Queer artists are encouraged to submit work that represents their practice and responds to the exhibition’s theme: Interrupt. As LGBTQIA+ people, we operate within the matrix of a cis-heteronormative society. We are often unseen. When we are noticed, we are often ‘othered’. Interrupt aims to challenge and disrupt the system and the cis-heteronormative gaze.

Interrupt art exhibition will be a central element of Queerfest Norwich 2024.The show will be held from 8 to 24 February 2024 at the Shoe Factory Social Club, St Marys Plain, Norwich NR3 3AF.

We are delighted to have a guest curator, Sakib Khan, who will work with Rachel Collier-Wilson to produce the show.

Sakib Khan 

Sakib is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and producer. Their creative practice crosses the mediums of digital, textile and more traditional drawing and collage. They have worked in fashion, performance and the arts over their career. 

As an artist, Khan’s work aims to weave together the many different strands of their intersectional identity. They are a Queer neurodivergent person of South Asian heritage, and this intersectional identity has become an unconscious underlying influence across their work. 

Rachel Collier-Wilson 

Rachel is a fine artist/printmaker. They established Queerfest Norwich in 2023 to coincide with LGBT+ History Month. Their curating work grew from a keenness to support other Queer creatives in their practice and provide a professional platform to showcase and sell Queer-made work. In 2022 Rachel wanted to explore and promote stories of the Queer experience. They started talking to others about events that would be of value to the Queer community and ended up organising a month-long curated arts programme. 

Rachel’s practice includes figurative portraiture, drawing and printmaking. They are interested in exploring memory and emotion and considering the relationship between the narrative of portraits, the memories they represent and how they evoke a sense of identity.

Exhibition brief

Artists are encouraged to submit work that represents their practice and responds to the exhibition’s theme: Interrupt.

As LGBTQIA+ people, we operate within the matrix of a cis-heteronormative society. We are often unseen. When we are noticed, we are often ‘othered’. Interrupt aims to challenge and disrupt the system and the cis-heteronormative gaze.

Interrupt is to be curated to foreground varied stories of Queer experience. The exhibition aims to validate and affirm marginalised identities, potentially sparking new ideas in individual practice and supporting emerging artists. Artists may wish to share art that addresses topics of gender, sexuality, gender dysphoria, mental health, combating stigma, masculine- and feminine-presenting folk and, of course, some fun and playfulness.

Queerfest Norwich seeks to extend the network created with Queerfest 2023 beyond Norwich and East Anglia. We particularly want to involve people with intersecting identities, such as people of colour, disabled people, and those identifying as transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming, who are often under-represented in the arts.

This opportunity is open to artists from all disciplines, including painting, drawing, printmaking,  sculpture, ceramics, textiles, photography, video and mixed media.