11th Queeruption festival in Manchester

By joan on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 16:04

Reclaim the Scene's goal is "an accessible, welcoming and friendly 'scene'; for pride to be free; and LGBTQ rights to be at the TOP of the agenda". They hold planning meetings during Queeruption. I have to admit that when I first read the 'pride to be free' goal I thought I'd understood something wrong, but as it turns out, Manchester Pride does charge an admission fee. I see Pride as political engagement, as a way to show pride, as it were. Of course parties are part of that too, but to commercialize it to be just another festival somehow seems wrong to me. If you think like me you'll probably want to check out Reclaim the Scene.

The Zine Workshop is where you can work on "Articles, Photography, Cut & Paste, Creative Writing, Digital Art, Multimedia, Cartoons, Scribbles, Guides, Political Rants", and help assemble a publication for this year's festival. To spark your inspiration take a look at last year's zine.

Peace Village Manchester

Past Queeruptions often took place in squats and most people lived in one building together. But lately it hasn't been that easy for squatter communities and the last Queeruption, planned to take place in Rome, had to be cancelled for related reasons.

Manchester was suggested as a host city for Queeruption at a time when there were a number of queer-friendly squats and social centers, sadly in the past twelve months the majority of them have shut down or gone underground.
queeruption.org.uk

As a result, a couple of people plan to bring their own tents and set camp in the Manchester area; take a look at Queeruption BaseCAMP.

For more information on Queeruption XI see their website.