Queer Utopias, Saturday 18 May
Wysing Arts Centre, 2.00-10.00pm
In-person
Click here to book your ticket.

Join us for Queer Utopias, a festival of queer culture for the LGBTQ+ community and their friends.  

Expect relaxed workshops, stimulating conversations, electrifying performances, a zine fair – and a football match! You’ll be accompanied by some of the most exciting artists, writers and performers around.  

The event unfolds across our site, with more than one activity happening at one time. Sign-up sheets will be available on the day in reception.  

Tickets are available here.

2.30pm | Amphis 
Opening Ceremony from bones tan jones (they/them) 

tan jones’ soundscapes intuitively emerge from roots in the earth and in their lungs, looping and soaring into psalms and mantras. Let them guide you into the day with a warm and welcoming ceremony. Expect meditation, music, and movement.

2.50pm | Gallery 
Welcome from Rosie Cooper (she/her), Wysing Arts Centre Director 

3pm to 4pm | Gallery 
Diarmuid Hester (he/him) and Noreen Masud (she/her) in Conversation 

Dive into a world of queer love, lives, and landscape with Diarmuid Hester author of Nothing Ever Just Disappears, and Noreen Masud whose book A Flat Place has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2024.  This informal conversation will touch upon the history of queer places, and the role of ‘utopia’ in the queer cultural imagination.  

OR 

3pm to 5pm | Open Studio 
Crafting Queer Dreamcatchers with Zaki Musa (he/they) 

Drop in any time to create symbolic artefacts that encapsulate your aspirations for what a queer utopia could feel like for you.  

4pm to 5.30pm | Amphis / Grounds near Amphis (weather dependent) 
Workshop with Ama Josephine Budge (she/her) 

Join Pleasure Activist Ama Josephine Budge for a breathing and writing workshop. Come prepared to drift off into your own queer imaginings… 

OR 

4pm to 6pm | Top Field 
Kickabout and football match with Babeworld (she/her) 

Prepare yourself to take part in the most low-key football match of all time—brought to you by the most passive football fans ever. Spectator, player or hater, we’ve got space for you. 

Drop ins available on the day. 

7pm | Gallery 
Open Mic Performances  

The night will close Club Urania style, with Open Mic performances from performers and DJs from Cambridge and further afield! 

9pm | Gallery 
Closing Ceremony from bones tan jones 

As the night winds down, brace yourself for fire and a mesmerising closing ceremony by bones tan jones. 

10pm | Reception 
Pre-booked taxis depart 

Throughout the Day 

2 to 6pm | Gallery 
Diana Puntar

Residency artist Diana Puntar is creating our very own Queer Utopias dance floor! Think lights, disco balls and mushrooms. 

2 to 6pm | Window Room 
Zine Fair 

Explore some of the finest queer publications around. 

2 to 6.30pm | Reception 
Swamp Fairy Nails (they/them) 

Sign up for appointments for Swamp Fairy’s pop-up nail bar. Inspirations for their creations range from aliens to algae bubble baths!  

2.40pm to 7pm | The Shack 
Tarot Readings with Mister Lucian (it/he) 

Have your future unveiled by the incredible Mister Lucian from 2:30-7 PM. Discover what lies ahead. Sign up at the Shack for a 15-minute reading.

2pm to 10pm 

A selection of food trucks will be serving vegan bites, drinks and coffee in the courtyard. 

ACCESS:  

Accessible parking and accessible toilets are available.   

A decompression space is available onsite.  

The outdoor grounds at Wysing are uneven and have varying surface textures, which may cause some difficulty for unaccompanied wheelchair users. 

BIOGRAPHIES: 

Babeworld seeks to create a more representative art world through art, grants, and events for those who are marginalised in the arts. With an emphasis on collaboration and co-creation, Babeworld focuses on political and societal identity, specifically disability/access, neurodivergence, sex work and race. Babeworld is Ash Williams (she/her), Ingrid Banerjee Marvin (she/her), Gabriella Davies (she/her) and Caitlin Chase (she/her). 

Ama Josephine Budge (she/her) is a British-Ghanaian speculative and art writer, artist, curator and pleasure activist whose praxis navigates intimate explorations of race, art, ecology and feminism. Ama is the recipient of the 2020 Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism and the 20-22 Local, International and Planetary Fictions Fellowship with Frame Contemporary Art Finland and EVA International.  

Diarmuid Hester (he/him) is a radical cultural historian, writer and performer based in Cambridge, England. His second book, Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories, follows seven queer artists and writers whose lives and work are inextricable from a sense of place.  

bones tan jones (they/them) is a London-based artist and performer whose spiritual practice presents an alternative, queer, ‘optimistic dystopia’. Through pop music, ritual, craft, sculpture, alter-egos, and moving image, tan jones weaves a mycelial web of diverse, eco-conscious narratives that induce audiences to think more sustainably and ethically.  

Noreen Masud (she/her) is a writer whose research covers flatness, spivs, puppets, leftovers, earworms, footnotes, rhymes, hymns, surprises, folk songs, colours, superstitions, and more. Part-travelogue through Britain’s flat landscapes, part-memoir, her 2023 book A Flat Place investigates how flat spaces might give shape and succour to complex trauma. A Flat Place has been shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2024. 

Diana Puntar (she/her)is a London based artist and educator originally from New York City. Her practice includes sculpture, installation, drawing, and printmaking. Puntar's ongoing project 'The Milky Way' combines various utopian inventions and contemporary cultural explorations that seek to relieve humanity of suffering - most notably an Orgone Accumulator that combines a disco floor and a mushroom garden into a single installation. 

Keep a close eye out on our social media for more programme announcements in the coming weeks! 

Queer Utopias is an offshoot of Club Urania, Cambridge’s premiere queer performance and music night. Club Urania is a collaboration between Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge Junction and Diarmuid Hester, Celia Willoughby and Roeland Van Der Heiden. 

Open Call for Queer Utopias Zine Fair! 

Would you like to be involved in the Queer Utopias Zine Fair?

Applications are open to LGBTQIA+ artists, writers, zinesters, publishers and organisations! 

The event will take place on Sat 18th May, with stalls open from 2.00-6.00pm. 

Please email Ruth on ruth.dorber@wysingartscentre.org with the following: 

- A short bio (100 words max)
- 2 or 3 images OR a link to your website/social media where we can view your work. 

DEADLINE: Monday 29th April, 5:00pm. 

Wysing is 10 miles from central Cambridge, and there is parking on-site if you are planning to drive. Wysing is wheelchair accessible. 

A calm decompression space is available onsite.

Accessible parking and toilets are available.

Free Companion Tickets are available for anyone who needs them.

If you have access requirements that you would like to check with us before applying, please get in touch with Ruth Dorber, Wysing’s Assistant Curator, at ruth.dorber@wysingartscentre.org and we will be happy to help.