Ever wanted to go to a queer party at 12pm on a Monday? Now’s your chance!
Join the students of CSIS 500 as we dream and scheme our way to queer worldmaking here in the belly of the institutional beast. Our experiment is to create a space to experience what a queer and trans of color-centered university might look and feel like. Come as your most authentic self or most inauthentically creative persona, and be ready to participate in some riveting activities as we repurpose spaces of learning for our own ends.
As queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz famously says, “We must [glamorously] dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.”
Together, we explore what these may look like in the university. We will have drag performances, crafting supplies, dance music, and social activities such as speed friending and open mics. Allies welcome!
URKA (@urka.verse) is an emerging drag artist and queer scholar known for hosting the rip-off competition URKA’s Drag Race for any lay people (that’s you!) who want to try drag. They are a mixed Chinese bisexual icon who serves chaos and humor (and large pots of pasta) on a near-daily basis. A San Francisco-born, globally raised kxng who thrives in the water, URKA is excited to make a 💦 BIG 💦WET 💦 SPLASH 💦 in their Vancouver debut.
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Haifa Fi Fufu was formed underneath a crescent moon nearly 1400 years ago by the creative spirit of a night-long performance of vibrant colors and epic poetry by the gender-bending singer Tuways. She’s a djinn of drag who’s usually summoned by the ritual burning of orientalist media. This April 7th, though, she’ll be performing alongside URKA as they participate in the grand experiment of queer and trans of color worldmaking within the university, no rituals required! Although, why not burn a copy of Dune if you’ve got it?
CSIS 500 is a course by Prof JP Catungal about queer and trans of color creativity and worldmaking. Some critical questions we ask include: What can practices of queer and trans of color creativity tell us about the present moment and how we have arrived here? How do they orient us towards more socially just, more abundant and more capacious futures? This event is part of a collective assignment from the students of the class.
We would like to acknowledge this event is hosted on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
