www.queerfamilyalbum.com

The Queer Family Album is a performance series that uses an intersectional approach to queer storytelling to disrupt populist notions of queer family. We offer a unique approach to transdisciplinary performancemaking that highlights and centres the embodied experiences and histories of queer performers. Rather than one piece speaking for itself, each artist adds their unique perspective on the topic of queer family resulting in a series of performances that refer to each other. In doing so we create a live nuanced archive for the community and generate visibility beyond through unearthing queer stories of family and kinship that exist beyond the tropes of queer divergence and entertainment.

You are about to experience Volume One, with work from Yvonne Sembene and KAy Garnellen. For Volume Two Juliana Piquero, anonymous, Joy Mariama Smith and Dylan Spencer-Davidson will be presenting at Sophiensaele in 2025. All work for the Queer Family Album has been created through a mixture of collaborative residencies, individual practice and research. After the premieres of Volumes One and Two for the Queer Family Album, we are planning mul-tiple volumes to come in the future. Our live archive will grow and will hold as many people as feel called to be a part of it, all of which will be documented in the QFA corner of the internet!
The Queer Family Album was conceived to create a space for intersectional queer nuanced experiences, to break barriers and imagine utopias. In a time where there is a rise in the far right and so much killing and hate that is justified by the othering of people. Projects like the Queer Family Album become even more crucial as spaces that offer an alternative, where difference is honoured, respected and treasured and can be held next to each other for you to make the intersectional connections.

Queer Family Album: Volume 1
Humour voyages through queer journeys dialogue with each other. Featuring collaborating artists KAy Garnellen and Yvonne Sembene touching on topics like isolation within queer utopia and queer feminist responses to rigid societal demands and definitions.

Track One: »She Shanty«
A lonely princess sets out to sail the choppy waters of queer identity and the hidden divisions within the LGBT community in search of her ideal kingdom. The queer ocean is vast. Will she make it to land across these seas? Who might she encounter on the way? Inspired by seas shanties, sirens and the queer history of sailing, the work uses satire to poke fun at the traditional narratives and stereotypes associated with gender and sexuality and seeks to highlight the complexities and nuances of a world that often imposes rigid definitions on fluid realities.

Track Two: »Pass This On«
Sixteen years after his transition from a lesbian working in finance in capitalist banks or insurance companies to a trans/queer artist, sex worker and anti-capitalist coparent, KAy Garnellen took the opportunity of the queer family album project to reflect on this time frame, passing across different topics such as loneliness, invisible conditions and ageing. Using humour and different types of multimedia he’s gonna take you on a journey mixing his past life to the present one, addressing some of the dystopia he encountered on his way but also some hopes that are still remaining. Although mostly alone on stage, KAy is using the material randomly given by other queers he knows in real life or just online.

Get ready for this journey!

[Source: play bill]

TFB Nr. 1920