Our upcoming workshop Queer Maze invites you to reflect on queer (in the broadest sense of the word) experiences of London and locate personal memories, stories, feelings and itineraries on the  map of the city. 

The workshop will start by introducing a mapping approach to explore mundane and everyday practices. All participants will be provided with art materials to create personal Queer Mazes either individually or in pairs. Each and everyone’s journey through the labyrinths of memories, city streets and queerness will be facilitated by the event’s hosts via a series of art exercises. The final part of the workshop will cumulate shared stories into a unified yet haphazard map-installation of a Community Queer Maze.

The workshop is co-facilitated by Bahdan Khmialnitski and Alisa Oleva. 

Bahdan Khmialnitski is an independent culture researcher, performer and queer activist from Minsk, currently based in London. He is a Chevening scholar and graduate of Birkbeck, University of London, with an MA in Arts Policy and Management. Bahdan is the co-organiser of DOTYK Queer Festival and co-creator of Minsk Queer Walk.

Alisa Oleva is an artist working in the spaces of the city, exploring urban choreography and urban archaeology, traces and surfaces, borders and inventories, intervals and silences, passages and cracks. Alisa holds a BA and MA from The Courtauld Institute of Art and an MA in Performance from Goldsmiths. Her projects have manifested as a series of interactive situations, performances, movement scores, personal and intimate encounters and situations, parkour, walkshops, and audio walks.

The event is part of our current exhibition Desire International (until 12 Feb).