Tuesday 21 January 2014

Art and Craft with a Queer Twist

                                                  Sam Orchard with a sample of his 'transguy' art

‘Homo Sweet Homo’ emblazoned on cushions, rainbow-printed tea towels and etchings depicting Superman and Batman in love.  It’s not your average art and craft market fare, but Everything and Everyone, a mini art and craft market come zine festival, is not your average event.  Scheduled as part of the Auckland Pride Festival 2014 programme, Everything and Everyone aims to celebrate gender and sexuality, with stallholders and their wares representing the spectrum of Auckland’s ‘rainbow community’

Attendees can expect to see a mix of goods which would usually grace the tables of a Kraftbomb or Zinefest event including jewellery, leather products, household linen, cards, soaps, comics and zines (small self-published magazines) but with items reflecting the diverse sexuality and gender identity of their creators, says organiser Sam Orchard.

The personal comic strip he will be exhibiting for sale, for example, follows his four-year journey transitioning from a female to a male identity.  Adopting the medium of a comic strip to tell his story has enabled him to explore the lighter side of the experience of being gender different.  This is in contrast to how he believes mainstream media would have approached his story, with the emphasis there, he speculates, more likely to have been on the potentially devastating emotional effects of switching gender.

Rooster Tails, as his comic is titled, ‘is a place where I can explore what is actually the cool stuff about being queer and transgender.’  For instance, ‘the funniness of going out with someone where the world thought we were both girls together.  And we’re, like, no, actually we’re still gay but we’re boys together.’

His vision for Everything and Everyone is for it to be a focal point for expression of all the identities our community embodies and an opportunity to celebrate and embrace them without bias.  The event will run from 4-7pm in St Kevin’s Arcade on Saturday 15 February and will be followed by Mixtape Sessions – a live music event run by Romp Project also aimed at Auckland’s rainbow community.


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