Happy New Year from TQU

This past year was quite different from what I imagined at the beginning of 2018, especially on a personal level. There was some letting go of old relations that came back in new ways or are still waiting for that comeback, new and empowering connections and so many new ideas for things to come. I think I was really longing for more calm, more focus and more time to myself. Instead I got a lot of turbulence, but with it also a lot of beauty.

I also had to realize that I had been taking on too much for myself with running TQU, working as a freelancer, working a part-time job, starting a record label, seeing my friends, being there for my dogs and trying to also have a personal life. This is something I really hope to be able to balance better in 2019. If you’d like to help out by supporting TQU as a volunteer, get in touch ;)

For TQU the last year has been really successful, fun and I’m excited to see where things will take us this year.

We concluded #TheGalleryProject - a transnational exhibition series, that included the artworks of over 47 people from 27 countries -  after five really lovely and successful exhibitions in Tallinn, Sofia, Podgorica, Prague and Berlin. The exhibition in April 2018 in Berlin’s reTramp gallery was up for two weeks with new and interested people coming in every day. We hosted three events at the gallery with performances by Melanie Menard, Nansea, We’re Only Made of Snow and Ignatz Höch. There were screen printing and  fashion workshops. There’s so many amazing artists and artworks in #TheGalleryProject, and together they form a beautiful and complex mosaic of what being queer can mean around the world.

We printed a catalogue with pictures and bios of every artist whose work was in the exhibition - you can get your own copy here.

We also closed the call for our_story - queer history in the making - a multimedia and transnational storytelling project. So many wonderful stories came together for this project, each accompanied by a beautiful and powerful illustration. Right now we are working on finding a way to publish part of the stories in print, because I believe these stories should be in libraries and archives everywhere. Our stories matter.

In addition, I interviewed 25 pride organizers, and we published a zine called Faces Of Pride that tells all their stories, so full of hope, action and power. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I expected the outcome of these interviews to be when I started, but I was touched to my core and feel like I’ve had the chance to talk to some real heroes and an all round bunch of really incredible human beings.

We started hosting a regular event in Berlin, the TQU-Tresen (Tresen is German for bar) that takes place at FAQ Infoladen in Neukölln and focuses on bringing together different queer voices across all media. For the introductory event Rurru Mipanochia from Mexico showed us her wonderfully playful, intricate and surprising drawings of maya gods and goddesses and the queerness in their relations to power and each other. An interview with Rurru about her art will also be the center of a podcast that TQU is going to launch this year.

If you would like to help this podcast become a reality rather sooner than later, you can make a donation especially for that.

Other events we hosted included performances and concerts, film screenings - we showed four fantastic short films exploring  queerness in Jordan, Berlin, France and Ghana - and the very last event of 2018, right before the new year was truly magical. Eight people performed songs, poetry and stories and I think everybody felt a bit closer to everyone in the room after sharing this experience.

If you like the sound of this you can get involved as a performer/artist or volunteer as well.

Finally, on the more formal side, we got all the paperwork done and are now fully registered as an NGO in Germany, which mostly means that we can take on even bigger projects and challenges and that you can make tax free donations to support our work.

I hope that you all have a lovely start of this year, that you find the love and support that you need to take on the things that matter to you and that we all keep an eye out for each other to support and share and grow together.
Lots of love from me and please write to me by simply answering to this email if you have any questions or suggestions or would just like to say hi.

<3 Verena

PS: We also have a new call for stories, I forgot to mention our amazing photo contests and I can already announce that we will have a couple more of these coming up very soon!