a political. How do you say that? How do you say that? Well, it has a political sense in itself, because there are people working there, in a sense, a sort of curation. So there have been times where, especially Casilia used to be a homodoc, where it's more like gay guys, for example, and then there was a separate one for lesbians, and then later infused and came together. So there have been times where people would only catalog what they know, what they can get. It can be conscious, can be unconscious, or not really interested in things from other people. So there's multiple reasons, but there's also just a lot of people who don't know about it. Or, like I said, guilty, but also just maybe had bad experiences. There's this example of the documentary that was being made about Marcia P. Johnson, where there was a trans woman of color who wanted to make a documentary about Marcia P. Johnson, but she wasn't given enough access to the archives. And there was this guy, a white guy, gay guy, who was given a lot of access and made a documentary for Netflix. So there are so many things at play, and it's already then political, but we are doing our best to get as much as we can, feel welcome, and come to us and kind of claim the archive for yourself. [00:20:20] Speaker A: Let's go reclaim our pride and our archive. So I was wondering, how do you relate to time as an archipist? Because for me, the linearity of time, or history more broadly, is very imposed and westernized. So querying these notions from me would mean refusing this imposed linearity somehow. So I'm curious to know, do you have any thoughts on the relationship between time and a queer archive? [00:20:58] Speaker C: Yeah, of course. Having an academic studies background, the notion, the concepts of time linearity has always passed, and I'm aware of that, of course, but you mostly are served is the western perspective. Of course, living in the Netherlands and being raised here, that's what you get through everything. So I guess working at the archive, you are constantly busy with basically that form of linearity, because it's also everybody else has been given that here in this country, the moment you get an audience, you get people coming by, that is then the easiest way to communicate with each other. So, yeah, I do personally use it, I guess, but I am aware of what it could mean. Meaning, I feel like linearity within the west time, history, it's a process of just keep going on. There's some moments in time that we look back at the past and we have this official moment, and then we just keep going on business as usual. We need to keep going. And if I think of that, then I personally do feel, and I do try to do that myself, of course, that we shouldn't just keep going on. You can be in the here and the now, but also constantly kind of consider, in the best sense, the past and the future, because otherwise you just keep this. What continuously has been happening for the past decades? For the past centuries. We just keep going on. Yeah. Doing the same thing over and over again, but we're never thinking about, this is what the past meant. This is why we should make the future, for example, like this. So I think, yeah, it's too separated within western concept. It's just here now. Yeah, future. Look back for a moment, back in the time, and that's it. [00:23:03] Speaker A: And did you ever experience an effective or embodied response with some of the materials? If so, what and how there's not. [00:23:12] Speaker C: One object, but I would say every single time, when you discover something new, like, every piece can be like, an addition to, like, you have a sort of memory of what history is, of certain histories. And then you read something, you find something, and that thing is then a new puzzle piece within that history. You're, like, learning the whole entire time discovering something new. You get new additional information, for example, seeing pamphlets from strange fruit or, like, cinemasia film festival back in the day showing LGBTQ films. Those things are really cool to see. And sometimes you also recognize people from back in those days. And I met them, and I'm like, oh, my God, so young and this and that, and, oh, my God, you were doing this. So, yeah, it's a sense of joy, of course, but also constantly learning and discovering new things. [00:24:10] Speaker A: But it never happened that you, I don't know, saw something and you felt like crying or, I don't know, yelling. [00:24:22] Speaker C: Um, no, not really. And that makes it sound like, oh, so there's nothing to cry about or something. It could totally be, but I think maybe I'm myself as a person. I'm not cry ish. [00:24:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:42] Speaker C: But there can definitely be material that know emotionally pushes people, so. Yeah, it's. [00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:51] Speaker A: All right. Thank you, Zorap. [00:24:55] Speaker D: Yes. [00:24:57] Speaker A: So this weekend was fight club's annual festival. How was it for you? And to update people and increase the FOMO. What did they miss? [00:25:08] Speaker D: Yeah, they missed a lot. [00:25:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. [00:25:11] Speaker D: Unfortunately, it's also because we had limited space for the workshop, so we couldn't handle to have 300 people or so, but we had a lot of people who subscribed for workshops. So the idea of the festival was actually that on Saturday we had four kinds of workshops and film screenings, porn screenings, to be fair. And we had some dinner and lunch organized by the crew of Papaya queer. And on Sunday, we had the play party in Agnaton where people could liberate themselves and all without cis men. Cisgender men. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Sounds like the dream. [00:25:54] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:25:54] Speaker A: And what kind of workshops were there specifically? [00:25:57] Speaker D: We had four amazing facilitators who came to give us workshops. One was about kinken trauma by Ajwa Moon, and we had Nesala, who did play versus sex. So explaining the differentiation between play and sex. And we had Ray Ray, who came, mistress Ray Ray, who came all the way from Belgium to give us impact play. And last but not least, Asiana, who has her own studio. Also when it comes to bondage and rope workshop. [00:26:34] Speaker A: Sounds hot. [00:26:35] Speaker D: Yes. [00:26:38] Speaker A: It was hot because I was. [00:26:40] Speaker D: There, and you did a great job there. [00:26:45] Speaker A: Even though fight club operates from a BIPOC centered perspective, it is still an intentional choice to facilitate hybrid spaces. What is the reason to do so, and what do you want white people to know when they enter your spaces? [00:27:02] Speaker D: First of to. Well, it's like with Fight Club, we want to create a new narrative. We want to sexually liberate people from a decolonized perspective. And sexualization has been now happening. And everybody thinks, if you think about sexual liberation, everybody thinks about the seventies here in Europe, while sexual liberation has happened actually centuries ago in global south, when we look at sexuality, for example, one of the oldest sexual liberation movements came from India, with Kamasutra, for example. So we try to decolonize that. And what we try to do is create a new world where two worlds where people of color, black people, indigenous people, and white people can live next to each other. But in order to build those bridges, to let white people know how much privilege they have and how much comfort they have in their own body, it is actually very necessary to combine those things so you can show and you can feel what a safe space mean, what a brave space means, and what a decolonized perspective means. Also, if we lock down, then we don't build bridges anymore, and you can't learn anyone, and then you cannot hold people accountable also. [00:28:27] Speaker A: But is there, like, something specific you assign white people when they enter your spaces? Or how do you communicate this? [00:28:34] Speaker D: Yeah, so actually, we tell them that it's a bipoc centered space. That means that people of color, black and brown, and indigenous people have. We centrize and we prioritize them. And that means that white people needs to become more aware of their own comfort and privilege also, because when they enter a space, it's like it happened with this person who came, entered the space and was, like, waving with her purse and almost hit a black person sitting on a chair. And I was like, whoa. And you try to attend people. And also within workshops, we ask them to not immediately ask questions, but give space to BIPOC people, because white people are like, they think that they have the privilege of using space and the comfortability they have in a space. And what we want to do is give space for BIPOC people to actually engage in their own sexual liberation and their own emancipation. So it's actually giving and taking a little bit. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Did you ever experience comments or reactions from white people like, oh, my God. [00:29:44] Speaker D: We had so many call outs in the beginning when we started fight club, when we said that we had also sometimes workshops that was BIPOC only and cis men free. We had a lot of people who were BIPOC, cis men who were angry at us that we didn't accommodate them, but white lesbians. So we had to explain that. And then later on, we had to also explain to other people why we were having this concept, because they were like, yeah, but you're discriminating. And I'm like, it's not discriminating. We are holding space for a certain group that needs that safety in to actually emancipate themselves in the way we want to do it in our own conditions and not from a white standard norms. [00:30:34] Speaker A: We actually had conversations this weekend about the hesitance of BIPOC folks to enter these spaces and to practice or address kink and these kind of specific practices. Why do you think that is? Why is there this hesitance? Hesitation? [00:30:54] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it has to do with a couple of things. One of the things is that our history has been erased. So we walk with this colonial history and colonial mindset also when it comes to sexual liberation. So we have to decolonize ourselves from that perspective and knowing that actually so many things that are now being claimed to be white, like pornography, sexuality, kink and stuff, that it came. Actually, we liberated ourselves long before western societies came. So secondly, I think that BIPOC people are facing right now in the world also so much racism, so much inequality that they are busy with surviving daily, and that actually fighting against racism, inequality, discrimination when it comes to work, education, et cetera, that those are on a higher priority than sexual liberation. So people are busy with daily life, with surviving instead of living and then making choices for themselves to be like, hey, I want to liberate myself on a sexual level. So therefore, they are more hesitant, I think, to think about this subject and to step into a space. And also, I understand also that people are afraid to step up in spaces like this and be vulnerable. [00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's why it's so important that you keep on creating these spaces, because I can totally relate. When I first joined Fight club, I don't know, there was a lot to discover. So I'm very grateful that you facilitate these spaces. [00:32:41] Speaker D: I'm grateful you joined. [00:32:47] Speaker A: Next to fight club. You're also a badass activist. What are personal lessons you have learned when dealing with activism and community work? What do you want the next generation of activists and community builders to know? [00:33:04] Speaker D: I think right now we can't speak really about one community or different communities. I think we can speak about a great movement around the world when it comes to queer, queer rights and trans rights. What I have learned is that we cannot solely work only with BIPOC people and white people separated and in the segregation. So we have to always work together to actually educate each other, to hold each other accountable, to hold each other responsible for the things that is happening. And also, I'd rather work with a mixed group, because then you can also tell white people to talk with their own communities also this way to actually engage and make the changes, because it is the way the world is now. So that if white people talk to white people, they are being taken seriously. Then when I lecture in a space, in a white space, talking about sexual liberation, for example, they're like, okay, whatever. That's what I learned. And also, I think that in mainstream media, they call it radical. But what I think is, if you look from a decolonial, intersectional perspective and human rights. It's not radical. And I think that we have to keep our vision and even though it's fucking hard and you have to swim against the stream, but that's how you normalize and change the narrative. The heteronormative narratives also. So sometimes it's very difficult, but it is necessary. [00:34:45] Speaker A: But how do you keep all of this sustainable to yourself? I mean, I can imagine that it must also be exhausting to stream against the swim. [00:34:53] Speaker D: Yeah. For example. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Sorry, what did I say? Swim against the stream. [00:34:58] Speaker D: I get you. I plant the waters. That's why I have would reclaim our pride. We are like trying to be. We organize protests, we make statements, and we want to envision something, but with fight club, it's not fighting against, but it's creating something new. And I try to balance things in my life with community work, trying to build communities, trying to engage and build bridges so we can interact more with each other. We get to know each other better and we educate each other better. So this way the emancipation of the society is actually being engaged instead of, like, we ourselves have to emancipate ourselves. So I tried to balance is really like the world of 2022 for me. But it is very important to not only fight, but also really live. And I think I'm 35 and I have fought a lot. And now I think most of the BIPOC people, I try to tell them to also take a step in their. How do you say that? [00:36:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:15] Speaker D: To take your life in your own hands and live your life instead of fighting the whole time, because it's exhausting. [00:36:26] Speaker A: Thank you. Elioa. Hey. So I was trying to refresh my memory on IPOP, so I went stalking you and the website of IPOP, and I actually saw four beautifully formulated research questions which were at the core of the research you and your collaborator conducted. So here we are one fruitful year later, filled with reading groups, workshops, feedback sessions, and a symposium. What are some of the concrete findings you have gathered through the collective sessions, or how do you relate to these questions now? So if you don't mind, I would like to go revisit them one by one, and perhaps you can forefront some otherwise possibilities, quote unquote, that emerged. [00:37:23] Speaker B: Cool. [00:37:25] Speaker A: So the first question was, what do LGBTQIA plus artists need to fully realize their artistic vision? [00:37:34] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I feel called also just to, like. I feel really grateful to be here. So I just appreciate that. It's really quite an honor and quite beautiful. Yeah. And I don't know when I was thinking about this question. What I feel called to is to kind of answer with questions, because I think I feel quite full of questions. [00:37:57] Speaker A: Such a researcher. [00:37:59] Speaker B: Sorry. Guilty. And I think one of the things that I'm thinking about and wondering about is the role of complexity and difference in terms of supporting LGBTQ plus artists in their artistic vision. And I say that in part and kind of looking at this question and understanding, kind of, okay, we were sort of trying to fit within certain kind of institutional frames, but it feels very like, oh, there's one kind of LGBTQ artist, and we're going to talk to them and we're going to figure it out. And I think it's really just noticing that. And it really came through the research this year of that difference is super important, and that having space for complexity and having space for these terms that are trying to hold this very large group, to recognize that and that there's all kinds of difference and there's all kinds of cracks and there's all kinds of bridges and chasms and different experiences. And one of the things that that leads me to, and this is a question I've had for a very long time, is about translation and about the way. And when I say that, I mean mostly about how or wondering about how queer folks end up having to translate into straight contexts, into normative contexts, in relationship to straightness. In what ways does that serve? In what ways does that open up possibilities? And also what does it do? And is it possible? Or in what ways can we create spaces that don't require that or that really give agency to queer artists that they can choose not to translate? They can be really confusing, or really that it doesn't have to make sense in a sort of straight way or two straight folks? Or can we make art that really assumes a kind of queer experience, queer education, queer connection to lineage, and just sort of, if you don't have that, then that's okay, but then there's things you miss, and can that be okay? And also to recognize also the role of language and also how to make space for that. And then another thing I'm thinking. [00:40:24] Speaker A: Sorry, what do you mean with that? Can you elaborate? [00:40:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking about, this is an older idea coming from my time in the US, where I think I was less conscious of sort of language. And so I don't usually frame it in a context of language, but I think it's important, especially being in Amsterdam and in the Netherlands and the way in which English is quite dominant. And so I don't want to ignore that. Like, the sort of kind of literalness of translation and to, you know, wanting to make space and find ways also where things don't, or to make space for the possibility that things don't have to be in English, or at least to recognize what it means to be in this room with all of these folks, with all of the languages that are spoken, and we speak mostly in English, and to at least denormalize that, because I think it can be very easy, just as we're going through the day, to be like, oh, yeah, of course, it's in English, because that's what most people can access, or that's the assumption. And just to kind of challenge that, that's more what I meant. And other things that I'm thinking about in terms of need are, I think, oftentimes, although not exclusively, like some notion of collective enterprise. I love this idea of movement. It feels new to me. But I think it's a really interesting frame. I think oftentimes we use the word community, and I agree. For me, this word can have power if we hold some specificity to it and recognize the ways in which we aren't or recognize what situations don't live up to that. Like, for example, the atre day isn't really a community, the Amsterdam Academy for theater and dance. And really, IPOP isn't really a community. That's maybe an aspiration of ours. But to think about, oh, are we engaged in a collective enterprise towards something? And I think one thing is sort of engaging in each other's art as LGBT queer people. And then one thing I'm thinking about, one thing we're exploring is this notion of mentorship. And I think that feeling, that kind of different relationship to relating to each other, and especially to relating across a difference of knowledge or a difference of experience or a difference of education. And for me, that word implies a kind of caring and a kind of temporal trajectory, like kind of a time that is more than sort of teacher. And so I think, especially coming from an educational institution, what does it mean to think more into this role of mentorship and to think that maybe my responsibility to the participants goes beyond that year and goes beyond this year and maybe their responsibility to each other? I don't know if responsibility is the word or the way that we relate. So, yeah, it's an interesting challenge, but I think that alternative ways of relating to each other, I think it's part of how I might answer that question or something I'm wondering about. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Yeah, no, also to remark on this notion of community and relating to each other. That's really a question I've been sitting with for a while right now. Also with the work we do with Fight club, for instance, or when we talk about queerness and community, it's such a complex notion. Like, what does it even entail? What are the parameters to define a community? Or when is it out of it? Or what is this in and out of it? So, yeah, a lot to unpack, for sure. How can queer practices be supported by and respond to educational institutions? [00:44:21] Speaker B: Yeah, for me, this is quite a central question for me with IPOP. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Wait, before we answer this, what do you actually mean with queer practices? [00:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. I guess what I mean with queer practices is, for me, queerness often has two meanings. So one meaning is a sort of holding, again, this sort of large collective or this large range of practices that come from queer histories, that come from queer experiences that were created or just used by queer people. And then I think there's a series of values which I don't desire to create a sort of a definition of queerness, but are what I think of. So things like anti normative practices, practices around kinship and care, practices around relating to systems of power and privilege and violence. And of course, I think a lot of these words could be used to describe and really come from other movements. I don't even want to say draw, because I think it implies a separation. But I think certainly a lot of black liberation and feminist studies and thinking is entangled with queerness and has built up, or sort of queerness, I think, has really grown in those political movements and those intellectual movements. So to recognize that and other ones, I'm sure I'm not even recognizing. Yeah, that's, I think, what I mean by queer practices. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Yes. And how can they respond to educational institutions? [00:46:10] Speaker B: So I think how educational institutions can support them is like, some of it's like money, for sure, space. And I think both like physical space. And then I was thinking about psychic space to allow space for queer folks to have these spaces where we're experimenting with our own worlds or our own ways of being, where it's okay to have a space where certain people aren't welcome, for example, or where certain questions won't be answered. And then I think the other one is to do the work of honestly engaging with systems and histories of violence and power and privilege and kind of these words that mean these very tangible and real realities. And I think how queer people can respond to them. I think one is, like, to demand the space for difference, both the difference of queer people from straight people or non. I mean, I'm not even sure I would say from straight people. I'd say maybe from people who are more invested in heteronormative cultures and ways of being. I'm really okay with the idea of straight queer people personally. Yeah, I know. I think another one is to push people to engage with their own questions around gender or race or violence. So a lot of the way that I think about the work that I do, especially when, because a lot of IPOP is this sort of interfacing with teachers or administrators or even students who don't have as much familiarity with queerness, they're sort of both working with the queer participants and then working with the folks who are not or not yet queer or don't understand queerness, and to kind of push them to be like, if I was going to do a workshop on genders, I'm not going to give you a kind of like, this is what transness means, and this is how you use pronouns much more. I'm interested in what is your gender? Why is it that way? Do you think that's a choice? Or what ways does that a choice, or how does that relate to power and violence? And similarly doing this work around? I think all of these kind of the ways in which we sort of are separated and violence and oppression and colonization happen and to try to bring in these histories. And then maybe the last one is to. I don't know if it's the last one, but what I'm thinking is to demand complexity and to understand the way in which institutions, I think by and large, if not always within this sort of capitalist, neoliberal system, complexity is really hard for institutions. I think. I think institutions have to work really hard to make any space for it. And so to kind of demand that, to say, like, no, you need to do this work in some way. And I think the strategies of that are varying and have varying degrees of success. But this is what I'm. [00:49:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm just curious to know how did ate they actually respond to IPOP? [00:49:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, materially quite supportive. So this is like the reality. We were funded quite well in both our first and second year. I think we were also quite ambitious. So I think we did quite a lot with the money. And then I think in terms of some of these other issues, I think there's a desire and a confusion. I think we definitely have these moments of this. Like, we want you to simplify. We want you to create this particular form that this is how you do queer feedback. You follow these four steps and then you're querying feedback. I think there's definitely a need to push back, and I think there's also a lot of folks who are interested but just don't have familiarity. So I think there's also this challenge of very much wanting us to be a sort of educational. What I mean by that, they want us to do the sort of anti oppression education. And so there's a kind of balancing act that I think we're doing of in some ways being willing to, and in some ways being qualified and in some ways not being qualified and in other ways being like, that's really not our main focus. And so, yeah, this is just a balancing act. [00:50:31] Speaker A: What can the unique histories of queer performance teach us about making art today? [00:50:40] Speaker B: Um, yeah, I was thinking about that. I think what comes to me is, like, to make it matter. It's funny, when we were talking yesterday, what I said was, I think it does matter. And I don't know that it always does, but I think that we need to make it matter. The world building, the fighting against sort of normativity and violence and oppression, colonization, like the reclaiming of history, the pushing the sort of heteronormative world to let go and to explore their own queerness, the ways in which normativity hurts them. These things really matter. And I don't know, I guess my desire and what it teaches me is to really keep working, that it does matter, that it's not just even if it's whatever, if it's working with abstraction, I think there's tons of awesome politics and extraction or whatever it is that it can actually be without matter or without mattering. And I think that we need to do that work. And I also think about who are you doing it for? And this recognizing the push that I think the art market and our institutions have of like, do it for the sort of mainstream, which tends to mean white, tends to mean cis, tends to mean heteronormative. And I think back on these moments and these movements, a lot of the ones that I really feel drawn to were really doing it for themselves, for queer community. I guess I also think about finding joy. Yeah, that feels really important. And then I guess the last thing, I don't know, it's the last thing. The thing that comes to me is I'm thinking about specifically stonewall, although I think sometimes that gets blown up. And I think there's other histories, I know us history much more, but I think about that that was started and really fought by femmes and trans folks and bold ikes. And so I'm thinking about how to let those folks come to the. That we're all better when we let those folks come to the forefront and also how to support. There's this thing of let people come to the forefront who. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how to think about that, but there's something around that for me. And maybe it is as simple as let marginalized voices come to the forefront and then have their back, I guess. [00:53:25] Speaker A: All right, thank you, Elioa. Moving towards wrapping up our conversation and acknowledging, actually, that we are, as well, the ancestors of the future. I'm curious to know what you hope to leave behind and how you want people to remember you. A quick round. Zorap, let's start with you. [00:53:45] Speaker D: Oh, my God. I feel a little bit. When you said that, I felt, like, a little bit emotional in the sense of, like, we all leave a print behind and it's choices that we make as human beings, how we leave the earth behind. Also, what I try to do is trying to build a community, but knowing that it's not there yet and building bridges, because we live on one planet and we have to live together whether we like it or not. So we have to find new ways. And I think it's so important to look at the narratives before colonization happened, how tribes in the past, in the global south, lived among each other, and how actually, community work was a mean of survival, also was used as survival, and that loneliness was like something that didn't come or depressions or things like that that we see in this society right now. So that's what I'm trying to do, is build bridges, changing narratives, and actually trying to hold on on our historical perspectives of living in communities before colonization. [00:55:06] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:55:09] Speaker C: Yeah. To answer the question, sounds probably cliche and famous people have probably said something similar like this, but basically being the best version of yourself every day, spread awareness, open people's minds, and reminding myself as well that I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect. So, yeah, that's what I would say. [00:55:37] Speaker B: I guess. I hope when people think of me in the future, that they think that I left more possibilities for survival than were there before me. Yeah. [00:55:55] Speaker A: Thank you. Wow. Your answers really hit me. [00:56:00] Speaker D: It's quite deep. [00:56:01] Speaker A: Swallow my tears yeah, I know. I'm all about death okay, final question. What's on the agenda for fight club, IPop and Ilya? Where can people find you? Or you want to disappear? Like, I don't know. [00:56:20] Speaker D: No. I think for Fight club we have queer city. People can find us on Instagram mostly and Facebook, but Instagram is more updated, to be honest. We have. [00:56:32] Speaker A: What's the Instagram name? [00:56:33] Speaker D: Fight club fite and then qlub 2021. Yeah, don't out me. [00:56:45] Speaker A: I'm making you visible. [00:56:52] Speaker D: We will have monthly queer cities in Pakha de Zweicher, and we will have workshops and play parties coming in October, November and December. [00:57:04] Speaker C: For Ilia we will have a new exposition. We recently had house of Hif that was spread out through the city, kind of, and now we only have three houses of HIV present at the Oba Osidoc until the 25 September. And after this we will have an exposition that's called with pride, basically young queer people who are given stage about the people that inspired them and they also took a look in the archives and used the material. So that's coming up soon. So yeah, you can just find on the website Ihlia Nlia and for the film festival, from the 13 October till the 16 October, we will have humans who film festival at Gator House. [00:57:57] Speaker B: For IPOP, we have a Zoom talk with Copano Moroga coming up on October 19, and then we're going to do a workshop on November 5 around querying feedback. And then we will starting in January, we'll be doing another version of our feedback sessions for folks, mostly for folks connected with the auto day. But if people are really interested, we try to open that stuff up and it'll be a seven week joint research project exploring queer feedback. [00:58:34] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you Zorap, Fergo and Elioa for the conversation today. I would like to conclude with a big thank you to our funders, the mondrian fund, the AFCA, and Amoto. Wait Yaya, Nene and Montimao for the wonderful technical support for the radio, Paola Montesinez for the intro and outro. And finally, thank you listeners here and remote for being with us today. [00:59:35] Speaker D: Fluid stream.