Homotopia Festival 2025: Uprising – Right Here. Right Now.

We’re over halfway through Homotopia Festival 2025! This year’s theme UPRISING has sparked bold and rebellious art across Liverpool and Merseyside, celebrating queer joy, resistance and community pride.

“At a time of increasing hostility towards queer and particularly trans people, it’s more important than ever that we rise up, fight back, come together and celebrate in spaces that nurture queer joy… and we’ve got much more to come.”

Sinéad Nunes, Interim Director

There’s still plenty ahead: Writers Prize Showcase, Scouse Sunday Dinner, Laugh-O-Dil Comedy Night, Unity Scratch Night, the sold-out Rebel Dykes Screening & Afterparty, and Day With(out) Art and many more.

Join us for our final week of the festival and check out some loud and unapologetically queer art and events this November!

For all event and ticket information, follow Homotopia Events

We’re looking for a new Director of Homotopia!

Homotopia are entering a new era! As we continue to celebrate our 20th year as the UK’s longest running queer arts and culture festival, we are looking for a director to drive the charity forward with innovative, ambitious, and inclusive leadership to help shape our next chapter.

Founded in 2003, Homotopia is a queer arts and social justice organisation, making a cultural impact through art and activism. Locally, we support emerging queer artists and the next generation of queer talent. In 2012, we became a National Portfolio Organisation, becoming the only dedicated queer arts organisation to be recognised in this way.

The role of Director is a dynamic leadership position, perfect for an arts professional with demonstrable experienced in producing, development and management to take on the organisation’s artistic and strategic development.

Building on Homotopia’s legacy, the Director will identify new opportunities for growth, implementing our three-year National Portfolio Organisation agreement with Arts Council England and overseeing the charity. This is a unique opportunity for you to creatively develop and strengthen our vision, mission, values and behaviours and ensure that Homotopia continues to grow from strength to strength.

Please note this is not an Artistic Director role.

You’ll be:

A natural leader who role models the behaviours Homotopia expects of others.

Able to demonstrate substantial previous leadership experience in executive arts management roles.

Experienced in working for an NPO organisation, with excellent relationship building and management skills.

Experienced in fundraising and income generation.

Excellent at financial management and be able to create, manage and interpret budgets

Knowledgeable about the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and communities.

Homotopia is an inclusive employer, we welcome people with diverse perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds. You’ll be encouraged to be your authentic self and you’ll have the freedom to develop professionally and personally in a supportive and empowering workplace.

We welcome applications from everyone and are committed to providing fair and inclusive opportunities throughout our recruitment process. As part of our commitment to inclusive recruitment, we offer a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for applicants who declare they have a disability and meet the essential criteria outlined in the person specification for this role. If you would like to be considered under this scheme, please let us know when you apply via email.

We understand that we learn best when we learn from each other. You can expect that your opinions and ideas will be valued and treated with respect.

For full details of the position please visit https://www.homotopia.net/were-hiring-homotopia-executive-director/

Closing Date for Applications: Monday 8 December, 10:00am

Terms of Employment:

Salary:  £37, 000 – £43, 000 FTE (£29,600 – £34,400 pro rata, 4 days a week)

Contract period:  Permanent

Hours:  30 hours per week

Location:  (2 days per week minimum from Homotopia office, and home working)

Probationary period:  6 months

Notice period: 3 months will apply to both employer and employee

Holiday entitlement: 23 days annual leave, plus bank holidays. (pro rata FT equivalent: 28 days). The Homotopia office closes for an additional two week period over Christmas.

Other benefits: There is a workplace pension scheme applicable to your employment. Further details are available from the Finance Office

Homotopia Executive Director Job Pack

Homotopia Executive Director Webinar Video

QueerCore Residency 2025 at Bidston Observatory

This year’s QueerCore Residency took us back to the magical surroundings of Bidston Observatory, where a group of early-career LGBTQIA+ artists came together for a weekend of learning, exchange, and creative exploration.
The residency was filled with workshops led by QueerCore mentors and alumni, who guided us through themes of uprising, self-care, play, and experimentation. Together, we explored how creativity can be both a tool for personal resilience and a catalyst for bold, new ideas.
From poetry to puppetry, character work to creative writing, artists experimented with different forms of expression, testing out new ways to take risks, nurture imagination, and strengthen their practices.

Reflections from the weekend:

“For our 2025 QueerCore residency, we returned to the beautifully unique Bidston Observatory for a weekend of learning, exchange and creative exploration. A series of workshops facilitated by QueerCore mentors and alumni delved into themes of uprising, self-care, experimentation and play, offering our artists practical and imaginative tools to strengthen their practice. We explored how poetry, creative writing, character development and puppetry as artistic forms can help us structure ideas, take creative risks and nurture resilience. The weekend not only deepened our artistic practices but also strengthened our bonds as a group, creating a supportive community that will continue beyond the residency.”

Ashleigh Owen, Development Producer, reflects on the experience.

About QueerCore

QueerCore is Homotopia’s talent development programme for early-career LGBTQIA artists. Running for six months, it offers tailored support, mentoring, and creative opportunities for artists based in the Liverpool City Region.
The residency weekend is a highlight of the programme — a chance to come together, share practices, and build connections that extend far beyond the residency itself.

Access Pride 2025, presented by Homotopia and Sahir House:

Join us at The Brink on the 26th of July to celebrate LGBTQIA+ creativity, community and connection in a space built with access and care at its heart. We are delighted to present open mics with lots of incredible performers and a bunch of workshops to get stuck in to – come and soak up the queer joy in a safe, joyful space! Homotopia are delighted to have collaborated with Sahir House to present this event.

Details:

📅 Saturday 26th July
🕚 Time: 11am – 5pm
📍 The Brink, Parr St, L1 4JN
💫 Free, inclusive & accessible

BOOK NOW!

About the campaign:

Statistics consistently show that people in the LGBTQIA+ community disproportionately experience mental health conditions when compared to the general population.

This pride month, local Merseyside charities Homotopia Arts and Open Door are teaming up to show our support for the community, and to raise awareness of the vital importance of effective mental health support for LGBTQIA+ individuals.

We ran a t-shirt design competition open to entries from anyone identifying as LGBTQIA+ between the ages of 16-25. The winning design that you see comes from Beau Kay (they/them), a local illustrator and animator. Beau’s work can be found on Instagram @wormsuperfan_art and on their Linktree here: www.linktr.ee/wormsuperfanart.

All funds raised from Everpress will be split between the two charities, ensuring that we can continue our powerful work to support LGBTQIA+ youth.

Purchase the T- Shirt here: https://everpress.com/opendoor-homotopia#more-info

About the charities:

Homotopia is an arts and social justice organisation making a cultural impact through art and activism. Born and bred in Liverpool, their work supports and platform local, national, and international Queer and trans creatives, artists, and makers. They do this through a year-round programme of activity, which includes working with young people, artist CPD and our annual festival. Homotopia Festival is the UK’s longest running LGBTQIA+ arts festival, celebrating it’s 21st edition later this year.

Open Door Charity is committed to providing free, fast and effective mental health support to young people across Merseyside. They provide a range of programmes without long waiting lists or lengthy referrals, to get young people the right support, at the right time. Their flagship service Bazaar is an eight week peer-mentor led programme, that has a track record of significantly reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, having powerful, life changing outcomes for members.

Find out more about Open Door Charity:http://www.opendoorcharity.com

Homotopia are delighted to announce Trans Women Welcome – Sophie Green x Homotopia

Homotopia have collaborated with the incredible Sophie Green on a campaign to encourage arts spaces, venues and businesses to display inclusive signage in their buildings following the recent Supreme Court ruling. Sophie has created a bespoke A3 print that features an important message: Trans Women Welcome. The print is free from FACT Liverpool reception. Display to show your support. Prints are available to collect from today, a huge thank you to our friends at FACT for helping us to distribute them.

Some words from our Co-Chairs, Sinéad Nunes & Danny Kilbride:

We stand in solidarity with our trans sisters now and always. As an activist arts organisation, this is a vital campaign to ensure that the trans community know where they are welcome, safe and celebrated in the Liverpool City Region. We hope that this campaign will not only highlight established trans-friendly and queer spaces, but encourage more venues and businesses to learn and consider what they can do to create safer spaces. This was also a perfect moment to honour Sophie Green; a fantastically talented Liverpool-based trans artist who has been part of Homotopia’s story for many years, and we hope will continue to be for many more!

Do you want to take part in a photo project celebrating the vibrant LGBTQIA+ community of Liverpool?

Join photographer Ming De Nasty in celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community of Liverpool’s city centre through a unique socially engaged photography project; Residents. 📸

LGBTQIA+ people have long gathered in the city centre for safety, community, and self-expression –  Residents aims to honour that culture by making their presence visible via public artworks. This project aims to be intergenerational, reflecting the long LGBTQIA+ history of Liverpool and a younger experience of what the LGBTQIA+ scene is today – where people of all ages meet and connect.

If you live in the heart of Liverpool or feel like the city centre is ‘home’ we would love to hear from you! To be part of a major public exhibition celebrating LGBTQIA+ identity, all participants must live within the Liverpool City Region. Your portrait will become part of a public exhibition, displayed across the city centre in a celebration of identity and belonging. ❤️

If you want to join this project, email [email protected] with subject line “Residents project“.

Deadline: 30th May

Residents is a Socially Engaged Photography project by Ming de Nasty, Open Eye Gallery, Homotopia and LGBTQIA+ community members. Residents is part of the Photo Here programme – a series of 6 residencies with a variety of groups around the Liverpool City Region. Residents is also part of Homotopia Festival 2025.