Join us at Canning Town Library for an art-filled evening led by Miles Coote from Queer Life Drawing Conversation. In addition to drawing life models, focus is given to developing conversations about nudity, sexuality, gender, and queer theory in relation to queer bodies and sexual health.
This session will focus on the development of a Queer LDC archive for LGBT history month. We are inviting artist and model Olly to pose, to reflect on their involvement in the project during the Pandemic, and use of the online video platform Zoom as a space for queer life drawing conversations.
Art materials and refreshments will be provided. You are welcome to join in drawing, posing and contributing to the conversation.
The exhibition will be open at Paul Smith Beak Street from 30June – 28 August 2023.
“This year, to mark Pride 2023, we’ve worked with four incredible artists – Fiona Quadri, Megan Elliott, Queen Josephine, and Miles Coote – to create original pieces for a special exhibition at our Beak Street shop in London’s Soho opening just in time for the city’s incredible Pride parade.”
As much as we often see Pride as a period of celebration, our thoughts around this time of year often turn to reflection – and that’s just one of the reasons we partner with MindOut, the Brighton-based LGBTQ+ charity dedicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer mental health through their listening service and beyond. And this year, to mark Pride 2023, it was important to us to showcase the voices of people from the community, through the medium they know best: their art. We’ve worked with four incredible artists – Fiona Quadri, Megan Elliott, Queen Josephine, and Miles Coote – to create original pieces for a special exhibition at our Beak Street shop in London’s Soho opening just in time for the city’s incredible Pride parade.
50% of the purchase price from the sale of each work will be donated to MindOut* while the artists will receive the other 50%. In addition, we will also donate 50% of the proceeds from all PS Paul Smith Happy sales made in the UK, US, France online and in store between 30 June – 6 July 2023 to MindOut. Read more about the artists, their thoughts on Pride and what they’re trying to say with their work below.
Pride is a political day of celebration for LGBTQIA+ identifying people. It is a moment for me to celebrate my identity and relationship with my partner who I love.
How does Pride manifest itself in your work in the exhibition?
In my artwork I create a representation of gender and sexuality through Queer Life Drawing and Painting. My Paintings explore the visual language of contemporary art made by LGBTQIA+ artists, with a focus on queer auto ethnography as a method of storytelling and semi fiction.
What does mental health mean to you?
My mental health and resilience is extremely important in my day to day practice and can challenge the artworks I make and the ability to make them. It can be affected by the agency I feel I have to make a change in my life and social change in society. By developing the Queer Life Drawing Conversation project and working with people who have faced prejudice or discrimination because of their gender, sexuality, and race and disability, has helped me and others to come together and empower our experiences, knowledge, and mental health.
How does Pride affect your mental health?
Going to Pride and walking in the march was a really exciting experience. I marched with my partner in the Out to Swim team and we all wore our swimming costumes and trainers – revealing our queer bodies. It was a time to be political and socialise with new people and make new friends.
Why did you become an artist?
The career I chose was based on my experiences of drawing and painting. I can remember sitting at a table and drawing the human figure from memory when I was 3 to 4 years old. Art making has been an intimate way of communicating and also learning about my gender and sexuality.
Queer Life Drawing Conversation with artist and model Cazimi in celebration of Trans Pride Hastings and Bexhill
Saturday 22 July, 4 – 5.30 pm at the De La Warr Pavillion, Bexhill on Sea
Life drawing and conversations led by artist Miles Coote. This session will celebrate Trans Pride with model and artist Cazimi, also known as spirit doll. Miles Coote will explore Cazimi’s art practice, and we invite you to draw, pose and join in with the conversation.
Spirit Doll is the artist name of androgynous creature Cazimi. Spirit Doll is a gender expansive artist and performer, who’s practice explores many forms including self portrait photography, drag, pole dance, radical cabaret, drawing, digital art, dolls, clothing and costume. Spirit Doll’s practice focuses on exploration of identity, character creation, pushing boundaries and revealing parts of his inner world.
Book online at www.dlwp.com : Adults, £5 / Free (for Trans, non-binary and gender expansive folk) Tea and Treats provided
Hastings first official Trans Pride celebration will take place across Hastings, St Leonards and Bexhill between the 22nd and 29th July 2023. The events are for local trans, non-binary and gender expansive folk and their allies and this year’s focus is on community building, support and celebration.
Other events at the DLWP
TRANS PRIDE BADGE MAKING
Led by artist Harry McMorrow FREE, Drop-in, Main Foyer Saturday 22 July, 3 – 4 pm
Come and try your hand at making your own badge! You can draw a flag, write your pronouns, slogans, cartoons- get creative! Badge design templates will be provided but feel free to bring any images or materials you’d specifically like to use.
Life drawing and conversations led by artist Miles Coote. Three sessions focusing on three different themes with different sitters; Horticulture, the environment and queer cooperatives, Queer identities surrounding sex and sexual health, and a focus on the art of Angelo Madsen Minax and Miles Coote.
Explore our Queeriosities art and makers fair led by LGBTQ+ creatives and businesses, including a panel discussion on queer domestic making and style.
On Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 May 2023, Museum of the Home hosted a Queeriosities art & makers fair led by LGBTQ+ creatives and businesses exploring visions and representations of domesticity, identity and home.
Curated by Davy Pittoors, the fair featured over 35 stall holders offering a selection of ceramics, paintings, mixed media, sculpture, textiles, books, gifts and homewares.
QueerLDC led a room installation with exhibiting artists and creatives: Lucie Russell, Danbob Clarke, Stephen Roberts and Aslie Pitter. Miles Coote facilitated Queer Life Drawing Conversation drop in sessions with conversations from artists exhibiting in the fair, volunteers, the curator Davy Pittoors, and the exhibition coordinator Emma Rock.
The event focused on themes of domesticity and the home. The Museum hosted a panel discussion moderated by Pittoors exploring themes of Queer domestic making and style. Members of the panel discussion: Professor Matt Cook, author of Queer Domesticities, artist and architect Martha Summers, and writer, director, and cultural producer Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan.
This is the first time the museum has led the Queer Art Fair and we look forward to participating the following year.
More of the artworks on display at the event are available in the QueerLDC Shop
Queer Life Drawing events at the De La Warr Pavillion: Saturday 25 March 2023 – Saturday 13 May 2023
Please note: These events are for ages 18+
Queer life drawing and conversations at the De La Warr Pavillion led by artist Miles Coote. Three sessions focusing on three different themes with different sitters; Horticulture, the environment and queer cooperatives, Queer identities surrounding sex and sexual health, and a focus on the art of Angelo Madsen Minax and Miles Coote.
A focus on the art of Angelo Madsen Minax and Miles Coote
An online Zoom session and hybrid event in conversation with Angelo Madsdn Minax and Miles Coote. This is a queer intervention of the format of Angelo’s current exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion, which will aim to intimately explore both artists’ practices through queer life drawing and conversations.
29 April
Queer identities surrounding sex and sexual health and the Bareback Museum
In 2020 PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis antiviral) was made available for free by the NHS to prevent the infection of HIV. This session will focus on conversations about sexual health scripts within the LGBTQIA+ community since the introduction of PrEP and will invite Anthony Gifford ( PhD candidate and retired dancer) to model for this session and to discuss his research on the psychosocial influences on the decision to take PrEP. We hope to broaden the conversation towards the queering identities of unprotected sex and queer methods interacting in social science on embodiment theory and the nude interview as a qualitative research practice.
13 May
Horticulture, the environment and queer cooperatives
The final session will explore environmental activism in relation to queer bodies, exploring a conversation about embodiment as a methodology for environmental change: drawing on histories of queer organising, queer cooperatives and connections with the environment and horticulture. We are thrilled to have Councillor Claire Carr of the Green Party to model for this session.
A Queer Life Drawing Conversation led online on Zoom by Miles Coote and Lucie Russell, hosted by LGBT Foundation’s Sexual Health Team with a life model. The theme of this session will focus on women’s sexual health awareness in relation to visual arts practices. You are welcome to join in drawing, posing and contributing to the conversation.
This event is suitable for ages 18+ and contains nudity.
Please have your materials ready – pencil, pens, paper, anything you can draw with. Beginners welcome and encouraged!
Queer Life Drawing Conversation is a project led by Miles Coote which developed during the pandemic as a way to explore queer bodies and conversations. Lucie Russell is a PhD candidate at University of the Arts London and leads life drawing and community arts workshops, Drawing People Together
Catherine Hoffmann will be life modelling for this event. Catherine is a Live artist based in Folkestone, who attempts to address aspects of contemporary life looking at class, healing, mental health & feminism. Her work sits in the intersection between performance, absurd humour and music. She creates interactive work, cabaret as well as staged pieces for theatres, art centres, festivals, galleries, club settings and varied sites in the UK and abroad. DIY song making and music is a big part of her practice.
Sugar & Spice is a chance for LGBTQ+ women to come together, learn, and celebrate themselves and each other, with a host of free events. Delivered by LGBT Foundation’s Women’s Programme, with support from our Sexual Health team.
This event is open to all, but please be aware Sugar & Spice is centred around LGBTQ+ women.
Drawing People Together invites you to “Make an Exhibition of Yourself” – a series of affordable and accessible events that explore representing people.
Experiment with diverse creative experiences and materials;
Draw and/or be drawn at a wide range of life drawing events (models with and without clothing)*
Make a zine, collage with fabric, create a recipe of yourself on canvas
Wear yourself out (represent yourself on a tote) – Take a nail art masterclass
Send yourself to a loved one (on a postcard)
And immerse yourself in innovative local fashion and film
Everybody is welcome, all abilities. We provide the materials… you provide the talent!
Have serious fun taking part, display your work in the gallery, and go home with a new (or even nude?!) experience, and perhaps a masterpiece!
Please note that although some events welcome all ages, for all life drawing, attendees must be over the age of 18.
Copeland Gallery, Painting by Miles Coote with collaboration from Peter Hollamby, Drawings created by participants of the Queer LDC: Life Drawing Cafe Performance Workshop
Life Drawing Cafe Event Description:
A social event and durational performance workshop inviting you to collaborate in the imagining of a life drawing cafe co-op
A durational performance workshop exploring the hybridity of life drawing and cafes. This event is inspired by Queer life drawing conversations and Jurgen Habermas’s writings on coffee houses and the public sphere.
Miles will host the event You are welcome to draw and/or take part posing and workshopping a live art performance. Six sheets of A2 Paper and drawing materials will be provided, with an extra cost for additional paper. Participants may bring their own materials, props and garments (suitable for life drawing).
Life drawing cafe is a durational performance workshop exploring the hybridity of life drawing and cafes. This event is inspired by Queer life drawing conversations and Jurgen Habermas’s writings on coffee houses and the public sphere.
The event will run as hybrid event, online on Zoom and live from Brief Encounter Cafe, Sivyers, Bexhill-on-Sea (East Sussex, UK). Miles will host the event. You are welcome to draw, take part posing and workshopping a live art performance. Three sheets of A2 Cartridge Paper and drawing materials will be provided for participants attending at the venue, with an extra cost for additional paper. Participants may bring their own drawing materials, props and garments (suitable for life drawing).
The performance workshop was curated by Lucie Russell at the Copeland Gallery in September 2022 for the Exhibition “Making an Exhibition of yourself” in a group show with artists: Nicola J Reid, Jaffar Aly, Yo Keshh,Life Drawing 2B or Not 2B Collective, Breakfast Bodies, Sketch Appeal and Steve Russell. Since then, live events are led on a bi monthly basis at the Brief Encounter Cafe, Sivyers Auction Emporium, Bexhill on Sea.
The Brief Encounter Cafe has a fantastic selection of cakes and beverages available and original furniture for sale.
This event contains nudity. You must be eighteen or above to attend.
Brief Encounter Cafe, Sivyers Auction Emporium, Bexhill on Sea
Join us at Canning Town Library for an art-filled evening led by Queer Life Drawing Conversation. In addition to drawing life models, focus is given to developing conversations about nudity, sexuality and queer theory in relation to queer bodies and sexual health.
Art materials and refreshments provided. All you need to bring is yourself and an open mind. You are welcome to join in drawing, posing and contributing to the conversation. The theme for the event is the ‘Life Drawing Cafe.’
This event contains nudity. 18+ Adults only.
Can’t make it in person? Contact Queer Life Drawing Conversation to take part online via Zoom at milescoote@gmail.com.
Peckham Queer Art Boot Fair Bellenden Road and Choumert Market Sunday August 29, 2021 12 – 3 PM
MOCA London and The Queer Life Drawing Conversation (Miles Coote) would like to invite you to join us for the first ever Peckham Queer Art Boot Fair. Over 50 artists from the LGBTQ+ community and their allies will be showing works of art on Bellenden and Choumert Roads in the heart of Peckham.
The event is free for all to come along and look, join in the free life drawing events and purchase wonderful works (such as prints, drawings, sculptures, photos, ceramics and clothing design) from amazing contemporary artists. Wander down Bellenden Road and pop into the many shops who are participating, many hosting an artist, and then attend the main area of the boot fair in the traditional Southwark market street – Choumert Road.
The fair will open to the public at 12 noon for 3 hours so it is not a long day. Many of the local shops participating are also planning wonderful surprises too!
We will have friendly volunteers in MOCA branded rainbow shirts to guide you.
Lockdown and arts funding cuts have made us aware that many Queer archives may be lost, so the event is another way of sharing Queer Art/objects in the public space, where they may be seen, archived and discussed with local communities. The Queer LDC and Drawing People Together (Lucie Russell) will run a pop up drawing event on Choumert Road and we would love people to bring along any Queer objects they would like to share or have drawn on the day.
