Queer@King’s and Queercircle invite you to a very special day of art-making centred on LGBTQ+ experiences of wellbeing and inequality.

Join us for Badge Café, a queerzine workshop, artist talks and more, with Rachael House and Ben Walters. The day's activities will take place at Queercircle, Building 4, Design District, 3 Barton Yard, London SE10 0BN – a 3-minute walk from North Greenwich station.

Programme

09:30-10:00 Arrivals and light refreshments

10:00-10:05 Welcome from Queer@King’s with Zeena Feldman and Laia Becares

10:05-11:05: The art of queer joy, rage and hope: Artists Rachael House and Ben Walters discuss their creative practice

11:05-13:05 Choose your own adventure (part 1)*

Choice 1: Queerzine workshop with Rachael House*
At the end of this structured two-hour workshop, each participant will have made a one-off mini-zine working with the themes of queer rage, joy and hope. We’ll be thinking about claiming queer joy in difficult times, and how our queer rage informs this. Zines are a way for all of us to make our voices heard, and to build communities through lo-fi social networking. No experience necessary; materials provided. We will be sharing our work with each other throughout the workshop.

Choice 2: Badge Café with Ben Walters AKA Dr Duckie*
Relax, create and connect by making your own unique badges out of old books, magazines and other materials. It's easy, welcoming and fun, with all materials provided. Swing by for five minutes or bed-in for hours. Badge Cafe is rooted in care, fun, creativity, collaboration and hope. We see badgemaking as a refuge, a playground, a laboratory and a launchpad – a place where self-care, social connection, analogue crafting, artistic exploration and progressive civics meet.

13:05-14:15 Vegan and vegetarian lunch (provided)

14:15-15:45 Choose your own adventure (part 2)*

Choice 1: Queer Voices workshop with Rachael House*
This drop-in workshop invites us to make our queer voices visible with large cardboard comic book-style speech bubbles, sharpies and ink. As LGBTQIA+ folk are increasingly marginalised and silenced around the world, you are invited to consider what you want to say about issues impacting our lives. From mental health, rising cost of living, bi erasure, trans rights, online hate speech, housing insecurity and beyond ­– the choice is yours.

Choice 2: Badge Café with Ben Walters AKA Dr Duckie*
Join Dr Duckie for an afternoon session of badgemaking. Swing by for five minutes or the full hour – the choice is yours.

15:45-16:00 Closing Ritual with Rachael House

*Queer portrait and performance photographer Christa Holka will be on hand to document sessions marked with an asterisk. Anyone who wishes to can opt-out of being photographed.

About the artists

Rachael House's fine art practice is focused on queer and feminist politics. She makes objects, zines, drawings, events and performance. She has been making zines for several decades, this radical self publishing is dear to her heart and she loves to spread the word via workshops. Rachael’s art is featured in numerous publications, such as ‘Crafted With Pride’, edited by Daniel Fountain (Intellect), ‘The Art Of Feminism’ (Tate) and ‘Resistance: The LGBT Fight Against Fascism in WWII’ (Stacked Deck Press).

Ben Walters wrote a PhD about London queer performance collective Duckie, and how their participatory creative projects work as 'homemade mutant hope machines' – enabling people without much clout to start building better worlds on their own terms. Badge Café began in 2022 at Duckie’s weekly club night, when Ben helped out by operating an old badgemaking machine, reusing books and magazines as design fodder. People were into it. Ben knew a 'hope machine' when he saw one and has now delivered hundreds of badgemaking ‘hangouts’ locally, nationally and internationally, in queer and many other settings. The Badge Café has also led to his own collage practice.

Christa Holka is a queer portrait and performance photographer who has been photographing their communities both intimate and extended for over 20 years. Christa is interested in documenting the everyday lives of people who wouldn’t ordinarily be documented thereby facilitating an experience of feeling seen through a photographic process. Holka’s practice’s main motivation is to promote, elevate and showcase the communities, organisations, events, art and artists they photograph, with the intention of creating images in which people feel seen.

About the organisers

Zeena Feldman is Director of the Queer@King’s Research Centre and Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Digital Culture in the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. Her research examines how digital technologies impact understandings and performances of traditionally analogue concepts – for instance, belonging, identity and wellbeing. Zeena currently runs the Quitting Social Media project, which explores digital detox and digital overload.

Laia Becares is Professor of Social Science and Health in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London. Her research looks at understanding the pathways by which the discrimination and marginalisation of people and places lead to social and health inequities. This work has mostly focused on examining the association between othering, oppression and health, in order to understand how experiences of discrimination pattern people's health and social outcomes, as well as that of their children.