DEMASK Fest

DEMASK Fest is happening! From 3rd to 6th October in Cologne. So, mark your calendars and get ready, babes! We are incredibly excited – for everything to go over smoothly we need your support though.

 

We’ve planned the following for DEMASK Fest:

We’re kicking off on Thursday night, October 3rd, with a bunch of different short movies accompanied by talks with the artists, for example “Home” by Elliot Blue. On Friday we continue with a panel discussion, in which we want to discuss in_visibilities of queer and trans* BI*PoC in Germany.

For Saturday Ajay Sathyan offers an “Empowerment Through Art”-workshop while Zoe from House of St. Laurent is giving us a lecture about the history of ballroom culture. Following the lecture there’ll also be the opportunity to learn the basics of Voguing or even improve on skills you already have. This is also a way for us to build on the long tradition of resistance by qt*i*BI*PoC. 

Resistance against dominant power structures are also a central point for the gala, which is happening that same night. A variety of artist like Mandhla, Kaleo Sansaa, Mr. Biatch und Exxis (and her son) will have the stage to present us their work. After this there’ll be a big party with DJ MWA, Samy Winehouse und MIMI at Kulturbunker in Mülheim.

As the last day of DEMASK Fest Sunday is especially dedicated to the community. There’ll be creative workshops covering Afro-Sexuality and queer Black hair, as well as a pop-up-barbershop!

 

When we were applying for funding in order to finance DEMASK Fest we could only make estimates about how much money we would need for which purposes. Fast forward and a lot of costs have come up additionally. We want to use your donations to, among other things, finance setting up a DEMASK website, parts of the Gala and travel expenses for artists and activists. 

It’s especially important to us that we can pay the activists, artists and supporters from the qt*i*BI*PoC-community fairly. Too often the work that these people do is not being adequately paid, because it’s “for the community” or the money is lacking. That’s not sustainable and reproduces precarious circumstances!

(As a collective we all work on a voluntary basis and don’t plan on paying ourselves with this money.)

A donation doesn’t only show us that our plans are worthy of support but also enables us to organize more events after DEMASK Fest and for us to stay present as a collective and as a contact point in Cologne.

Obviously, there’s more ways to support us than simply monetarily. If you cannot or don’t want to donate but would like to know about other ways to support us, just hit us up via email, Facebook or Instagram!