QueerCore
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.
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.
- Join an alumni network of 20+ local queer creatives changing the world.
QueerCore applications will open again early 2024.
How it works
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.
QueerCore Artists 2023
Luke Fawcett
(he/him)
Luke is an architectural designer and creative researcher, passionate about preserving Queer heritage whilst considering the future of Queer spaces. His work explores the history of LGBTQ+ communities in Northern England – retelling the often overlooked and undocumented stories of our past through spatial remodelling and artistic interpretations. Here, he hopes to correct Queer archival silences and create new ways for our community to engage with our heritage.
Ollie Adebisi
(She/They/He)
Being child of Nigerian and Moroccan immigrants and shamelessly queer, neurodivergent, polyamorous and ex-Muslim, Ollie feels that representation is vital. Their writing includes prose, poetry, playwriting and screenwriting. Ollie enjoys delving into her own psychology as well as the psychology of the world around them, using their work to process their identity and perspective.
Grace Tompkins
(She/Her)
Grace is a writer, performer, and producer based in Liverpool. Her work contains themes of community, nature and power, with a specific focus on how art in online spaces can be used to deceive or mislead audiences. She likes long walks on the beach, lists of three, and Hubert Selby Jnr.
Bronwyn Andrews
(They/Them)
Bronwyn is a non-binary photographer/multidisciplinary artist from Louth, Ireland. Their photographic practice is grounded in the Sapphic experience. They are interested in examining Ireland’s heritage and how our national memory affects us today, as well as Pre Catholic/Christian imagery. Bronwyn interrogates these themes via Socially Engaged portraiture as well as self-portraiture, with their queer identity firmly at the centre.
Since arriving in Liverpool in 2023, they quickly involved themselves in Liverpool’s Socially Engaged Photography scene, working with Open Eye Gallery to help communities in Merseyside tell their stories. They’re also finding their feet as a Baby Dyke DJ!