About the Festival
Southeast Asia Queer Cultural Festival 2021: "Be/Longings" is a virtual festival that reclaims, reimagines, and insists on LGBTIQ belonging in the region. It features 30+ works, performances and events by 40+ queer activists and artists from all over Southeast Asia that can be experienced in various online platforms.
Organizer
SEAQCF is being organized by ASEAN SOGIE Caucus (ASC), a network of human rights activists from Southeast Asia. The ASC works for the inclusion of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) in the mandate of human rights duty bearers in the ASEAN region. The ASC works for the promotion and protection of the human rights of all persons regardless of SOGIESC in the Southeast Asian region.
ASC is legally registered as a non-stock and non-profit organization in the Philippines under the name Southeast Asia Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression Caucus (ASC), Inc.
The organization is in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2021.
The festival is supported by Voice, an innovative grant facility to support rightsholders and groups facing marginalisation or discrimination in their efforts to exert influence in accessing productive and social services and political participation. Voice is an initiative of and financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands as part of their overall policy framework 'Dialogue and Dissent' (future Power of Voices) and is executed by a consortium between Oxfam Novib and Hivos.
CamASEAN, Cambodia
Hanoi Queer,
Iloilo Pride Team,
Micro Rainbow International,
Mujer LGBTQ,
Panggung Minoritas,Festival Theme
The festival theme, 'Be/Longings', is a play on the words, "being", "longings", and "belonging". "Being" represents the full complexity and diversity of our identities as LGBTIQ people living in Southeast Asia. "Longing", which translates to kerinduan in Bahasa Indonesia or Bahasa Melayu, and pangungulila in Filipino, represents our yearnings and dreams for a region that is genuinely caring, inclusive, and respectful of diversity. "Belonging" asserts that LGBTIQ people have always been part of the collective memories of the Southeast Asian community -- way before the creation of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its member States.
This festival is a collective effort among LGBTIQ people in the region to challenge our exclusion, invisiblization, and persecution by governments and other institutions, and to reimagine an inclusive Southeast Asian community.
Festival Vision
SEAQCF is envisioned to be a virtual platform that celebrates LGBTIQ inclusion in Southeast Asia. Advocates, artists and cultural workers will come together to share cultural works that reclaim, reimagine, and insist on LGBTIQ belonging in the region, and to build stronger bonds of regional community.
We seek to cultivate the collective memory of Southeast Asian LGBTIQ persons. This term refers to the cultural narratives of the community that are centred around shared identities and their relationship to both an imagined common past and a vision of a common future. It is not a static record of history, but an evolving consciousness, constantly morphing as it is performed, narrated and interpreted in contemporary situations.
The festival also functions as a political space to foster alternative regionalism. This refers to a collaborative process of holding accountable regional institutions (e.g. ASEAN) through people-oriented approaches within and outside State territories and functions. It involves strengthening the political leverage of transnational civil society and social movements to counter hegemonic regional governance arrangements that exclude marginalized groups. Activities may include learning programs based on grassroots needs, developing new paradigms for regional engagement, and building solidarity among civil society groups across boundaries.
In the context of this project, we aim to bring together both historical and contemporary narratives of LGBTIQ inclusion derived from experiences in different Southeast Asian countries, and collaboratively weave and shape a transformative discourse: a collective memory of an inclusive Southeast Asia.
Festival Team
ASC Regional Coordinator: Ryan Silverio
ASC Communications Team: Lini Zurlia & Jessica Rachel
Festival Coordinator: Ivanka Custodio
Assistant Coordinator: AR Arcon
Festival Advisory Board
Mikee Inton-Campbell
Mikee Inton-Campbell: Mikee Inton-Campbell is a trans academic and activist from the Philippines. She is a board member of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) and a member of the International Trans Fund's Grant Making Panel. Her work as an academic centers on representations of queerness in Asian cinema and media.
Pang Khee Teik
Pang Khee Teik- Pang Khee Teik is an activist, curator, organiser, photographer, editor and writer based in Malaysia. In 2008, while working as Programme Director at The Annexe Gallery, he co-founded the sexuality rights festival Seksualiti Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur together with fellow activists and artists. The festival was banned by the police in 2011. He is also the co-founder of QueerLapis.com, a website by and for LGBT people in Malaysia. Pang is presently the Programme Manager for Innovation For Change-East Asia.
Ng Yi-Sheng
Ng Yi-Sheng- Ng Yi-Sheng (he/him) is a Singaporean writer, researcher and activist. His books include the short story collection Lion City and the poetry collection last boy (both winners of the Singapore Literature Prize), SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century, Loud Poems for a Very Obliging Audience and Black Waters, Pink Sands. He tweets and Instagrams at @yishkabob.
