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EDITORIAL Thursday, 9 May 2019
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www.palatinate.org.uk
VISUAL ARTS 3 Art imitates life: the potential of life modelling FEATURES 4&5 (PR)IDENTITY
BOOKS
6 Those who made me CREATIVE WRITING 7 Expression FASHION 8-9 Ted Talks: Fashion as Defiance MUSIC 10 Queen Zee: All hail punk’s new monarch STAGE 11 Looking ahead: What to expect at the Edinburgh Fringe INTERVIEW 12 Fashion show season is far from over
Exam season makes it hard to remember that life exists outside the library. Our identity around this time is limited to working, eating and trying to maintain some sanity. Then maybe walking somewhere else to do more work. I’d like to think in this issue we’ve celebrated ourselves, in the most un-academic way possible. Hopefully it serves as a reminder that university work is not the only component of our life and there is so much more to be thinking about and to be celebrated. How far we’ve come in terms of our own lives, our achievements, the outfit we’re wearing today, important things. In light of reminding ourselves of our own identity, Visual Arts hears from the perspective of a life model, how baring all made her at ease with herself in more ways than just her physicality; Creative Writing explores identity in all its different forms and Books navigates the writers who shaped our readers. Within the theme of identity, we wanted to celebrate Pride and we wanted to hear from the perspectives we don’t always get to hear from. Features takes a look at identity within the LGBT+ community and Fashion interviews Ted Lavis Coward. This being said, the LGBT+ community doesn’t only exist for one month a year, and we’re excited to continue publishing articles covering LGBT+ issues and perspectives, and to include more writers from the community overall.
www.facebook.com/palindigo Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @indigodurham Have a question, comment, or an idea for a story you’d like to write? Email indigo@palatinate.org.uk Cover illustration by Rosie Dart
Not only thinking around exams, but looking forward to the time (far) after exams, Stage covers all the shows heading to the Edinburgh Fringe and Music interviews Queen Zee. Which is hopefully all the evidence needed to confirm there is life after the academic year. SL
INDIGO EDITORS Shauna Lewis Carys Frost (deputy) FEATURES EDITORS Kleopatra Olympiou Mary Bradshaw (deputy)
CREATIVE WRITING EDITORS Rhiannon Morris Susie Bradley (deputy)
STAGE EDITORS Martha Wrench Gabriella Sills (deputy) VISUAL ARTS EDITORS Stella Botes Jo Chandler (deputy) BOOKS EDITORS Imogen Usherwood Lotte Hall FASHION EDITORS Anna Gibbs Ana Hamilton (deputy) Frankie Reffell (deputy) FOOD & DRINK EDITOR Piers Eaton Philippa Murrison TRAVEL EDITORS Abir Mishra Alex Bicknell-Cummins (deputy) FILM & TV EDITORS Hugh Johnson Josh Sagoo (deputy) MUSIC EDITORS Matthew Prudham Theo Golden INTERVIEW Nathan Kelly Zue Wei Long
VISUAL ARTS Thursday, 9 May 2019
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Art Imitates Life: the potential of life modelling
How paying attention to the most difficult parts of ourselves can help us to find our pride
Charlie Norton visual.arts@palatinate.org.uk
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n the words of the feminist scholar Sara Ahmed, ‘A body is vulnerable […] A body tells us the time; bodies carry traces of where we have been’. Because bodies are vulnerable, they are unique – they cannot fit the ‘flawless’ mould of the media fantasy.
an ice rink, a few like fat red brush strokes.
Mine certainly doesn’t: I have two halffake teeth as a result of a cycling accident, body hair which I don’t shave off and a purple scar from when I kicked a wine glass off a breakfast bar. Yet it is this vulnerability that makes bodies a source of artistic inspiration. Bodies tell stories; art reads them.
Melissa, who was leading the suggested I say something. ‘So going to get naked, obviously – thought I should mention my
I was used to occurred to me gers would not body and read ness, I thought,
them, but it suddenly that a room of stranbe. They will see my a story of mental illthey will not see me. class, – I’m but I scars.
“eyes hovered over my insecurities” In the media, we see one type of body – art must reject this by representing diverse bodies. As a white, cis, slim, able-bodied individual, I experience a huge amount of body privilege. However, life-modelling has enabled me to accept the socially ‘unacceptable’ part of my body – my self-harm scars. They tell the story of where I have been, of a time that has passed but which is also ongoing; they are part of me.
“a body tells us the time” Two years ago, I life-modelled for the first time. Though I looked horribly like a miniature Hugh Hefner in my borrowed dressing gown, I was excited. But as the students filtered in, I felt painfully conspicuous. I had few qualms about cellulite or my asymmetrical boobs, which I’d worked hard to love, but I was conscious of my scars. The marks on my forearm and stomach were obviously self-inflicted: some of them thin and white like tracks on
I don’t mind if you draw them or not, but I don’t want there to be an elephant in the room. Ok. I’m just going to…’ I dropped my dressing gown and twenty pairs of eyes hovered over my insecurities before turning to the paper in front of them. I focused on my breathing for the first half of the session. During the break, I covered up and tentatively went to look at the life-drawings. Each one was different, but they all carried a trace of where I’d been, of who I was. My scars were just part of the picture, like the angle of my shoulder or my French plait. In the second half, my body consciousness was replaced by daydreams more vivid than any I’d had since childhood; unafraid of my vulnerability, I had space to think.
We must work to make the w o r l d safe and inclusive for marginalised bodies so that BAME, trans, plus-sized and disabled individuals can tell their stories too. Through activism, by being proud of the shapes our vulnerable bodies have taken through time and experience, by using art to read the stories they tell, we can begin to understand the full and incredible diversity of the human experience. Illustration by Melissa Frateantonio
FEATURES 4
Thursday, 9 May 2019
(PR)IDENTITY Features looks at identity within the LGBT+ community features@palatinate.org.uk
Biphobia in 2019: an ‘uncomfortable conversation’ By Millicent Machell
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ollowing the tragic death of Lyra McKee, the Irish journalist and gay rights activist, I began to research the many notable achievements of her short but exceptional life. I came across a TED talk that she gave in 2017 about the Orlando nightclub shooting. In the talk, she proposed that the only way to decrease prejudice against the LGBT+ community is to talk about the discrimination that its members face, even when that may seem awkward; ‘uncomfortable conversations can save lives’.
intensified. In some cases, their anxieties about coming out to their parents or worries that their friends would assume that they were attracted to them seemed typical of any non-heterosexual orientation. But they also described the way that being in heterosexual relationships often made them feel as if they were not truly bisexual, or made them wonder if they were ‘faking it’. Similarly, having had less sexual and romantic experience with people of the same gender made them feel as if their sexuality was somehow not valid.
In honour of Lyra, I am here to start a conversation that may feel uncomfortable. Biphobia - the dislike of, or prejudice against bisexual people. From simply perceiving bisexuality to be experimentation rather than a valid orientation, to shunning bisexual people for “attention seeking”, the issue rarely seems to be drawn attention to. Perhaps that is because it is felt that those who are bisexual could simply choose to romantically and sexually interact with the opposite gender. Or, perhaps, it is rooted in the fact that often, neither the gay nor straight communities welcome these people as their own.
We also discussed the intersection between biphobia and misogyny – after telling men that you are bisexual, the standard reply is often ‘that’s hot’, or worse, proposing a threesome. Indeed, after setting your Tinder preference to women and men, you can expect to be inundated with profiles offering participation in threesomes with women and their male partners. Having said this, writing this article gave me a new appreciation for just how bright our future may be. When I told my fourteen-year-old sister that I was writing an article about bisexualWhatever the cause may be, bisexual people often ity, she didn’t wrinkle her nose or giggle awkfeel invisible in their struggle to accept their sexual- wardly. Instead, she blinked knowingly and ity. After discussing this with friends who have come said ‘Oh yeah, we learnt about that in PCSHE’. out as bisexual, my sense of these difficulties was
Being ‘butch’ By Grace English
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ism at its core. The historic butch/femme culture of post-WWII lesbian circles continues to resonate strongly with myself and many others, and choosing to identify as a butch lesbian was one of the most freeing acts of my life.
Much like our gay and trans siblings, in finding ourselves left behind in heteronormative society, we chose to carve out our own niche, and redefine cultural norms to fit a narrative that placed lesbian-
In a patriarchal society where the question of what it means to be a woman has historically been answered by men, the very notion of womanhood becomes a grey area for lesbians, many of whom identify as nonbinary or gender nonconforming as a means of expressing such a sense of alienation. Being a butch lesbian means subverting the expectations of how you should ‘be’ a woman; it means ‘being’ a woman in a way that deliberately excludes men.
xisting as an LGBT+ person, by definition, will leave you alienated by the world around you; existing as a lesbian will inevitably leave you alienated from even the more inclusive circles of feminist discourse because, in some way, you seem to fall short of grasping what womanhood fundamentally is. From this sense of alienation from even our own gender, a profound loneliness can arise, which causes us to ask ourselves – how can we take pride in our identity when it leaves some of us feeling so distinctly othered?
For me, being a butch lesbian i participating in an historic and i ture reminds me that lesbian ide silient despite all that we’ve endu means loving and nurturing the wo them at all costs. At the core of bu ence of women that makes being
Presenting myself in the way tha little choice in making my sexuality gay to an entire room before I’ve ev as this can often be, it creates a fi identity. I found the my liberation tify as a butch lesbian. Lesbians h throughout history, but we’ve alway
FEATURES Thursday, 9 May 2019
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LGBT+ and labelling By April Howard
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o label oneself as LGBT+ is to label oneself as inherently different. 93.2% of people in the United Kingdom identify as heterosexual according to the Office for National Statistics (2017). So, when you realise you are LGBT+, you may suddenly think that you are an outlier, an anomaly. I know I did. To many, this is alienating and lonely, and this feeling is not aided by the narrative that depicts queerness as illness. The prevalence of mental illnesses among LGBT people is much greater and gay young men are especially at risk of suicide. I think, in terms of feeling excluded and discriminated against, it is the little things. Being harassed publicly by a complete stranger for being in a same-sex relationship or for being gender non-conforming is often focused on as part of the queer experience, and indeed it is something that most queer people have either experienced or live in fear of, yet I would say queerphobia chips away at you in much subtler ways. It’s things like being the only lesbian in a friendship group of heterosexual girls discussing their boyfriends, who ask you little to nothing about your own dating life. It is seeing their discomfort when
you do discuss it. It is being a closeted gay man whose friends incessantly mock others for effeminacy and throw the word ‘gay’ around like it’s the most hilarious and insulting concept they have ever heard of. It is being a trans woman and watching TV constantly portraying trans women as some kind of trap for the unsuspecting heterosexual man. All these things contribute to that sense of ‘other’. You are not the default. After years of grappling with my identity as gay, I realised I do not long to be the default, I am more than happy with anomality. There are such wonderful aspects to being queer, you belong to a community brought together by a shared ambition of acceptance. This community is a brave, fierce and incredible one and every time I see pride marches on the TV or the way the community helps each other to their feet after tragedy, I am filled with pride. Yes, to label oneself as LGBT+ is to label oneself as inherently different, but it is difference that unites us and adversity that empowers us.
Don’t forget the + By Ella Al-Khalil-Coyle Illustration by Kaitoise
is a source of immense pride; infamous facet of lesbian culentity remains fearless and reured. Most of all, being butch omen in my life, and prioritising utch/femme culture is the reverg a lesbian feel so exceptional.
at I do often means that I have y known to the world; I read as ven opened my mouth. As scary fierce, unapologetic pride in my when I allowed myself to idenhave been abused and silenced ys been here, and we always will.
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n preparation for this article, I asked a nonbinary friend of mine about their journey to finding their identity: ‘I knew at like 13 I didn’t really see myself as a girl, I remember my best friend saying “oh so are you trans?” and me being like “…no I’m not a boy either”, then we were both confused.’ They later spoke on their struggle to accept themselves as non-binary because of their ‘feminine’ appearance, not fitting the ‘typical androgynous stereotype’, which got me thinking. Being bi-racial, I really resonate with the ‘not [blank] enough’ narrative. The labels that empowered others, always felt alienating to me, be it over ethnic or sexual identity. Dolly told us to figure out who we are, then do it on purpose, but I don’t think Ms Parton gave enough credit to how hard that first part is. I always hated being asked to define my sexuality, because I don’t think I understand my feelings well enough, which made more sense when I realised I was on the aromantic spectrum. That moment, when you find a title, an identity, and just go ‘Yes, that’s me!’ is amazing, but for me it came with a lot of anxiety. So, I’m
a-romantic. But am I aro? Arospec? Grey? Demi? Hours of research and two bottles of vodka later and I’m left blankly staring at dictionaries feeling more disconnected to myself than ever. The real question was: who was I doing this for? It didn’t feel like the answer was me anymore. Fixating and obsessing over every feeling trying to fit into a category, just to prevent making other people uncomfortable. The worst part is, I was losing myself in the process. So I got rid of the ‘[blank]’. I am enough. I’m just me. If anyone else wants to know who that is, they’ll have to stick around and see for themselves. If your title helps you feel strength and pride in this insane world then own it. I feel privileged to be able to sit and watch you. But choosing not to have a label doesn’t mean you don’t know who you are, and it does not mean you’re alone or isolated from our beautiful community. Whether it’s LGBT+, LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA+, we will always have a place; we will always be the plus.
BOOKS Thursday, 9 May 2019
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Those who made me
Three students examine authors who have shaped their sense of self By Issy Flower books@palatinate.org.uk
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arah Kane was one of Britain’s most interesting and innovative playwrights by the time of her death in 1999. Perhaps most importantly for me, she was female. When I read her play 4.48 Psychosis for the first time aged fifteen, it revealed that female playwrights can be loud, crude, mean, romantic, violent, vulgar and downright disturbing. It also showed that there doesn’t have to be any barrier between the author and the audience such as character or setting. A play can be poetry, and characters and authors can blend into one, expressing desires and fears without boundaries.
She has been integral in the way my view of the world has been shaped She has been integral in the way my view of the world has been shaped, and re-reading her plays this year has confirmed how I feel about pretty much everything. Life is grim; love is awfully complicated; most things and people are brutal—but there’s hope. That quality of hope is incredibly important and I’m glad she wrote it into every play, even one that seemed to function as a ‘suicide note’. The full force of her pride in her emotions, sexuality, and talent have shaped me immeasurably. By April Howard
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first picked up a book by the legendary Jeanette Winterson when I was seventeen. It was her best known, semi-autobiographical novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit about her evangelical Christian upbringing and her coming-out.
It is a bittersweet story of a girl who is intelligent and empowered despite all the odds. I was in love. I was reading a book, for the first time in my life, with a lesbian protagonist. I went on to read as many of her books as I could find. The Passion is also a stunning novel. It features a beautiful, bold woman who dresses in drag for her job in a casino, mirroring Winterson’s own qualms with the polarity of gender. While the hero predictably falls in love with her, her heart belongs to a married older woman with whom she has an affair. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is the ‘silent twin’ of Oranges, an autobiography which is named after a question posed by her homophobic mother, after Winterson said her girlfriend made her happy. Her life story is so heart-achingly sad yet she always manages to find the light. Jeanette Winterson provides a muchneeded lesbian voice, writing lesbian stories that are about love, passion, excitement and strong, brilliant women. She makes me excited about my future in a way few other lesbian stories do. By Bethany Townsend
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o writer has ever explored identity quite like Virginia Woolf. The evocative, innovative writing style Woolf employs is crucial in contributing to her limitless examination of human consciousness, not least seen in her novel Mrs Dalloway. Taking place in a single day of Clarissa Dalloway’s life, the pro-
tagonist re-examines the choices she has made over the course of her lifetime.Woolf’s startling use of stream of consciousness immerses the reader within the lives of the characters, whether this be a few fleeting moments or for a portion of the text. Through this the reader experiences the universality of emotion, love and often sensuality. Woolf’s effortless interweaving of sexuality into her work indicates how natural same-sex attraction can be in one’s own life. From her love of Sally Seton at Bourton, her daughter’s relationship with her tutor Ms Kilman, and even the florist in the flower shop, Clarissa’s life is embedded by lesbian lust and longing. Having read the novel at the tender age of sixteen, and not personally encountering a literary exploration of lesbian identity before, Woolf demonstrated to me that whatever attraction I did or did not feel towards a person of any sex was natural. One’s sexual identity, attraction and love ebbs and flows as much as Woolf’s narration does; an acceptance of this within ourselves is what we can take pride in. Illustration by Serena Smart
CREATIVE WRITING Thursday, 9 May 2019
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Expression An exploration of identity expression through the medium of poetry By Millicent Machell
By James Lendrum
By G. E. Harloe
Crusoe
Insomniac
Infant Morning
If I stood On the end of the wooden plank That we lay above the ocean And I jumped from this little yellow boat And I didn’t struggle And I didn’t gasp from the cold But I lay on my back like a starfish And my limbs became cloudy like paintwater And I let my tears and the sea just merge And I let my dark hair synthesise with the black waves And I got washed up on an island And I found white sand And peaches so pink they fall to the ground And I sat in a little pool With lilies for company And sun-warmed water to surround me And I drank from a hairy coconut And I watched the sky turn gold And I watched my old skin shed from my body And I crawled away and built a home With a bamboo-leaf hammock for comfort And a shipwrecked-sail for a dress And I taught myself to fish And I learnt how stretch myself over the moon So that little drops of me oozed onto my land And made my plants grow
This night is five— Low and brittle, I hang like the lamp, Or the cripple orchid Whose china fang Takes its final meal.
Oh, infant morning your fingertips on sternum press, the daze of globes bred heavy in rest.
Would I be a god? Or just the loneliest of them all.
My petals are sunk. Defectors, every one. Fingernail shavings Adorn the windowsill. Another pill. Another pill. So I lay still, Breathing in the new light As the clock spits Mississippi Bullets. One, three. I freeze and Seethe beneath the glass. Bloodless, now. And limpid, Sizzling alone at daybreak. The Rozerem grins thick. Another fix. And tomorrow will be six. Image via Pixels
Still you are a small warm thing, with me a large warm wing; a certain uncertainty; for you, a string to a heaven. Oh, but in my mourning in my morning they never fail to arrive! Why must they swap the swaddles for corpses cold, legs long and mummified? They take the babes they never let me name, but all the same, they are all mine. Again and again I breed new days, these days of paper-weights, these days of stoned-to-death. All days are a drawn-out breath; awake, break, broken, spent. Today, oh, today this infant weight (this infant, wait!) a body upon a chest. Today I do not choose, today I will lose, today I do not get out of bed.
FASHION Thursday, 9 May 2019
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Ted Talks: Fashion as defiance Frankie Reffell Deputy Fashion Editor fashion@palatinate.org.uk
Ted Lavis Coward speaks about their use of fashion as a vehicle of queer activism in an act of defiance against the ubiquitous discrimination and oppression of queer people today. Ted talks about what identifying as androgynous means for them, correcting outdated misconceptions about the androgynous community, and shares their exploration of self-expression through the medium of fashion and beauty.
“Don’t let a man in an over priced ill fitting suit tell you shit”
What does identifying as androgynous mean? “I myself am never that specific about terms that identify my gender. I’ve used androgynous, gender nonconforming, non binary, gender queer, agender, but mostly I just usually say my gender is a bit of a mess. Identifying as any of the above often mean different things for different people, but for me being gender queer just describes my gender falling outside of the imposed gender binary, whether my gender performance reflects that or not. The term ‘androgynous’ has been used to define both gender expression and gender identity, and in my case I feel it often explains both quite well.”
“I started buying women’s clothes and dabbling with makeup in my first year at university. I felt incredibly restricted and bored by men’s clothes, and felt uncomfortable in them a lot of the time. Although androgyny is becoming more prominent in clothing ranges, it’s still often just women wearing loose fitted men’s clothes. Often women can wear men’s clothes without much question, but if someone who appears as a man wears a dress the whole world shits. This is rooted in misogyny and how among men, appearing feminine is shunned as being ‘womanly’ and inferior. The way I express still changes depending on how safe I feel in a location. The threat of hate crime is still very real, and although I can handle myself pretty well, my fear of being a victim of abuse still does affect what I feel safe to wear. I probably get some sort of abuse once every few months but I try and not let that suppress expressing who I am.”
To what extent has your androgynous identity informed your styles choices?
Name and correct some common misconceptions about being androgynous.
“People often think genders outside of the binary are a new phenomenon, when actually the binary is a relatively Western imposition, with examples of other genders existing in other cultures for centuries. From two spirit people in North American indigenous cultures, to the five genders of the people on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, and to the Hijras of India, we’ve always been about.”
When did you begin to express your non binary identity – and in what ways has your expression changed?
“Clothing is a big part of expressing who we are, so my identity is reflected in my fashion choices like everyone else’s.However,queer people in general often put more into their fashion choices as an act of defiance against discrimination and oppression.”
@tedlaviscoward
What outfit do you feel most authentic in?
“This is honestly so dependent on my mood! I really like bright colours for sure,
FASHION 9
Thursday, 9 May 2019 which you can never find in the men’s section, because apparently brightness is too feminine. I quite like a jumpsuit with platforms and painted nails and maybe some bright eyeliner, but on other days I want to look like some 90s band reject so it’s really dependent on how I’m feeling. My usual library vibe is like a less blonde, more bent, less dead Kurt Cobain.”
Name two of your fashion and beauty icons. In what ways have they influenced your style? “Annie Clark of St. Vincent is my main fashion inspiration, not just in my clothing but also in my room décor. Her bold use of colour always makes her look a hundred years in the future. And also PVC! What’s not to love? Am I going to a sex party? Do I just love clothing that is wipe clean? Honestly, no one will ever know.... My other fashion inspiration is all cowboys. I find queer people’s reclamation of traditionally hypermasculine cultures fascinating. Though I’m sure most of it is down to fetishisation and the weirdly masochistic desire to get railed by your oppressor, I find it so curious that queer people have claimed so many subcultures that were previously dominated by straight men. We’ve seen this archetypal cowboy being reclaimed by women of colour such as Mitski and Solange, who were excluded
What do you hope to see more of in the fashion industry to be more inclusive and cater to androgynous consumers? “Wow, the ultimate question. Of course, the de-gendering of all clothing. If you can get the clothing on, it’s for you, regardless of what the label says! I’m also conscious of how clothing ranges in general shame fat bodies, and androgynous ranges aren’t free from this at all. The faces of non binary fashion are slim people like Ezra Miller but it’s important to remember people of all shapes and sizes might want to experiment with gender expression, and they all deserve to clothe themselves as they please. Androgynous ranges love to preach inclusivity but don’t sell anything over a size 14, it’s a joke.”
from cowboy culture and the patriarchal ‘American dream’, and I think there’s something so powerful in inserting yourself into a narrative you were written out of.”
In what ways do you believe Durham University could be more accommodating? “In all honesty I don’t need a little tick box from the university to make them feel
like they’ve done something for non-binary students. The politics of diversity and inclusion is a way of counting us up without it amounting to any real liberation. What Durham needs is a culture change. Although it’s a wider societal problem, the way it manifests in Durham is often Durham specific. A lot of the abuse I’ve faced at university has been rooted in misogyny, usually perpetuated by male students. When you have men from all male schools funneled into this university, they are not taught that women are their peers and that feeds into how women and some queer people are often treated. A lot of private school boys have never met a gay person before myself so it’s exhausting even attempting to talk about gender, and most of the time I choose not to. But to answer the question, I feel Durham would hugely benefit from the deconstruction of the archaic separation of genders in many schools.”
Any fashion/beauty advice for people experimenting with their gender expression? “Don’t let a man in an overpriced ill fitting suit tell you shit.” Photographs: Daneil Allen and @tedlaviscoward (Instagram)
MUSIC 10
Thursday, 9 May 2019
Queen Zee: All hail punk’s new monarch Queen Zee discuss glam, identity, and their debut album
By Matthew Prudham Music Editor music@palatinate.org.uk
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unk is making a great comeback into the mainstream, with the likes of Shame, Dream Wife and Slaves leading the charge. Amongst these lie Birkenhead five-piece Queen Zee and lead singer Zena ‘Queen Zee’ Davine. Zee explained the process behind the name, saying:‘The name is a play on Beyoncé, Queen Bee, my name is Zee. Queen Zee. You get it. The rest of the band were referred to as ‘The Sasstones’ - but this was dropped because it was too much of a mouthful. I wanted to shorten it to Queen but apparently there’s already been a band called Queen.’ If you’re at any festival this summer, you have a good chance of catching Zee, who hit stages at Reading, Leeds, and Camden Rocks to name but a few, and are supporting Skunk Anansie on their UK tour in August as well. Their live shows have a riotous reputation which ‘have come together naturally, it’s garage glam, spit sawdust and lipstick.’ ‘There’s such a growing spirit at our shows because it’s everyone. It isn’t a cult anymore it’s your dad, it’s your neighbours, it’s your teachers. That’s where we want to take it, inject some colour and energy into a mainstream that prides itself on its apathy.’ Their self-titled debut album was released to critical acclaim in February,
and fan favourites include the vibrant, bashy ‘Lucy Fur’. Zee explains: ‘Lucy Fur is about how for a long period of history lesbians were considered to be possessed by the devil or some sort of unnatural force. I play with that imagery in Lucy Fur and kind of go: maybe I am possessed.’ ‘The hard hitting ‘Victim Age’ was written about how we’ve seen a growing rise in the far-right positioning themselves at anti-establishment. It’s bizarre to me how Nigel Farage, an ex-banker millionaire could ever claim to be anti-establishment.” “Lyrics importantly reference humour as well, especially You fuck like a Porno Movie on ‘Porno Movie’, and Zee highlights ‘No one wants to be preached at, I think it adds a human element to the lyricism.”
being pigeon-holed as just a ‘gay punk band for the LGBTQ+ community’: “I really don’t think we are, we’re definitely more of a queer voice in the mainstream than a mainstream voice in the queer community.”
“we need to break the echo chamber and reach the mainstream
What they are concerned about is the lack of progress in world society towards the LGBTQ+ community. In response to Brunei reinforcing the death penalty for same-sex relations, Zee said: “No queer person was shocked by the news from Brunei. As a culture we just like to kid ourselves that we’re living in some sort of liberal metropolis the truth is, one in ten transgender women are murdered, ome in three sexually assaulted. That’s here in the U.K. we’re not going backwards because we were never there in the first place. “
In summarising their debut in one word, Zee called it anti-pop. It’s also, in my opinion, a vital breath of fresh air. Prevalent in their shows, rhetoric and music is their LGTBQ+ background, a community which has been gaining exposure and support in the punk and wider music scene. Zee adds, “the growing support is incredible, Queen Zee couldn’t exist in any other climate, yet we still have so far to go.” I also pointed out the support lent by bands such as IDLES, who cry in their angst-ridden single Colossus “I put homophobes in coffins”, and Queen Zee are attests: “As far as bands like IDLES lending their support, it’s key, we need to break the echo chamber and reach the mainstream.” The band are do not worry about, however,
This is, indeed, what makes Zee’s queer voice in the punk scene so vital, which itself thrives on a DIY ethos which really has become the only option for most musicians now. A youthful generation ignored, we have very similar conditions to 1969 with the birth of punk. Queen Zee offer a mixture of equal rights rhetoric, ripping and riotous anti-establishment punk, and the glam and shazam of drag culture – what’s not to like? All hail the new Queen. Queen Zee’s self-titled debut album is available now on all major platforms. Photography by Alex Hurst
STAGE Thursday, 9 May 2019
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Looking ahead Stage talks to the shows which are heading to Edinburgh Fringe By Martha Wrench Stage Editor stage@palatinate.org.uk
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he Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the world’s largest arts festival with over 50,000 performances of around 3500 productions taking place each year. It’s a jam-packed month of comedy, cabaret, improv, dance, and theatre which attracts thousands of people to its 300 venues all across Edinburgh. Amongst the multitude of shows every year, students from across the country take their productions up to the Fringe in the hope of sharing their upcoming talent with larger audiences. It’s a tough job trying to stand out amongst the thousands of shows on offer, but eight groups from Durham are going this year in the hope of bagging a successful run. I spoke to Gabbie Sills,producer of DUCT’s ‘Hamlet’, to understand why the Fringe is such a goal for student productions and what she hopes to gain from her experience: “The range of audiences you get to show your work to at the Fringe always feels valuable to a student company as you want to know how to grow, develop, and potentially take the piece onto a professional level.” “Meeting others of a similar profession, gaining experience from and collaborating with them always seems essential to the Fringe and is one of the reasons I always love going back because it is a hub of diverse and interesting people.” Although many students choose to take productions of published plays to the Fringe, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is also a honey-pot of new writing. Huge successes such as Fleabag, Six, and Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour made their debuts in Edinburgh. The Fringe is a great place to premiere new works with scouting talents and producers often on the look-out for what could potentially be the next big hit.
Rosie Dart, one of the creators and performers of Tappuccino, talked about why she chose to transfer her show (which has already had a successful run in Durham) to the Fringe and what she hopes to achieve: “Tappuccino is a super quirky show about a tap-dancing coffee bean which is told through original songs, circus, and tap dancing, so the Fringe seemed like the perfect place for such a different production!” “We’re developing the show for children with a focus on the environment, which is extremely relevant. We’re really excited to educate children in a fun and creative manner.” Tappuccino is not the only new piece of writing which is heading up to the Fringe this year. Three pieces from the Durham Drama Festival – Ophelia is Also Dead, Ladies who Lunch and Poseidon’s Playhouse - are also making the journey in the hope of receiving critical praise. If you are heading up to the Fringe this summer, do check out the many Durham shows that will be up there! Poster: Rosie Dart
Show schedule Bedlam: Wrong Tree Theatre
– 2nd-18th August (not including Sundays)
The Wheel of Improv: Musicals Edition!: Durham Improvised Musical – 19th-24th August
Unnatural Disaster: The
Durham Revue – 1st-25th August (not including 12th)
Hamlet: DUCT – 1st-10th August
Ophelia is Also Dead: Sightlines Production – 11-26th August
Ladies who Lunch: Fourth Wall – 2nd-16th August
Poseidon’s Playhouse – 2nd10th August
Skylight: Lion Theatre Company – 19-24th August
Tappuccino: Brunch Bunch Theatre Company – 30th July26th August
THE indigo INTERVIEW Thursday, 9 May 2019
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Fashion show season is far from over indigo discusses the debut LGBT+ fashion show with its founders By Zue Wei Leong Interview Editor interview@palatinate.org.uk
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he first LGBT+ university fashion show in Durham is arriving in style this summer on 17th June to raise money for the Albert Kennedy Trust. indigo gets an exclusive first look with its co-founders, Pauli Soravia and Coco Collard.
What inspired you to put on the fashion show? PS: Well, it was more of a project that was handed down to us from the president of Durham University’s LGBT+ Association, but we both really wanted to take charge because of our previous experiences modelling for fashion shows at university. Durham does love a good fashion show! CC: We thought it would be so empowering to put on an LGBT+ fashion show and such a nice change from the heteronormative fashion shows which we normally see here in Durham; they can sometimes be quite exclusionary for people from the community. There hasn’t been a university LGBT+ fashion show ever in the UK, which makes it a cool thing to be a part of. PS: But our primary aim is to raise money for an amazing national charity, Albert Kennedy Trust, which has been doing so much good in helping and supporting homeless LGBT+ youths in the UK.
-tory and the community, in general. At the same time, uprising is also about accessing your identity and finding joy through that process. So, the fashion show takes a darker, grittier look at the origins of LGBT+ movements but it will also be a celebration of identity, self-love and joy.
How do you think the fashion show will impact the LGBT+ community in Durham?
Tell us more about the theme of the LGBT+ fashion show, ‘Uprising’.
PS: As part of the community myself, I feel like there is not much to cater to us beyond Monday at Osbourne’s (Durham’s only LGBT+ night). The fashion show will be a huge step forward towards accessibility. It will give people an opportunity to access fashion in a new way, as we are featuring brands that make non-binary clothing and casting models from different backgrounds with different identities.
CC: If we look at the way rights were accessed and maintained in the LGBT+ community like the Stonewall riots and other protest movements, it was mostly through active resistance and uprising. It is a concept that is very endemic to LGBT+ his-
CC: To add to that, I’d say the fashion show will also be a celebration of the creativity of Durham’s LGBT+ community. We have so much talent from our student community coming together to make this event happen, from helping out
with choreography to agreeing to perform their drag or pole-dancing routines during the show. Through this project, we have also gotten in touch with Glow, a company looking to put on more LGBT+ nights in Durham next year. They will be running the after party for our fashion show and it will be a great sneak peek for what’s to come for our community!
Zack (HE/HIM) on his experience:
‘I got involved with the LGBT+ Fashion Show because I wanted to contribute to queer representation at Durham and help give back to our community. Growing up as a gay athlete in the US, representation has always mattered to me especially when paired with social action. We’re excited to fundraise for the Albert Kennedy Trust and to help our LGBT+ siblings who are struggling with homelessness because everyone deserves a safe place to live.’ Photography by Mateusz Jaworski