On 6-8 September, the Culture Centre in Lublin will become the venue of the 5th edition of Queerz Get Loud Festival. This event has been a origin of large excitement for respective years and has generated diverse opinions among the city's inhabitants. Organizers announce that this year's edition will be peculiarly rich in various forms of artistic expression, focusing on celebrating diversity and inspiration through art.
Festival Programme
The festival programme, announced on the Culture Centre website, includes a wide scope of events: workshops, meetings, discussions, movie screenings, theatre performances, concerts, and drag and burlesque shows. The organizers describe the festival as “a platform to experience each another together, inspiration and stimulation, and a multiplicity of various means of expression”. However, it is worth noting that the programme of the festival is controversial due to any of the proposed events.
One of them is the Bizzare Drag Show, which organizers describe as “a evening inspired by the colorful and courageous culture of Club Kid, in which the boundaries of imagination do not exist”. The festival besides planned a discussion panel entitled "Sexual Work as part of a queer heritage", which will address topics related to the past of LGBT rights struggle, in peculiar highlighting the function of trans-white people who engaged in sexual work. According to the organizers, queer aesthetics have always benefited from a culture of sexual work and sexuality.
Another event that attracted attention is simply a workshop dedicated to queer erotic pleasure. These workshops aim to research various aspects of physical pleasance in the context of queer sexual preferences, and will be led by Marta and Agata Lula – founder and co-owner of Lula Pink Sex Boutique & Blog, a store promoting feminist-queer values.
Free Events and No Age Restrictions
One of the elements that raised concern among any of the inhabitants is that admission to all festival events is free and there are no age limits. This raises questions about the availability of events with specified a circumstantial subject for the younger audience.
Funding the Festival
The question of backing Queerz Get Loud Festival is besides not meaningless. The organizers thanked the authorities of Lublin and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands for their financial support. As we read on the Culture Centre website, the festival was realised thanks to financial support from the City of Lublin, which besides sparked discussions on the usefulness of specified spending from public funds.
Summary
Queerz Get Loud Festival is an event that has been controversial for years, but at the same time attracts the attention of a wide audience, both supporters and opponents. The 5th edition, scheduled for September, will surely not stay unnoticed. The question remains how the festival will influence the further improvement of the debate on the borders of art, diversity and the function of public institutions in promoting events with specified a circumstantial theme.
Daniel Głogowski
Expert in his field – Publicist, author and social activist. The first articles were published in 1999 for global publishers. For more than 30 years, he has gained his experience through cooperation with the largest editorial offices. In his articles, he seeks to address controversial topics and present first viewpoints that allowed for a deeper knowing of the issues discussed.
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