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Dancing On My Own
Disco Ball
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By Gwendolyn Arckermann, Emil Bodo, Elnaz Shafiezadeh, Lea Weise, Lía Duarte Rodríguez
Instagram: @dirtylaundryoutside
This project is a student initiative from the design studio Safer City? Safer Housing? organized by Habitat Unit at TU Berlin, led by Christian Haid and Anna Steigemann.
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gosha elaev
Instagram: @kindzhyk
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This is a short film is part of the project "Inqueeries of Space", where queering is investigated as a practice to create intersectionally inclusive spaces.
Leo L. Hosp
Instagram: @leo.l.hosp
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Noll Griffin
Instagram: @nollprints
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Trigger-Warnung: Der Film kann dich an bereits erlebte, verletzende und belastende Situationen erinnern.
Eine 798 Frames Produktion
Video: Silvan Hagenbrock Redaktion: Li Li, Roman Kierst, Silvan Hagenbrock Dank an: House of Blaenk, Liberty Lestrange, Miss Galaxia, Fräulein V und das Anno 1560 Tecklenburg Untertitelung: ProLinguo GmbH Übersetzung: Xu Yin Musik: Base Blueprint - Marten Moses und In Retrospect - Bill Ferngren © yì magazìn 2022
Silvan Hagenbrock
Website: www.goethe.de/yi
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I shot this footage in September 2019 with my phone in the toilet of a gay bar in Kreuzberg. It was one of those profound moments that you can only experience in the toilets of your safe spaces (that is, queer spaces); the kind you so eagerly want to capture and preserve for eternity, regardless how futile such an attempt really is.
Something broke down in that moment allowing time and space to be felt differently.
As the muffled sounds of bar patrons and the iconic 90’s Eurodance bop “What Is Love” by Haddaway mixed with the warmly pungent smell of urine, I found myself outside the normative, progressive order of time and space.
In fact, as I was looking at the chiselled bodies on display, covering all the walls around me, as I was looking in the eyes of these models and as they were fixating their gaze on me in return while I was emptying my bladder,
time and space have been stripped of their suffocating powers to police my body.
Time became flowy, just like my piss, and it was flowing backwards, it was flowing sideways, it was flowing down the very drain swallowing my urine. Space seemed to gain dimension as the walls made up of bodies of the past started to come alive. It was a liberating moment. A taste of absolute freedom. An inexplicable sense of belonging - not to the here and now, not to the past, to something that has been but is no more, not to some place only to be found in terrains of imagination, and not to something yet to come either: it was a sense of belonging that defeats those simple, violent notions of both time and space.
It was flowing through me and it was making waves.
As I am sitting in quarantine more than two years later, ill with Covid, completely isolated from the outside world, I suddenly think of this fragment saved on my phone’s memory card. While I gasp for air as another fit of coughs convulses my body, I frantically search for it in a seemingly endless sea of photographs, random memes and screenshots, failed selfies and other subtle mementos of everyday life.
I want to see it.
And there it is: wobbly, unfocused, and hectic in its form, but it works nevertheless.
For a moment I can relive the magic,
for a moment time and space do not confine me to the 30 square meters of this room I have been existing in for the past week.
For a moment I am not sick.
For a moment all the memoriesof all the toilets of safe (=queer) spaces,
of all the spectres encountered in those spaces,
of all the conversations and
of all the laughs and
of all the tears and
of all the cum and
of all the tender embracesare rushing back to me in a bittersweet flush.
For a moment I am free again.
Zsombor Bobák
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Vusala Hajiyeva
Twitter: @laninamistica
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Georgia is a homophobic country and one would never think that the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, shines queerness at night. Although not all common spaces are being queer or even queer-friendly, there are specific places that are “occupied" by queer people. One of them is Success Bar, the only official gay bar in Tbilisi.
Due to Coronavirus, a lot of queer individuals lost their safe space and a major source of income, as bars and clubs have been closed for months. Moreover, domestic violence is a huge problem in Georgia and it can be the case that LGBTQ+ people are locked in the same space with a potential abuser.
These photos were taken just before the second wave of the Covid pandemic. After being locked up for months, this was the time to be free. Thus, this photo project stands as a hope, that one day, we can be free again.
Tekla Tevdorashvili
Instagram: @tek.who
Facebook: facebook.com/tekla.tevdorashvili
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Tekla Tevdorashvili
Instagram: @tek.who
Facebook: facebook.com/tekla.tevdorashvili
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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We, queer people, have several places in Georgia where we feel safe, but often these places do not make us feel completely protected.
I don't want us to feel comfortable only in specific places. The safe space for me is the headphones and the music in them.
It is common that I have anxiety in the subway or in a crowded place and I use headphones as a shield to create a safe space for myself, a space where our freedom of expression is not violated.
We look and express ourselves the way we want.
Tamila
Instagram: @yo_la_tengo0
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Sanifarix
Instagram: @sanifarix
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Shelter
A tiny caterpillar lives inside a silky cocoon for so long. However, metamorphosis is inevitable. The day of a transformation and new journey has already come. Now it is time for breaking the cocoon and becoming a beautiful butterfly.
Natig Asgar
Instagram: @an_wallflower
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Captured
This video is a compilation of magnetic resonance tomography images of my head.
I had jaw pain.
I could not chew, talk or sleep normally.I had jaw pain, because I would squeeze my teeth every time I was scared, nervous or angry.
This is the MRT of my head.
A picture of my fears, anxiety and anger.Where I, myself search for the queer space.
A space for queer thoughts.
If there is such a space after all this 27 years of existence in this system.This is a captured image of all my attempts to liberate.
Mari
Instagram: @_____rubber_mari_____
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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As queer people, we have always had to fight for our places of safety. During the pandemic, even the few remaining safe spaces were lost, and we have had to devise new ones ourselves. For a lot of us, especially those stuck indoors with homophobic families, it’s proven virtually impossible. Some have retreated into private cocoons, sometimes in groups, but more often alone, loneliness burning more painfully than ever before. Many of us have started to question the very notions of safety, and if we’d ever felt safe at all, to begin with. And when it gets too painful you make it fun and you make fun of it.
K.O.I. x David Apakidze x God Era x Mari Mgebrishvili
Instagram:
@kerosene_on_ice
@apakidzedavid
@god__era
@_____rubber_mari_____
Music: Saint Giraffe – Boujee
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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There is a saying that the people you meet in your life never appear by chance. They have to have something to add to you.
My name is Giulgiun. In early March, I joined a new project, which made a great impression on me. There were people from very different nationalities, people with different clothes, people with different stories. This environment on the first day of the project scared me a little. They were colorful, carrying every color of the rainbow. I was a girl in a corner, ashamed to talk. I felt different and the feeling of being different always killed me. People always made me feel different, including my family, my classmates, my friends. That's why when I meet people, I keep quiet, regardless of myself. But in my heart I always wanted to laugh like that, to speak freely, to have fun. I experienced these feelings on the first day of the project. But after spending some time with the people involved in the project, everything changed. There were some interesting events that I did not expect. For example, when we get to know each other, we should choose a fruit that we like and explain why we chose it. At that time, I felt that my friend and I would have a different experience. For this moment I was already excited in my heart. Over time, things began to change
After spending a little more time with them, my heart was filled with colors. Although I did not show them my happiness, but I was happy in my heart. There were moments during these three days when we cried. I saw people's tears. Then people shared their stories, their life experiences, their dreams, their love ... It was great to be a part of it. Emotions played a role in these three days.
We had an interesting time during the project, but the most interesting part for me was the dance part. There was a beautiful girl named Nancy, and she led the dance. I could not dance because I was ashamed, because all this was a new for me. Despite all this, I really wanted to dance with them. But I didn't do it and decided to at least watch the dance .. The dance started .. I couldn't believe my eyes, it was as if time and space stood in front of my eyes. Music and dance took me out of this world. To a different world ... People who danced danced with all their nakedness. I saw love, I saw fear, I saw a sense of comfort. They are not a feeling, fear, love were in the human body. All this was magnificent ... after this dance, all the gaps in my heart disappeared, all the darkness became clear. I realized that I'm not different, I'm just like them. I saw their fears, their weaknesses, their love. People I've met before this project have only shown their strengths. This kept me away from people. But in this project, I felt that all people are the same and we can hold each other's hands and make the world a better place. In this video, I took a few moments from those projects, and I'm sure you will understand better what I said. Maybe I haven't seen those people again, but I have something to say to them: Thank you so much for sharing your love, your fears, your tears, your smile.
Giulgiun Mamedkhanova
facebook.com/gulgun.memmetxanova
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Courage To Be Queer
The poem in this video (written by me) tells the story of a queer person who does not yet know how to express their queerness and has not come out yet. The poem depicts the internal battle queer people go through in the process of accepting their identity. The painting is also created by me.
Ana Itonishvili
This project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Identity over time
LINK: aghababart.github.io/IdentityOverTime
This artwork is real time and each person can see a different movement on their devices.
The artwork illustrates human identity over time. The three lines represent times, and the colorful lines that move here as a present tense. If we look closely, we can see that other white line actions are not different. They are just the past and the future. As human beings, we make many of our decisions based on any value and make it the object of comparison. Sometimes we are making our present identity by comparing it with history and culture. Or hiding because we are afraid of losing something thinking about the future.
Sənət işi, zaman üzərindən insan kimliyini göstərir. Burada üç xəttlər zamanları təmsil edir və rəngli xətlər indiki zaman olaraq hərəkət edirlər. Diqqətlə baxsaq, digər ağ xəttlərin hərəkətlərinin fərqli olmadığını görə bilərik. Onlar sadəcə keçmiş və gələcəkdir. İnsanlar olaraq bir çox qərarımızı hər hansı bir dəyərə əsaslanaraq veririk və onu müqayisə obyektinə çeviririk. Bəzən indiki kimliyimizi tarix və mədəniyyətlə müqayisə edərək yaradırıq. Və ya gələcəyi düşünərək nəyisə itirməkdən qorxduğumuz üçün gizlənirik.
Aghababa Baghirov
www.aghababa.art
Instagram: @aghababartThis project was realized in the framework of the workshop “Queer Chronicles” by POLIGONAL in March 2021 in Tbilisi in cooperation with Untitled Gallery Tbilisi and Salaam Cinema supported by the Goethe Institut and the women’s initiatives support group (WISG).
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Spring
Weeds, plants that are spontaneously born at an undesired time and place, appear as language and material to address the experiences associated with homosexuality. As such, the feeling of denial, the discovery of self-love and the sharing of pleasure are associated with this project to emphasize the hidden desires and feelings endured by the participant. "Spring" narrates a short episode of the search for answers in a field (one full of weeds) that is familiar to the artist. He learns to walk through a flora that until then was downtrodden; he touches and is touched; he is taken by the hand. He effortlessly responds to the stimuli suggested by the landscape, and turns it into the support for his writing. Furthermore, he involves his past and present in homoerotic undertones, where the role of the male body becomes similar to that of a plant.
Álvaro Oliveira
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ჩვენ ვიბადებით განსხვავებულები და მერე, მთელი ცხოვრება ცდილობენ ჩვენს გაერთნაირებას.
ჩვენ ვიბადებით ფერადები და მერე, მთელი ცხოვრება ცდილობენ ჩვენს გაერთფერიანებას.
ჩვენ ვიბადებით თავისუფლები და მერე, მთელი ცხოვრება ცდილობენ ჩვენი ფრთების მოჭრას.
ჩვენ ვიბადებით პიროვნებები და მერე, მთელი ცხოვრება ცდილობენ ჩვენი ინდივიდუალობის წაშლასა და ჩვენს საყოველთაო გოგლიმოგლში აზელვას.
მთელი ცხოვრება გვესმის, თუ რა არის კარგი და რა - ცუდი, როგორ უნდა გვეცვას და როგორ - არა, როგორ უნდა ვისაუბროთ და როგორ - არა, როგორ უნდა ვიცხოვროთ და როგორ - არა.
ხმები, რომლებიც გარესამყაროდან მოდის, ყოველთვის ცდილობენ ჩვენს გამოფიტვას, ჩვენი განსხვავებულობისა და ჩვენი გამორჩეულობის წაშლასა და განადგურებას.
ხოლო ხმები, რომლებიც ჩვენი სულის სიღრმიდან გვესმის, არასდროს გვაძლევენ საკუთარ ოცნებებზე უარის თქმის უფლებას.
ვუსმინოთ ხმებს ჩვენს თავებში, რომლებიც ყოველთვის დაგვანახებენ, რომელია ჩვენი - ყველასაგან განსხვავებული და გამორჩეული გზა ცხოვრებაში.We are born different and then for a whole lifetime they try to make us similar.
We are born colorful and then for a whole lifetime they try to make us colorless.
We are born free and then for a whole lifetime they try to cut our wings.
We are born persons and then for a whole lifetime they try to erase our individuality and make us insignificant parts of the whole.
Our whole life, we hear what is good and what is bad, what to wear and what not to, how to talk and how not to, how to live our life and how not to.
Voices that we hear from the outside world always try to consume us, destroy us, and erase the fact that we are different and unique.
Though, the Voices that come from the depth of our souls never let us to give up on our dreams.
Follow the voices in your head. They will always show your way: unique and different.Dato Koridze
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ORO is a creature that was birthed through the merge of the bodies of Tzeshi Lei and Nancy Naser Al Deen. The two bodies came together by the touch of an intangible magic. Spontaneously and intuitively, ORO examines dimensions of the movement of alienated bodies in an urban space. ORO comes to validate bodies as ephemeral pieces of architecture; suggesting the reclamation of space and the shifting of power dynamics in the city. Every structure has a story; every story has a structure; Every Structure has a center; evey center has a structure. Blurring the lines of power between spectators and performers, this experiment is a part of a series of urban interventions where ORO spontaneously finds itself claiming a given piece of physical space in the city and subjecting the passersby to question the presence of these bodies, their relation to one another, their “awkward” and sometimes “uncomfortable” movements, their relation to space, and to the spectators thereof.
Tzeshi Lei
Nancy Naser al DeenInstagram
@nancy.naseraldeen
@subbody -
School of Architecture, Princeton University, 1999
Studio Prof. Nasrine Seraji
The Hissing of Summer Lawn: House for a Bachelor who Pretends to be Married
Suburban Study No. 2In the suburbs, no one builds a house for themselves. The autonomy of the owner is always in negotiation with the expectation of neighbours and guests inscribed in a set of codes and conventions. The House for a Bachelor who Pretends to be Married is a grotesque for living. It is constructed from three points of view: the neighbourhood, the guests/lovers and the owner himself.
A tilting front defines the layout of the house. It privatizes the property, visually emphasizes the second floor and conceals the backyard taking over the plot.
The second floor is the house for the neighbourhood. Large screen windows expose decent domestic scenes to the passing-by neighbours. It is a degenerate ideal, possibly the only ideal to inhabit.
The first floor is the house of the bachelor, a playroom that extends into the backyard, a make-do space for improvisation.
When I was Nasrine’s student, we were arguing and fighting in each and every class, yet always had great discussions when we met outside and smoked. I stopped working on the design task and only came up with this project two weeks before the final. I remember it a very funny final presentation.
Jörg Stollmann
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It is a Monday and we are at the top of the TV tower.
I point at the German History Museum and our eyes meet at the dome of the cathedral.
Just across its ghostly appearance, there is a flat parcel. No more debris left in sight, so
the demolition of the "once" Palast der Republik must have been completed.
It is not as rainy as yesterday. But we are hungover,
as it was your birthday and we also wanted to toast on your arrival in Berlin to pay me a visit.
There, in between glasses of wine, we decided to take the bus "100" the next day
for a spectacular ride, or a cheap sightseeing.
It is your first time in Berlin!
How happy we were to get the front seats on the deck, enjoying the view, as the double decker drove us to the TV tower.
Yet its wipers are to blame for reminding me of how angry I was at you,
for you having cried the whole night - previously in autumn - on my final day in Istanbul.
"Why did you cry?" I confronted you, only to hear you blatantly say that you were sad that I would embark on a journey, leaving everyone behind.
"Mama", I responded, "Little that I knew, I was excited for one thing that it would finally usher me into my queer adult life."
ALL in CAPS, we yelled at each other...
Thankfully a naked twig of a linden tree has hit the windshield like a sad final applause,
so the curtain could fall on our little drama.
And here we are reunited in Berlin almost 7 months after we parted ways, watching Berlin.
I mumble to myself:
"Ground Control to Major Mom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Mom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (two, one, liftoff)"
My fingers follow the rain stains on the window, as the West unfolds itself endlessly over the horizon.
Just before the sun sets, my camera captures the reflection of your beautiful red nailpolish.
The display of the camera shows "March 9, 2009".
"Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing we can do"Aykan Safoğlu
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Juliana Huxtable & Abyss X
Instagram:
@julianahuxtable
@abysssxx -
I love you so much
The project follows randomly chosen people from the street and tries to research the phenomenon of falling in love. Is it really a godlike spirit that comes to us and makes all divine or is it a very complicated structure created by humanity? How does the understanding of love change through the centuries? “Yes, you’ll be in my heart. From this day on, now and forevermore.” by Tarzan saying it to Jane, Disney suggests that love has nothing to do with the society constructed mind but it is as natural as magic. And of course, in the end, we all live happily ever after!Giorgi Rodionov
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Thank You
It’s been almost two years, so i wrote this one for you
Joyful, sentimental, in nostalgia
The adventures we’ve been through, felt like a rollercoaster
Your realness meant so much and deserves every letter
You have seen me, fell in love with you right away
Thought i wanna stay with you forever, never thought i might've to leave
Yeah, silly me...
Big and beautiful, i could fit in all of mine
Hesitated to fully trust, till i came out of the shell
Till i let myself fall and gave my life to you
You waited patiently
We’ve grown not apart but together. Not physically but on so many higher levels
Now we need to say goodbye, won’t meet again in this lifetime
Both sad but we’ll be ok because nothing is forever
Need to move on, keep on living, cherishing, believing it is for the better
Thank you
Introduced you to my friends, remember how happy their faces were
Told them i was with you in the moments of anger and sadness
Told them i was with you when my life was shattered in pieces
When i didn’t understand life’s not a competition but opportunities
You were there all along, calming and peaceful, never judging
You were there all along never demanding, only accepting
We’ve grown not apart but together. Not physically but on so many higher levels
Now we need to say goodbye, won’t meet again in this lifetime
Both sad but we’ll be ok, because nothing is forever
Need to move on, keep on living, cherishing, believing it is for the better
Thank you
You blessed me and so did i. My tears carry joy, since i dive deep
Nothing is for granted just time, space and what we make out of it
May the next one you be with appreciate what you have to give.
Make their soul visible, make them face, deal and embrace the dark
Make their heart soft, make them face, deal and embrace everything they also are
Make them inhale and exhale in peace, sensitive towards taking care of their needs
Thank you“Thank you” is a song written in January 2019 after I’ve been kicked out from my previous room. Without the time there, I wouldn’t be taking pride in who I am today – a black non-binary transperson who wants to grow more in love with life. This room was the beginning of an ongoing transformation that started with allowing love into my life by starting a relationship with my political self. This political self is the intertwinement of all who I am, a mirror of all who we are. This room was the first place I consciously called home. With this piece I’d like to shed a light on the importance of claiming the need of security, politically, on a societal and on a personal sphere. Security is dynamic, in constant change, it takes on different forms but is rooted in universal values asking us to create places in this earthly realm where we can not only exist but live. Our personal spaces are the common spaces where we meet in reflection to empower ourselves, in order to go out, share and further encounter each other with an everlasting evolving sense of self. To this room I brought back all the laughter, talks and painful moments. All the people, all the love, all the tears from outside to unfold and explore. The place I died and found new life again. I felt homesick my whole life but I didn't know where that home was. Not much was stable in my world, and my heart was aching for security. it could have been anywhere but my life has led me to experience a very intimate and personal understanding of safety in Berlin-Neukölln.
Aïcha aux glaïeuls - HerrEktor
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Hang in there! - Cruising for sex, or cruising is walking or driving about a locality, called a cruising ground, in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety. As a cruiser, I imagine cruising areas as architectural spaces where the public meets the counter-public in a biopolitical setting. Cruising areas are cross-segmented structures where economic and social classes are overlapped and/or ignored temporarily for sexual pleasure. The diary I narrated with polaroid films invites the audience to imagine/re-imagine the cruising area of Berlin. Both as a liberated nature for homosocial bodies and the sanctified heteronormative physical habitat.
Emre Busse
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"There are so many places I enjoy being in Berlin. Being a queer person, I was a minority in my country. When I moved to Berlin, I am also a minority because of my racial background. I feel that I moved from being an invisible minority to a visible minority. I don't always feel comfortable being a visible minority. I like to be in a shisha cafe in Neukolln, where most of the people around me look like me because it gives me the opportunity to be invisible again, where my identity and the way I look is not so much of a big deal. Not so much of a problem
Ahmed Awadalla
psychosocial worker, writer, activist
Blog -
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Queerness has always been a part of our reality, old and new world. But it was never fully understood, that's why the battle between tradition and my inner world has been emotionally and physically draining. Dancing is my way of coping with all this madness, to express what society tries to take away from me – imagining new realities and deconstructing current ones. Here I dance at Club Khidi under Vakhushtis Bridge to some traditional Georgian dance beats mixed together by Saphileaum.
Luca Bitchikashvili
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My Name is Nia Gvatua (30). I am a photographer and the founder of Success Bar, the only queer bar in Georgia. I also work at Bassiani as an interior designer and I direct drag performances at Horoom Nights – a monthly queer event at the Bassiani. Furthermore I host a show called Love Is In The Air at Mutant Radio.
I opened Success Bar on March 31st, 2017 … actually the bar existed before … officially it was founded in 2001, but in 2016 when I went there the bar was at the verge of being closed down … it was a very dark and strange place … I got obsessed with the idea to reopen it and make it brighter and more alive – and fate had a plan for me …I kept the name to keep the history but I changed everything else.
The opening was quite successful but after a while the real problems started to show …
Georgia is a very conservative and religious country … even today tradition has an enormous value here … of course there are progressive communities but the majority of people still remain in medieval thinking.On 17th of May 2013, the first LGBTQ demonstration was held. Very few people went out to defend their rights. Unfortunately our church’s and political party’s reaction was the most painful thing I have ever seen in my life …
20.000 people came out in street to attack some innocent people …it was a scary and unpleasant thing to see …that day has changed something in me …
I felt that the response of this day was going to erupt one day and that day has come:
After opening the bar I got robbed, attacked with homophobic threats etc.
But what’s most important is that even now I am still fighting to keep this place because it has become a very important place for everyone.
Success is not just a bar. Success is a statement against the whole system …
It is an example that despite our differences it is possible to be in touch with each other, to have a conversation and to show respect towards each other – no matter what.
A lot of times I have heard from people that when you enter the bar you leave your mask outside and you can be who you truly are.
My mom died when I was 5 …she was a very cool girl – she was a painter …. after her death I got patronaged by my grandparents …. they have never understood why I decided to open a gay bar … but I can proudly say that it sparked a revolution in me … and not only me.
What I have experienced after entering in the painful, but magical queer world is unexplainable.
These pictures are from United Queer Stream – made by me, as a response to COVID-19. Horoom Nights, Success Bar, Kiki Nights, and Ballroom Drag Race have reunited to receive donations …
I represented Success Bar, Horoom Nights, Ballroom Drag Race;
Other participants were: Hitori (Horoom Nights) and Lashao Gabunia (Kiki Nights), the founders of United We Stream Tbilisi Naja Orashvili (co-founder of Bassiani) and David Lezhava.
Director of the video crew: Vinda Folio
Camera operator Tato Kotetishvili
Drag make-up: Ketevan Chantadze
Drag Queens: Queen Yulia, Lucrezia, Lady D, Bitch Tamila, Gerilyn, Sofio Mqueen, Anchith, Black Peper, Hitory ni, Matt Shally
Dancers: Xoselta ,Natia Chikvaidze
Performers: Lashao Gabunia, Batel Baazov, Ana Gorelishvili, Manana
Nia Gvatua
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In Georgia, there are not so many safe spaces for queer people, but there are lots associated with queers. These places are filled with queer stories, happy moments but also dramas. The story of the queer person that we tell in this work is kept by the city hall building. A little while ago, during the corona pandemic, a transgender woman tried to burn herself in front of the city hall building. Her actions were determined by the economical crisis and the crisis through the pandemic, both brought much harm to the whole society – especially to the transgender women who were not able to go out anymore and work as a sex workers. In Georgia, there are no chances to find a decent job, and loosing their work turned out to be a real tragedy for them.
In our work Madonna is shown as the symbol for all the queer people who fight for their lives. She's in the process of transformation and mutation which is caused by the society they are embedded in. The cyborg Madonna is a symbol of power that the queer community has. She's powerful and tragic at the same time
Nini Goderidze in collaboration 3D-artist Rona Peshekhonova
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This 3-minute video, shot on an iPhone, documents my visit to the cruising forest of Hasenheide Park on a day in September 2020. The area is a well-known place for men who are attracted to men to meet each other. I used to visit it from time to time, and had some interesting, often inspiring, encounters. On this particular day I saw quite a few people there, but they were much more discreet than on the previous days I had visited. Was it because of the pandemic? Or perhaps the weather? I don’t know.
The song I sang in the video is a piece from the traditional Chinese opera “Peony Pavilion”(《牡丹亭》) written by Tang Xianzu (1550-1616). It describes Miss Du Liniang’s first stroll in the garden on a spring day: she is impressed by nature in full bloom, and sighs about being locked indoors to study. This visit also inspires her own desires; later in the opera, she dies from missing a man she met in the garden and becomes a ghost.
Hasenheide is my Peony Pavilion; therefore, I call it “Hasen Pavilion”.
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This is what it often looks like for many queer people to take a walk around the neighbourhood
Walking on the streets, taking the bus or holding hands is something that most people do regularly, seeing it as normal and taking it for granted. This is not the reality of many queer people, who have to endure violence, including sexual violence and harassment, as an everyday phenomenon in public spaces such as streets and parks.
In this short clip you see such a scene live – it was caught in film during the shooting for the Thomas Ladenburgers documentary film “I am Anastasia”, about Anastasia Biefang, the first transgender commander of the German Army
Anastasia Biefang
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The movement research group Bardo takes the public space as a sphere of exploration. In the imminent absence of studios, the streets become a wide playground to actually deepen our scenic skills, bringing what we used to do privately, into the public sphere. Shifting the lines of what is or isn't allowed, and as such claiming our right to the city.
- @elicaporalini
- @mar___________ia
- @gegenwaertigezukunft
- @lucyentexturas
- @laurenjaynepringle
- @salvosoff
- @josephinegdb
- @lua.gamia
- @__anitya_
- @roc_lilith
- @jesugor
- @kailiname
- @wewentxu.eli
- @sofi.seta
- @kiki.kikss
- @nancy.naseraldeen
Camera:
Lukas Ishar
Maria Rinaldi
@caosdemar.ph -
Other Destinations
In Görlitzer Park where the East used to be
November holds bright yellow leaves
Eggs filled with paint
splatter clean walls
I write postcards
with red ink
I’m in love in Berlin
breaking up in Montreal
I walk crunching coloured bits
of wall underfoot
Climb a watchtower
listen to Tracy Chapman in a Kreuzberg café
In the Turkish bath we
oil, massage, brush, soap and cream
each others bodies
Telephone turns to ice on my ear
I don’t want to be your lover anymore
I’m moving out
Egg breaks
red paint splats and drips
I put stamps on cards
mail to “Other Destinations”
In her apartment
coal carried five floors
slowly warms the kitchen
Carolyn Gammon, November 1991Katharina Oguntoye and Carolyn Gammon met at the Feminist Book Fair in Montreal in 1988 and got together at the Berlin Lesbian Week, October 1991. They live in Kreuzberg, Berlin together with their 21 year-old son.
Katharina Oguntoye is a historian of Afro-German history and founder of the intercultural association Joliba e.V. which she has directed since 1998. She is the author of Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out (Farbe bekennen, Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren Ihrer Geschichte).
Carolyn Gammon is the author of Lesbians Ignited, a book of poetry. She is a guide for Jewish Berlin and has written two books with Holocaust survivors.
Both Katharina and Carolyn are activists since the early 1980s. Carolyn organized Lesbian Studies at Concorida University in Montreal and with Katharina the Berlin Lesbian Weeks in the early 90s. They have lead anti-racism workshops for the last two decades and see inter-sectionality as essential to any political work.
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Flutter. Shutter. Quiver. Throb. Vibrations oscillate between all the holes and all the folds. Exposed under full house lights, a lone body trembles with the architecture of an empty darkroom. Closed for 6- months due to social distancing laws, in a cruising space for cis- male public sex, through tableaus of nuanced movement, the artist's body proposes an ambigous future towards abundance and desire. Skin and flesh palpitate with unkown anticipation against porous materials soaked with stale fluids, ghostly uterreances, and queer potentials. This is not a memorial to what was once possible, but rather, a proposal to what this space can still become. Always an infinite hole. Always a threshold. The vibrant material of fat and flesh rock in service to ecologies and bodies not yet known.
Liz Rosenfeld
Tremble (2020)
Sound Design: Neda Sanai
Cinematography: Imogen Heath
Still Photography: Christa Holks
Production Assistant: Kiki MagerTremble is the first work in a trilogy about the action and experience of trembling. Tremble is also available as an immersive video installation, with surround sound.
Liz Rosenfeld (b.1979, USA/DE) is a Berlin based artist who works in film/video, performance, and personal discursive writing practice. Liz explores the sustainability of emotional and political ecologies, cruising methodologies, and both past and future histories related to the ways in which memory is queered. Liz's work approaches flesh as a non-binary collaborative material, specifically focusing on the potentiality of physical abundance and excess, approaching questions regarding the responsibility and privilege of taking up space. Departing from the personal, Liz's writing is rooted in questions that contend with how queer ontologies are rooted in both political and personal variant hypocritical desire(s). Over the past six months, Liz is currently making an experimental feature film in collaboration with Colombian artist Nadia Granados, and USA filmmaker Amber Bemak, through a series of online residencies, in lieu of their Bogotá based artist residency which was supposed to host the artists in early 2020 and was canceled due to COVID-19. Liz has also gained support, in the form of the Experimentalfilmförderung from the Medianboard, for her upcoming experimental 360* cinema work, White Sands Crystal Foxes, which is currently in the post-production phase. Liz will also premiere the first video in a new ongoing series called Tremble, as part of the FCNN artist collective's online platform for the 2020 Berlin Biennale. Liz is one of the members of Berlin based film collective nowMomentnow. Her films are represented by Video Data Bank and LUX Moving Image.I will send the high res- version and I will also send over a short text to accompany it that explains what the project is. It is also important to include that the still is taken by photographer Christa Holka, who was shooting stills of the film shoot.
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My work is an interpretation of John Lennon's and Yoko Ono’s campaign poster “War is over! If you want it”. The poster encouraged people to protest and end the war.
Since the extremely homophobic environment in Georgia, gay men are often forced to marry and have heteronormative families and mask their identities with homophobia.
With this poster, I tell them to end the lie while standing naked on the cruising area* that exists in Tbilisi since the 90s and is a place, where gay men secretly meet. Today I encourage those who are hiding and lying to come out of the woods and darkness and fight in the daylight.
Though it raises the question, how can one ask people to fight when there is no social readiness and political will. Do I even have the right to urge them to be brave when I, myself even though I’m out still can’t dare to pose in this location, and therefore I photoshop myself in?
*Плешка (Pleshka) - A place for communication, meetings and search for sexual partners (including for a fee) of homosexuals and persons who practice same-sex sex, located, as a rule, in cities in squares, in parks and squares, near monuments and fountains.
David Apakidze
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Preparing for the performance at "Horoom Nights”, a monthly queer party series at Tbilisi’s Bassiani club. “Horoom Nights” helped me to grow as a performance artist and helped me to find a lot of new friends and also some pieces of myself - so I will always be grateful for this
HiTori
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I had been warned. But it is as with any warning- you choose to ignore it, because of course you can take it. Well, I did, at least I thought I did. At least it turned out to be a very fun evening. The following morning, not so much.
The devil I had been warned about was Chacha. Oh, sweet Chacha… the Georgian Grappa…the worst kind, the one you just do not see coming while you are seated, is the beautifully brown colored one. It makes you think of honey and coffee and chocolate cream and all things warm and fuzzy and velvety on your skin. The moment you stand up- you feel it in your shins. But I sat, so all was good.
The bar was full. We were seated on the second floor, in this corner, where everyone who was coming up the stairs had to basically brush past us. At first it was strange, but then suddenly I turned around and this gorgeous Georgian Demi god passed really close to me, slightly brushing me- just enough for me to feel his very trained and hard body. Chacha, the devil, spoke through me and I just looked up at him and asked “may I touch your incredible body?”, because of course, consent is the most important thing – this, Chacha knew.
The Demi god gave me his Georgian smile and just said “If you want to, of course!”. Chacha, the seductress, just possessed my fingertips, which just slid under the Demi god‘s T-Shirt. And they slid so well… at some point the Demi god was called by his stupid friends and just had to leave me. My frustration was big, this frustration had to be stilled somehow… suddenly, another Demi god came up the stairs, so Chacha just asked again- (because CONSENT is the key)- “may I touch your incredible body?”… a puzzled look, a stroked ego, a big smile: “of course!”. The image repeated itself Demi God after Demi God… I started to get curious- how come they are so willing? how come there is no puzzled look anymore? I turned my head towards the stairs and I saw the most incredible thing… A LINE HAD FORMED!!! A line of Georgian Demi gods wanted to be touched by these Chacha infused hands… the line was advancing- to my joy and to the joy of my friends next to me. Me: digging my fingers in the new chest, they- cheering on the current Demi god. Und then…suddenly- a Demi goddess before me!!! Maybe the whole cheering brought her on, may be her just being curious, maybe she thought she could shock me (or her male Demi God friends). After my obligatory question and her wanting me to do it, I just slid my hands under her bra, which she hadn’t even opened for me. Her look of surprise and delight!!!
Chacha was still being poured into my veins, accelerating the joy and the laughter… my surprise at the line being formed behind my Demi goddess was endless!! It was a queer body positive mix of humans wanting to feel desired by a total stranger…and of course, we -Chacha and I- delivered.
Samanta Sokolowski