OPEN BOOK FESTIVAL PREVIEW: Kelly-Eve Koopman on Exploring the Queer Imaginary.
Kelly-Eve Koopman - Acclaimed writer, change-maker and artivist.
From 5–7 September, Cape Town will once again become the gathering place for bold ideas and brilliant storytelling as the Open Book Festival takes over the city. Now in its 14th year, the Festival is known for bringing together voices that challenge, inspire, and reimagine the world around us.
“Open Book has from the start prioritised creating a space that is inclusive, where people feel seen, safe and able to breathe out. The Festival is a time where we can celebrate each other's stories, and where we can engage and better understand each other's lived realities. As we see rights rolling back, it has become even more important for us to amplify queer voices, as well as those of other communities facing extraordinary challenges,” says Frankie Murrey, the Coordinator and Curator of Open Book Festival.
This year’s programme will once again feature a number of queer-focused programmes, one of which is called Exploring the Queer Imaginary, a panel dedicated to building worlds that break free from the limits of the present.
“I truly think that working in silos weakens what we do - spaces where diverse people but with similar goals share a room enable any acts of imagination to draw from so much knowledge, so much creativity and so many different experiences. It is also crucial to better understand the different present tense world each of us experiences - what needs to be included in these conversations that can better equip us to engage in acts of reimagination? Personally, I think of vital knowledge that should be part of our day to day, but which instead never makes it out of academic spaces (for example). Which makes me think about a growth in people working with that knowledge in different and exciting ways to enable community engagement. Whether it's through the kind of theatre work carried out by groups like Empatheatre, or the formation of partnerships between science and creative writing of the type you see at Stellenbosch University. I think this kind of work is how we survive, and being able to create a space for these kinds of conversations is incredibly exciting,” adds Murrey.
Chaired by Dr Lwando Scott, Exploring the Queer Imaginary will feature insights from Maneo Mohale, Kopano Maroga and Kelly-Eve Koopman.
SCAFFOLD’s editor-in-chief, Gary Hartley, speaks to acclaimed writer, change-maker and artivist Kelly-Eve about the power of imagining new worlds for queer lives, and how storytelling can shape the future.
When you imagine the future of queer communities, what values or principles feel essential to carry forward?
These questions are harder now more than ever. For me, what inspires me most about my queer community is the way that we have shown up for intersectional struggles the world over. The Palestinian solidarity space, anti-capitalist spaces, housing movements, environmental movements, work toward the safety of women and children. So many themes are helmed, occupied, lived and breathed through queer bodies and voices. I think for many of us, queer as a verb is important. Queerness is not merely a state of being but a practice. What does it mean to queer systems? To queer capitalism. Revolution is queer, because it is counter to the hetero-capitlaist systems we’ve been told are normative. I think this is important, and this is important for white queers to remember. To be queer is to show up everywhere where people are being pushed out, oppressed, forced into the margins. This is the pinnacle of queer politics, this is where we are most powerful. And in the future we must be everywhere, there must be no separation between what is or is not an LGBTQI issue or an LGBTQI space, of course this is based on deep systemic change but it’s what I dream of. The all-pervasiveness of queerness, framing the world, nature, religion, activism as holistically queer means a safer and, let’s face it, more fun world for all of us.
How can storytelling help us not only picture, but also move towards more inclusive and liberating worlds?
This is huge. Stories have never been just stories. Storytelling, trends and the values communicated through storytelling create public narratives. Narratives are what govern the way we see the world, they govern not just what we read, think and watch on TV but financial policies, war-mongering and basic human rights. In the social media age, and with the new story-god of the algorithm we’re in a constant narrative war. Add disinformation and the appeal of populism (often supported through AI) and we’re in the narrative trenches. Transformative stories, radical stories, authentic stories are important now as much as they were during every major world crisis. I don’t mean to be dramatic here but storytelling, narrative transformation, this is the way we protect and encourage critical thinking, critical dreaming, the lexicon of our imagined worlds. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but the right, the conservatives, the oppressors are weaponising story, so it’s important that on our side we make sure story is always a balm - is the space where we create healing for the wound. Public narrative is what happens when we tell diverse and true and radical and imaginative stories together. From sci-fi worlds, poetry, to documentary, to Instagram stories, all of these are important, these are the invisible threads where we can connect, where we can create a narrative tapestry that serves as a vision for a more beautiful society - a robust archive for the future in spaces where racist, capitalist, homophobic rot festers.
How do you navigate the tension between addressing urgent present-day issues and holding space for dreaming?
I don’t think dreaming and doing are separate. The activists I admire are the best artists and world builders I know. It takes a commitment to relentlessly dreaming up better, more just, more kind and more equal worlds to counter the violent capitalists we are told are inescapable. All successful social movements were and are built on dreams. The only reason why I do what I do is because I dream.
Also I think we can decolonise dreaming lol. That sounds so wanky, but Western religion and philosophy are the only arenas where the realms of dreaming and waking are so rigidly separate. In every other culture, the boundaries are far more porous, far more exciting and activating.
