Post-Soviet Queerness, Archiving, and the Art of Resistance

The project emerged as reaction to the rise in homo- and transphobia in post-Soviet countries. While oppressive legislations, structural and physical violence are well analyzed (Kondakov 2017, Stella 2015), the ways queer lives resist, continue and form queer communities are severely under-researched. Taking the risk of queer visibility in post-Soviet spheres seriously, the project makes an argument for opacity as queer strategy. Building on Édouard Glissant’s concept of opacity as a right as well as “an ethical stance against imperial conquest and domination” (1997), we raise questions of how arts-based research practices are able to recognize and articulate the opacities of queer lives in different post-Soviet contexts in a meaningful way. We further ask how such practices can “produce” scientific research results, yet avoid forms of othering. We preserve and show post-Soviet queer lives without exposing individuals further to homophobic violence to constitute a basis for collective recognition and queer community building.
Closely working with artists and activists in the post-Soviet cities of Almaty (Kazakhstan), Kaunas (Lithuania), Kharkiv (Ukraine), Novosibirsk (Russia) and Yerevan (Armenia), we develop new arts-based methodologies to explore and register traces of queer lives within the post-Soviet space. Our original artsbased
methodology called the “Dream Machine” starts with the collective crafting of a queer reconfiguration of Brion Gysin’s “Dream Machine” (stroboscopic flicker device). The device is an opportunity to build community through working together, and metaphorically, will be used to inspire the imagination of a “queer horizon” (Muñoz 2009) through free association, free-writing, text cut-ups and arrangements, taking photographs, performing or filming. The results of these workshops reflect queer local experiences, hopes and dreams without exposing them. They will be deposited to the archive “The Magic Closet,” an artistic reappropriation of the gay closet (Kosofsky Sedgwick 1990) that will be launched and disseminated in the form of a website and a joint exhibition/performance night of “Théâtre Optique” in Vienna.
The project leader Wiedlack has experience in successfully realizing research projects and extensive knowledge on queer theory and the post-Soviet context. Neufeld is a clinical psychologist and queer theorist, who will bring in her expertise in working with vulnerable groups, specifically queer communities in the post-Soviet space. Godovannaya, a visual artist, experimental filmmake and queer-feminist researcher/activist, and Jenrbekova, a trans*feminist performance artist, poet and creative writer, will lead the artistic aspects of the project.