Recoding Utopias: The Importance of Queer spaces | Feminist Internet

The importance of Queer spaces

Since 2006 London alone has lost more than half of its LGBTQIA+ spaces. In this episode we explore what it means to be queer and the act of queering itself. Speaking to creatives and activists who are finding new ways of transforming and performing in Queer spaces, and why these spaces are so vital to the city and its future. 

Contributors

Amy Lamé 

Amy Lamé is the night Czar of London, appointed in 2016 by Sadiq Khan. She is co-founder of the Olivier Award-winning arts company and club night Duckie, and co-founded RVT Future, a voluntary LGBT+ community group campaigning to preserve the iconic Royal Vauxhall Tavern. She broadcasted for a decade on BBC Radio London, and now hosts Sunday afternoons on BBC6 Music. 

Lucas LaRochelle is a multidisciplinary designer and researcher examining queerness, technology, and architecture. They are the founder of Queering The Map, a community generated counter-mapping project that archives queer moments, memories, and histories in relation to physical space. Queering The Map received an Honorary Mention for the 2018 Prix Ars Electronica, was longlisted for the Lumen Prize for Digital Art and the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards, and is included in the Library of Congress LGBTQ+ Studies Web Archive.

Nadine Artois is a queer, femme, Desi DJ, community leader and cultural consultant based in London who has been working at the intersection of nightlife and activism since 2015. They co-founded Pxssy Palace, a collective that creates spaces which prioritise QTIPOC as well as educating wider audiences so that queer, trans & intersex people of colour can live their lives with more authenticity and acceptance .

Jim MacSweeney 

Jim MacSweeney is the manager of London’s only LGBTQ+ bookshop, Gays the Word and has been for nearly 30 years. Located in Bloomsbury and founded in 1979, Gays the Word has been an iconic venue selling a wide range of books and serving as a meeting point for communities and organisations - including Lesbians and Gays Support the miners in the early 80s, and most recently TransLondon. 

Ingo Cando 

Ingo Cando is the founder & creator of Wotever World, which includes Bar Wotever a Queer cabaret hosted every Tuesday by the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, the Queer Fayre, FMAS, Non Binary Cabaret and much more. Ingo is also a LGBTQIA+ Social Consult for venues and organisations.

Hosts
Clara Finnigan & Conor Rigby
 

Feminist Internet is a group of artists and designers working to advance internet equalities for women and other marginalised groups through critical practice. In this podcast series, the group will explore the theme of Recoding Spaces, both online and offline, with the aim of diversifying internet spaces metaphorically, physically and digitally, intercepting homogenous zones and breaking the filter bubble. The podcast aims to not only expose these spaces, but to regenerate them in new and inclusive ways. 

The Feminist Internet Podcast, commissioned and produced by Somerset House Studios with the support of the UAL Creative Computing Institute.

Producer: Eleanor Scott
Sound Design: Harry Murdoch