“Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival (TQAF) is a grassroots initiative that sets out to alter deeply entrenched misconceptions and prejudices toward the queer and LGBTQIA community through artistic and cultural practices.”
TQAF 2019 | Image courtesy: Sophia Spyrou, MOMus – Experimental Center for the Arts
“The festival was founded in 2018 and is led by a dedicated team of volunteers, including Tomas Diafas, Dominic Sylvia Lauren, Vassia Magoula, Evi Minou, Aristea Rellou, Annie Tsevdomaria, and Magda Vaz, who endeavor to provide queer artists with a platform to investigate sociocultural phenomena relating to queer identities and experiences. TQAF has been formed through collaborations in which our team has collectively curated the festival program.”
TQAF 2019 | Image courtesy: Sophia Spyrou, MOMus – Experimental Center for the Arts
“The festival is driven by the belief that art has the power to open new avenues of communication as well as serve as a bridge between a diverse array of individuals and social groups. TQAF aims to foster dialogues and develop alternative methods for addressing social discrimination.”
“The Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival has welcomed proposals from across disciplines, including but not limited to visual artworks, poetry and writing, workshops, performances, video and film, community interventions, and talks or lectures that investigated the question: What is Identity?
Through a program of physical and online interventions, TQAF 2021 aims to offer a platform for underrepresented LGBTQIA+ artists, cultural practitioners, writers, and activists from across the world to share their practice and connect with peers in the months of May, June, and July in 2021.
The festival will explore themes of performed identity, colonialism, lived histories, trans experience, and the ever-changing and dynamic construction of the self.”
WEBSITE LINK
*text from the festival website
