Queer Design Club: Amplify
Queer Design Club is a global network of LQBTQIAA+ creatives seeking to queer design practices and theory. The QDC x Trixie Bar Berlin series of events aims to queer the building of community in the creative and cultural industries in Berlin with mid-term to long-term intentions to build community wealth building initiatives. This is an experiment to see if we can plant the seeds for social and solidarity economy, social innovation, and queer service design (coops, commons, mutual aid, and beyond).
Theme: Amplify
A liberatory practice can only emerge in the amplification of narrative possibilities. A pluriversal future demands spaces that call forward more evolved selves and create the conditions for transformation away from the victimhoods we carry which reify and reinforce structures, hierarchies, and systems of oppression. If our liberation is tied up in that of the other, we can only steward-in and surface our freedoms through bolstering the self-determination of the most marginalized and under-resourced. Black (BIPOC) and queer voices lead the edges of cultural production — social innovators by any other name.
This session aims to support the messy humanity that is required for deep relationality to emerge — a short orienting statement will be made; guests with calls to action will be introduced; you will be unleashed to engage in self-determined conversations in the pursuit of radical support of the connections our space provides.
If you are a BIPOC Queer leader or community builder, please contact us with your call to action prior to the event so we can scope the facilitation space to allow you 3 to 5 minutes to introduce your initiative, express your Offers & Needs, and establish how people can come into conversation with you during our open market. https://forms.gle/43oShdiqEv3BUrtJ8
19:00h — Arrival
19:15h — Invitation to find a space of rest
19:30h — Lightning Toast from our Host
19:45h — Open to our Charge Callers
20:00h — 23:00h — Amplification of Queer Connection
Music will be provided with care by gammmarayy (you can listen to the set from the last event here).
Who has been attending these events? Queer artists and designers, academics, professors, researchers, NGO leaders, marketing talents, students, activists, entrepreneurs, and cultural creative practitioners of all kinds. (Our events take a two-audience approach; we combine 2 intentions to bring together somewhat unlikely cross-overs in our small crowd)
What’s the vibe? Rather than a typical networking culture, we provide the room for happenstance and serendipity. This time around we are laying in a bit more intentionality through participation and prompt. Music will be played, this is a smoking establishment, but the space is fully accessible otherwise. (Risk of overstimulation)
What is our purpose? We aim to create and embody queering as political process and practice of participatory engagement. We don’t exist to police other’s queerness; we exist to invite folks into the queer waters to be guided into acclimation with solidarity and respect. Our purpose is to pursue mutual benefit and common good by imagining worlds that were intentionally held from us. What’s stopping you from sharing your calling?
How do y’all sustain this work? We make this offering out of love for community, but your donations go to cover the basic costs of making the space available and providing the infrastructure for the space to reoccur. We depend on your support, but won’t turn you away if you’re unable to contribute this time around.
What can you do to get involved with Queer Design Club in Berlin? We are keen to support relationships which can lead to sustainable livelihoods, transformative programming, and participatory experimentation. If you have an idea, collaboration call, or want to pursue funded projects together — we are all about that! Reach out — let’s co-create a thing!
In a moment of institutional failure and radical possibility, Queer Design Club offers a space for experimentation, collective learning and practical resources to help designers and anyone doing design work create more equitable, joyful and sustainable futures. (www.queerdesign.club)
Design by gammmarayy / Image by Guillaume Issaly on Unsplash