Youth to explore parade options

Youth to explore parade options

Homebush was suggested and vetoed, but what about King St, Newtown as an alternative to Oxford St Mardi Gras parade?
This is just one question that will be posed as young queers meet with a panel of ’78ers at this week’s Resurgence Festival, hosted by New Q, the Enmore queer safe space.
A series of political workshops, arts panels and dance events is planned in Newtown as part of the festival billed as a queer festival to celebrate, strengthen and politicise our community.
The idea of Resurgence is to let people know about the space, to strengthen the community, and to get a critique going of Mardi Gras, said event organiser Karoline Morwitzer.
The recent raft of legislative changes will be discussed along with ways to help homeless queer youth, sexual health and the possible impacts of the ongoing economic crisis.
The future of Mardi Gras will also be discussed, with a panel of ’78ers -” including one of the original organisers, Ken Davis, Peter Murphy of the Pride History Group and Penny Gulliver, founder of a gay and lesbian martial arts group -” to discuss the parade’s cultural and political history,
Mardi Gras is obviously a massive thing for the queer community and it plays a really important part for queers coming out. We acknowledge that, but there are some aspects to it that some of us find really alienating, Morwitzer said.
I guess we feel it’s quite limiting in terms of being able to give publicity to different aspects of queer oppression, so we wanted to step back and see what other possibilities there are for organising.
The last time I went in Mardi Gras, I felt like a bit of a zoo animal. The way that it’s been funded, it’s become really like a tourist attraction, so there are lots of people there, who I don’t really feel are a part of my community or who are in solidarity with the struggle.
It seems that the choices made this year -” choices about having to pay to view on Foxtel and the increasing number of corporate floats -” it seems like it’s very much going down a particular road that we don’t feel is representative of our community and our experiences with oppression.
info: Resurgence will be held at New Q, 22 Enmore Rd, from March 12-15. For more, http://resurgence2009.wordpress.com.

You May Also Like

Comments are closed.