COMMUNITY: Performative Reading and Exchange on Queer History and Politics

Performative reading and exchange on queer history and politics with Marcus Peter Tesch (text) and Fabian Schulz (sound). The three-part, immersive performance happening by Thomas Bartling deals with security and visibility in safe and dirty spaces. For this, the Cologne-based artist has chosen the Düsseldorfer Hofgarten. "In times of increasing repression and violence against queer people, the visibility and transmission of queer cultural techniques are a building block for strengthening democratic coexistence," says Thomas Bartling, who combines pop culture, campness, and queer aesthetics with performative formats in his works. Cruising is one of these cultural techniques. Because men have always met hidden in public spaces to have anonymous sex. The Düsseldorfer Hofgarten is also considered a traditional cruising hotspot. "Hofgarten Cruise" is therefore the title of Thomas Bartling's new project. It's about "security and visibility in safe and dirty spaces," according to the subtitle. With a three-part, immersive performance happening, he wants to make "queer cultural techniques like cruising experienceable as a utopian counter-design to normative social structures." With the three parts "Discourse," "Creation," and "Community," Bartling creates a participatory art space that dissolves the boundaries between artists and audience.