The first meeting of the Queer Arts Collective was convened at Alberta’s at the Edinburgh College of Art campus to discuss its potential direction. Led by Natasha Ion, Edinburgh University Students’ Association LGBT+ Liberation Officer, and Fiona Gray, the ECA Undergraduate School Convener, the Facebook event said the event was to be open to “artists from all types of media (visual art, music etc.) and from all degrees at Edinburgh, not just creative ones.”
Between ten and twenty people attended, including current students and recent graduates. Attendees suggested ideas for the collective; including skill swaps, the creation of a zine, an LGBT+ History Month exhibition in February, film screenings, life drawing, dance nights, and book events. Attendees seemed excited at the opportunity to meet other queer members of the art community while art students took the chance to introduce their projects to the queer student body.
The discussion of collective work was related back to another group associated with the ECA, the Grey People, a collective focuses on interdisciplinary collaboration in ECA.
Another person brought up Queering the Map, an online project in which queer individuals write about experiences on ‘pins’ that appear on a world map. Users can zoom in on the map of their area to read about “queer moments, memories and histories in relation to physical space… to collectively document the spaces that hold queer memory.”
After the first meeting, Grey told The Student, “I would like to encourage anyone to join the collective to build deeper communities at ECA and the university. And I’m excited to see what people will create.”
Image: rosefirerising via Flickr
