Ruth McCarthy speaking at Impact Hub Caracas – 2015

CHALLEGING BOUNDARIES

Renata Carvalho (Brazil) as Queen Jesus in Jo Clifford’s play

Lisa Kerner, founder of casabrandon and director at faq festival de arte queer-buenos aires

casaBrandon was since its origins the celebration of divergence without privileges or VIP spaces, but always ridden with amorous opportunities through which to transit sexual diversity; the embodiment of a form of sensuality that they couldn’t yet call queer because the term didn’t exist in Argentina, but which they later adopted to talk about their revolution wherever they went. They were queer because, above all, they wanted to contaminate the image of diversity; they didn’t want to clean it but to make it virosic, so that it mutated into a form of beauty that transformed all bodies. From the early parties, they brought in the arts as a form of contamination. “The arts offer a space of rupture, dialogue and transformation, which seems to me the only path to liberation”, said Jorgelina De simone, one of the co-founders of the Brandon alongside Lisa Kerner. Diego Terotrola

Susy Shock is one of the artists Out Ame has been working with in a sustained way. Seen by Ruth at Casa Brandon in 2016, she was later part of the Semana de Arte Trans in Uruguay, curated by Delfina Martinez and Leho de Sosa. In 2018 she was programmed by Risco Festival in Brazil. In 2019 she was one of the artists featured in the Americas Showcase during Outburst.

Simone Harris (Jamaica)

“Shackled”

From the tribe exhibition

Simone Harris presents

THE TRIBE

at Outburst

Nadia Huggins (Trinidadand Tobago)

“Is that a Buoy”

From Caribbean Queer Visualities

Nadia at the exhibition

RENATA CARVALHO’S SPEECH AT OUTBURST FESTIVAL 2016

Photo Renata Carvalho and Natalia Mallo

QUEER ARTS ENCOUNTER

Brian Solomon is an anishnaabe/ canadian artist who joined the festival as a delegate and participated in the symposium. later he would be included in risco festival’s first edition’s programme as well as workshop facilitator at trans art week in uruguay in the same year.

Erica was also one of the delegates at the symposium in 2017, appointed
by RISCO Festival. At that time she was running Aparelha Luzia, a centre
for education, activism and arts with focus on the black kuir communities
in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Two years after that, she became the first black trans
person to be elected for a seat at the State Congress. Erica’s work at
Congress has been outstanding with law bills that focus on equality,
public health and safety for marginalised communities.

Natalia, Leho and Lisa at Outburst making plans

Ruth and Natalia

at Semana de Arte Trans

Montevideo’s first Trans Art Week, curated by Delfina Martinez and
Leho de Sosa (who had already participated at Outburst Festival as
delegate e would soon become a collaborator) brought together
artists from multiple languages (theatre, dance, photography, literature,
music, visual arts) for the first time in a single programme, celebrating
the contribution of the trans community and inaugurating an
unprecedented space for socializing and reflection .

This event was the setting for the birth of the idea of the collective and the beginning of Outburst Americas’ network configuration. Trans art served as the context for countlessreflections within the group, and to establish new connections that in the near future would become instances of co-curation and in the consolidation of an increasingly strengthened circuit.

Risco Festival was born in 2018 in Sao Paulo and its creation was inspired by the work of the Outburst Americas collective and by the experiences and exchanges in queer arts curatiion developed collectively by the group. The Festival was another opportunity to meet and plan future actions, such as the rst series of works by queer artists from the americas commissioned by the collective.

Risco Festival hosted the 4º Quer Arts Encounter with the participation of Outburst Americas collective (FAQ, Casa Brandon, Semana de Arte Trans, Outburst Festival) + JerkOff Festival (France), Familia Stronger Collective, Susy Shock and local artists and collectives. The aim was to discuss the power of queer curating in times of censorship and baklashes in rights by the LGBTQIA+ Community.

CREATING AND CURATING SPACES was the first training programme delivered by Outburst Americas. It was meant to exhange ideas, knowledge and resources with the local queer arts scene and was produced by Simone Harris (360 Artists), who also curated the 1º Queer Arts showcase during the Beyond Homophobia / Navigating the State Conference – University of the West Indies

Cumbre Tajin is a festival that celebrates the totonaca culture and legacy in the region of Vera Cruz Mexico. Ruth McCarthy visited the festival and connected with local queer artists who were part of the programme, linking indigenous cultural manifestation, popular parties, crafts and gastronomy for the rst time including also a queer perspective.

EL ALTO
magazine cover, featuring jamaican
artist and activist Emani Edwards

download

Published by the British Council in partnership with Outburst Festival, the magazine’s rst issue focuses on themes of gender, identity and the arts. It builds on the last four years of collaboration with Outburst Queer Arts Festival, identifying and supporting producers, activists, artists, curators and projects around queer art in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, the US and Venezuela. The publication showcases some of the projects developed in the network, as well as some leading academic and artistic voices in this growing space. Edited by Natalia Mallo, Pablo Rosselló and Ruth McCarthy, and presented in Spanish and English, the magazine features a series of artist proles and projects from 13 countries.

El Alto | Queer: Gender Sexuality and the Arts in the Americas

In 2019 Outburst also promoted the 5º Queer Arts Encounter with guests from the Americas, Europe and Middle east. Discussions, exchange and network building.

Americas showcase featuring
Susy Shock (Argentina),
Dani Nega (Brazil),
Ghana (Jamaica) and
Ali Gua Gua (Mexico)

Dani Nega

A research, reection and creation project on the different translation processes involved in the exchange, production and circulation of Kuir / Queer arts. Developed and presented by Outburst, FAQ and RISCO festivals, it was a series of workshops discussing the translation of words, cultures and presence (the transcreation of ideas from
analog to digital realms).