QueerCore is Homotopia’s talent development programme for early-career artists.
The programme runs for 12 months and offers tailored support for LGBTQIA artists in the Liverpool City Region to grow, build connections and develop new ideas.
QueerCore applications will open again early 2024
The 12-month programme of support, focused around a specific project includes;
- A £2000 grant to spend on developing a new project, idea or strand of work.
- A mentor appropriate to your needs as an artist/artist collective.
- Access to specialist workshops on fundraising, marketing/PR and financial management for artists.
- Mixers with other local queer artists, creatives and producers.
- A learning and development residential in…Blackpool!
- A chance to present some form of work/work-in-process at Homotopia Festival 2023.
- Join an alumni network of 20+ local queer creatives changing the world.
What are the details?
Over the course of this programme, you will have access to the Homotopia team, mentors and other LGBTQIA artists and producers. Rather than generic support, we aim to focus your QueerCore programme around a specific project or idea, so that we can guide you through something practical and hit the ground running when you join the programme.
QueerCore is also about creating a community, meeting members of QueerCore old and new, and the vast variety of artists, producers, and venues we work with in Liverpool and beyond.
We are flexible and adaptive and expect to change and tweak elements of the programme over the course of the 12 months, as well as finding more opportunities for artists on the programme; the informal as well as formal elements of the programme are important to us.
Our 2022 – 2023 cohort benefited from opportunities to perform, host workshops and/or exhibit their work during Homotopia Festival 2022. QueerCore alumni have received Arts Council England funding, directed a play on the Everyman main stage, worked with the BBC, won commercial commissions, and even starred in a major Netflix show. While on the programme, many received additional press coverage and an increase in their social media followers.
This programme is for artists who are ALL the following criteria:
- Define as LGBTQIA+;
- Are based in Liverpool City Region (Liverpool, Halton, Knowsley, St Helen, Wirral);
- Would say they are at an early stage in their career.
This opportunity is NOT just for under 25s, all early-career artists are welcome whatever their background. We would especially love to hear from applicants who belong to groups underrepresented in the arts, including QTIBPoC, queer D/deaf and disabled, and Trans* folks.