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Queer Black Spaces 2

Thursday 19 February 2015

6pm - 8.30pm

UCL, 26 Bedford Way

Queer Black Spaces 2 Comics and zine table

Queer Black Spaces 2 was organised as part of the Centre's Black Modernism project, a follow on project from Drawing over the Colour Line. It was organised by The Equiano Centre and curated by Gemma Romain of the Centre. The evening included fiction readings, poetry, and talks exploring current research on Black LGBTQ lives from the early twentieth century to contemporary Britain. The speakers explored themes including queer black poetry and theatre; letter writing, archives, and queer black lives; and teaching and learning about queer black lives through reading fiction. In addition to the Queer Black Spaces 2 zine, we launched Rudy Loewe's comic, Claude McKay: Queer, Black & Radical created as part of the Black Modernism project.

Rudy Loewe's Claude McKay comic - front cover

Participants include:

  • Nazmia Jamal - teacher of ten years at an inner London sixth form, programmer at BFI Flare (formerly LLGFF) for 6 years, and host of Queer Black Spaces 1
  • Dante Micheaux - award winning poet and author of the 2010 Amorous Shepherd
  • Okey Nzelu - poet, writer and teacher, whose radio play Me and Alan (loosely based on the life of Alan Turing) was broadcast on Roundhouse Radio in 2013
  • Afshan Lodhi - writer and performer who has participated in events including Manchester Lit Festival and Edinburgh Free Fringe Festival
  • Thomas Glave - Leverhulme Visiting Professor at University of Warwick whose latest book is entitled Among the Bloodpeople: Politics and Flesh
  • Rudy Loewe - visual artist predominantly using comics to explore narratives concerning race, gender, sexuality and disability
  • Gemma Romain - historian based at the Equiano Centre, UCL, co-curator of Spaces of Black Modernism at Tate Britain, and co-organiser and curator of Queer Black Spaces 1 and 2
  • Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski - freelance archivist, community worker and designer, currently an artist-in-residence at the Women's Art Library, Goldsmiths as part of the artist archival research group X Marks the Spot