Affinity or Extraction?

The Institutionalization of Queer Arts Spaces

Abstract

From theatre school, to emerging artist programs, to awards and prizes, to appealing to the tokenizing checkboxes of programmers, what does it do to the queer artist psyche to come of age in an environment that teaches artists to mine themselves for trauma to then turn into artistic material? What happens when you internalize the understanding that the parts of yourself that have been forged through interpersonal and intergenerational violence are the parts that will most easily endow you with professional success and notoriety? We forget to wonder if we list our social identities in our artist bios to honour our ancestors and communities, or to elbow our way to the front. How can we keep putting ourselves out there when it becomes impossible to tell if your good, hard, skilled work has earned you a spot in a given “room”, or if you are there to check a box?