Bringing queer escapist theories in conversation with his filmmaking and ethnographic experiences in Indonesia, QAMERAD co-founder Rizky Rahad will organise three workshops with Otherness Archive exploring the liberatory potentials of various queer aesthetics of escape as an alternative strategy to representation. Through discussion, Rizky will also propose methodologies that critically re-stage violent systems of LGBTQ+ representation/archive into collective care practices.
These workshops will culminate in a final film programme at Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest featuring contemporary moving images from Indonesia of various genres that offer a new aesthetic of escape––folklore and mythology––as a strategy to speculate our collective (queer) future.
Workshop #1: The Queer Aesthetics of Escape / Sunday, Sept 8 / 19:00 - 21:00: Through discussion of various texts and films, we will delve into the liberatory potentials of opacity and excess—the queer aesthetics of escape—as a means to evade current regimes of control, from State violence to neoliberal co-optation, and cultivate alternative forms of living.
Workshop #2: Restaging Queer Archives as Collective Care / Tuesday, Sept 10 / 19:00 - 21:00: This workshop will break down alternative praxis and methodologies that materialise collective care by restaging violent systems of LGBTQ+ representation/archive and weaponizing the film projector. With a screening of Rizky’s film House of R3nc0ng and discussion of Bali-based film collective QAMERAD.
Workshop #3: Folklore as Speculative Queer Future(s) / Thursday, Sept 12 / 19:00 - 21:00: An exploration of folklore and mythology as aesthetics of escape that speculate on collective queer future(s). We will examine contemporary moving images from Indonesia that reject Western identity/visibility politics and reimagine queer liberation/care through turning back to pre-colonial narratives of gender nonconformity.