LADA x Fringe! Archiving Erotics

‘Eroticism is about aliveness, eroticism gives sexuality meaning… Eroticism is the poetics of sex, it’s about curiosity, vitality, playfulness.’– Esther Perel

How is erotic aliveness captured in queer art? Queer art is more than just a representation of a specific sexuality, it is alive with the erotic. From archiving sexual subcultures to kinks in performance, there are strong lineages of queer artists expressing and documenting their sexuality.Join us for a discussion with Topher Campbell, Stefan Dickers, Dominic Johnson and Anju M Kasturiraj on how erotics are translated and transmuted through art and in the archive. What is at stake when making, reflecting on and keeping erotic art, especially in the face of continued and fresh waves of conservatism?

On the day of the discussion, the exhibition The Body Is a Thing in Time will be taking place in the Study Room as part of Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest, featuring performance documentation, performance to camera and video work from LADA’s digital collection, presented alongside new works from Devika Bilimoria, Claye Bowler, kane stonestreet, and Sweatmother.

Biographies

Topher Campbell is an artist, filmmaker and writer who has created a range of works in broadcasting, exhibitions and archive. His work explores sexuality, masculinity, afro-futurism and the city. Topher is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a past recipient of the Jerwood Directors Award (2005). In 2000, he co-founded rukus! Federation, a Black LGBTQ Arts collective with the artist Ajamu X.

Stefan Dickers is the Special Collections and Archives Manager at Bishopsgate Institute and has been responsible for the development of the Institute's collections on the history of London, protest and activism. He is also the founder of the UK Fetish Archive and led the Institute to become possibly the largest collection of LGBTQ+ archives, books and periodicals in the UK. Stefan qualified as an archivist in 2001 and started at Bishopsgate in 2005. Previous to this, he worked in the archives of the London School of Economics and Senate House Library.

Dominic Johnson is a writer and curator, and Professor in the School of Arts at QMUL. He is the author or editor of many books including Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s (2019) and Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013). Dominic is the curator of the exhibition Hamad Butt: Apprehensions at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin) and at the Whitechapel Gallery since June 2025.

Anju M Kasturiraj is a queer London-based artist of South Indian heritage. Anju uses video, live art, and experimental essays as sites for ritual performance. Their work extracts from a personal visual archive, South Indian traditions, and Catholic imagery, used to trace the infiltration of the structural into intimate encounters, and to articulate the indeterminacy of collective memory and the bodily archive. Anju is doing a practice-based PhD on rituals and endurance performance at the Royal College of Art, supported by the London Arts and Humanities Partnership. They have shown work at: galleries including UglyDuck, Beaconsfield, and Lethaby; Greenwich Docklands International Festival; Royal Museums Greenwich; the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. They were a 2024 resident at the Derek Jarman Lab, where they completed their film apathy (2024). Recent publications include contributions to the book Transect of Coexistence (2024) and to Still Point Journal (2024).

Access Information

Event information: This is a seated event. Various seating options will be available including fold out chairs, office chairs, a sofa and a bench. All are welcome to join in a relaxed space and are free to come and go as they please. The lighting will be fixed with no sudden changes and microphone amplification will be used. There are disposable masks and hand sanitiser available.

LADA space: The building is wheelchair accessible by lift and provides a wheelchair accessible ground-floor bathroom. All bathrooms are gender inclusive. There is no isolated quiet space inside, but there is a small quiet outdoor area. Some of the art on display in the space includes naked bodies. You can find more information and see photos of the space here. Should you have any particular access requirements, please email willy@thisisliveart.co.uk and we will be happy to offer further support.

Content notes: Age recommendation: 18+. Discussion will include mentions of sex and S&M practices. The exhibition that takes place in the space includes depictions of nudity, blood and S&M practices. Please email willy@thisisliveart.co.uk if you would like more information on what to expect.

Please note this event will be audio recorded.

Image credit Jonah Garrett-Bannister