QueerCon Festival
LGBTQIA+ Festival in Maastricht
Date: 1-2 July 2024
Location(s): Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University; Café Rosé, Maastricht; other locations tba
QueerCon Maastricht invites artists, performers, activists, and community members to come together to celebrate and advance LGBTQIA+ inclusion and equity. The festival will be a platform for community building and activism through various cultural events and other forms of public engagement.
An academic conference that aims to advance LGBTQIA+ knowledge across the disciplines runs parallel to the festival. The call for papers can be found here.
Festival Themes and Goals
Recognising a need for a queer-centred space for creativity, cultural exchange, and activism in the Euro-region, QueerCon is an initiative supported by the Diversity and Inclusivity Office and the Centre for Gender and Diversity that aims to promote diversity, inclusion, and equity and to make art and activism accessible to the community. As such, QueerCon seeks to provide a platform for:
- LGBTQIA+ art and performance: Contribute to and/or attend various cultural events that will bring together artists and audiences from the wider community.
- Activism: Showcase and get involved with LGBTQIA+ activism, initiatives, and community organising efforts that promote positive change within the university and the wider community.
- Community-Building: Connect with fellow artists, attendees, and organisations from the university as well as the wider LGBTQIA+ community.
Calling all artists and performers
We are looking for artistic contributions and performances in any genre and format, ranging from readings, music and other performances, to visual artworks, photo/poster sessions, and beyond. These contributions should address and engage with LGBTQI+ issues in a creative way.
Three formats are already set and can serve as a guideline for contributions; but we are still in the planning stage and also welcome proposals and ideas that do not fit any of these formats.
- Lunchtime concerts/key performances: instead of keynote lectures, there will be what we call key performances during the conference part of QueerCon. For these lunchtime concerts, we are looking for performances of about half an hour length.
- Open mic contributions: in partnership with COC Limburg, we will be hosting an open mic night at Café Rosé on the evening of July 1st. For this, we welcome proposals for readings/sketches/performances that are about ten minutes long.
- Exhibition of visual art: there is exhibition space in the conference rooms at UM’s Faculty of Arts and Social Science, and potentially at other locations.
Please email your ideas for artistic contributions and performances by 11 December 2023 to queercon.um@gmail.com. Please submit your proposal as a pdf attachment. Proposals should include the following information:
- Title
- Artist(s)/performer(s): name(s) and short bio(s), links to work (if available)
- Contact details (email)
- Brief description of artistic contribution/performance (up to 200 words)
- Tech needs (if any)
Key performers will receive an honorarium, and artists contributing to the exhibition can apply for financial support (e.g. for printing or framing costs). We will be in touch with a decision by the end of January 2024.
Overview of important dates
- Submission Deadline: 11 December 2023
- Notification of Acceptance: 31 January 2024
- Festival Dates: 1-2 July 2024
Calling all community organisers and activists: collaboration and sponsorship
This event is made possible with the generous support of a Maastricht University Diversity and Inclusivity Grant 2023/24, and UM’s Centre for Gender and Diversity. QueerCon is a joint and cross-faculty organisational effort by UM staff and students in collaboration with UM Pride, Dionyx and COC Limburg.
If your organisation is interested in partnering with QueerCon, please contact us at queercon.um@gmail.com for collaboration and sponsorship opportunities, and for all other inquiries and further information.