PUBLIC QUEER

AirSpace Gallery is a collaborative, artist led project in Stoke-on-Trent, providing professional development opportunities, studio and exhibiting space and support for artists.Through a dynamic and evolving programme of exhibitions, events and activities AirSpace Gallery brings critical, high quality contemporary art to the region and provides opportunities for a broad range of artists.

AirSpace Gallery

A hands-on workshop  to suggest and enact new Public Art to better represent communities across the city.

<h2></h2><h2>PUBLIC QUEER</h2>In this hands-on workshop, participants will work with artist MsDmeanr to suggest and enact new Public Art to better represent communities across the city. Join us to think about what's missing from our local landscape and create temporary interventions that will permanently stick in the public's mind!Referencing statues from the local area and further afield, and with a nod to the history of living statues, we will reflect on elements that interest, frustrate and inspire us. Using various props, materials, and costumes we will laugh and chat, dress up and dress down to become public statues. We can use our bodies to notice poses and movements that help us think, consider and get excited about our queer representation and take them to the streets. PUBLIC QUEER is delivered as a response to THE FOOL - a major group exhibition at AirSpace. Click <a href="https://www.airspacegallery.org/index.php/project_entry/the_fool" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">HERE</a> for full exhibition information.This is a FREE event, but booking is necessary.WORKSHOP DETAILS1pm - Welcome and intro
1.05 - Queer exploration 
•	History of the word Queer– its use and impact
•	Reclaiming the word 
•	New meanings, inclusivity, who and how it represents 
•	Queer as an attitude, a way of seeing the world, different perspective and lenses 
•	Nonconformist 
•	Gender politics 
•	The queer body 

1.35 A short pictorial look at some of the public statues in stoke on Trent 
•	Who do they represent?
•	Are you here? 
•	What do they say about the City? 
•	Some stories about the statues 
•	What do statues really represent? 

2-3pm Play around with some props, fabric, movement and shape 
•	How do we represent the queer, the queer people, the queer thinkers, the people, the animals, the beings?? 
•	Appropriation 
•	The hidden 
•	How obvious can we be? 
•	How simple can we make it?
•	How is it different? Is it? should it be? 
Consider 
What movements &amp; shapes should we be making? 
What feels ok? 
•	Qigong style warm up
o	Bird rising from the ashes etc 
o	Stretches and energising movements 
•	Strike some poses, explore an action, 

3.15- 3.45 Let’s take it outside and see how it feels to become the queer statues 

3.45 Back in for reflection and thought
 
------MSDMEANR is a pseudonym for Deborah Rogers - an artist who uses a range of different materials and characters to assist my enquiries. She has recently explored notions of animality and rituals that help with behavioural, physical, and emotional change. Her character MsDMeanar, plays with performative acts and has been researching ways to transform myself. Deborah has been documenting the rituals using photography film and printmaking techniques.During her perimenopause in 2015, she questioned what she was becoming. In response, she began to collaborate with her dog Percy, merging with him to become dog headed. This helped her explore her menopausal experience of transformation from a new perspective.Deborah is a freelance artist and has worked across the Midlands for over 30 years. For many of those years she has worked as a participatory artist for The Cultural Sisters, an organisation she co-founded in 1995.

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