We are here to listen to you, we are here to discuss. We are here to ask ourselves about our need to consume each other, to deny ourselves the facts, the known and the unknown. We are here to forget and remember, to create new facts, to love again our hated ones, to break out and reconstruct our "fucking hell" situations. We are here to forget to eat today and to eat only love, we are here to celebrate life due to a love that makes us more active than ever. We are here for beauty and recreation. We are here for love.

Through collaborations between artists and institutions the Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival (TQAF) seeks to launch a creative dialogue on the theme of Eros. There is critical necessity for such a festival in Thessaloniki, to encourage the opening up of space for debate and exchange, provide new experiences and ways of being, to shift perceptions and possibilities.

Eros in Greek means being in love. It is the entanglement of hyper sensually while being captivated by intense emotions. Eros is a truth that brings us close to the survival instinct, the greatest need of humans after food. Eros connects us to the need for immortality on the one hand, and to the powerful act of death on the other; death and all the small deaths due to the absence of the desired. It's like the two sides of the coin. Only Eros can bring you so close to breathing, to the will for life and regeneration and at the same time close to grief and utter despair. Love is a force that changes everything, what we believe, the way we see things, the way we are and how we behave.

These conflicting rivalries, the potential pleasures and adversities of encounters and the new social structures and shapes that may emerge, will be called upon and explored through the festival.

We invite artists, collectives, activists and scholars from all over the world, and all disciplines, to to take part in the Thessaloniki Queer Arts Festival with works of art, video, installations, social interventions, performances, talks, workshops and seminars expanding on our theme of EROS.

The first TQAF will take place at the Experimental Center for the Arts (MOMus) in Thessaloniki. Greece, in June of 2019. The deadline for submissions is Valentines Day, February 14, 2019.

For more information: https://theqaf2018.wixsite.com/thess-queerarts-fest or facebook https://www.facebook.com/theqaf2018/

Published: 25-07-2019
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