Deen Atger on @Disturbance, the Importance of Community and Curating Queer Spaces

Deen Atger is the creative director of Ugly Duck in Bermondsey, an organisation dedicated to providing creative spaces for queer artists. In 2020 Deen founded @Disturbance as trans led program that aims to elevating LGBTQIA+ voices in the arts. This yearly program of residencies, workshops, talks and a web network model where past artists return as juries, speakers and mentors is a community effort that benefits those just beginning in creative work, and culminates with digital and physical performances. The next @Disturbance show is running 10th, 11th and 12th of November.

Talking with Polyester editor Gina Tonic, Deen breaks down the program, how important holding physical spaces for queer people is and why inclusivity is more important than ever.

Your work at Ugly Duck provides a physical space for creatives, is this still as important in the years championing working from home? 

Yes I think it’s even more vital to have physical spaces for artists, public and community to be together. Ugly Duck is a large Victorian warehouse space in central London. We have many free exhibitions, an affordable bar and loads of different programs, workshops, meetups. It’s accessible and safe for people to be who they want to be without being judged at the entrance or by any of the staff.

Queer people especially need places to be able to meet up away from keyboards. We recently programmed Otherness Archives with their Trans Masc on Screen program. For the opening there were more than 200 people - mainly trans masc & gender non conforming - reunited under the same roof and this really rarely happens outside of clubs or outside of the internet.

For creatives to experiment it’s also important to have a physical space to create and share. We have a residency program which is used for rehearsals and creating new work. Recently we had Matisse Ciel Pagès, a trans and genderfluid, neurodivergent and disabled, multi-disciplinary performer. Their research is focused on creating pieces that serve as memoirs for living trans people and it’s important to share those discussions in a physical space. 

The internet can also be a place of polarised opinions which are poorly translated into harmful comments. In a physical space artists and creatives can bring nuances, a pallet of reflections, different language to tackle complicated subjects and open more healthy discussions. 
___STEADY_PAYWALL___

I love that @Disturbance makes a point to livestream the event, why is it so important to you to have this option for digital attendance? 

At first it’s because the project was born during lockdown, so the whole project was designed to be a slick and artistic live stream. We decided to continue as the entire camera equipment became part of the set design of our shows. It’s like we are welcoming people onto a contemporary art - TV set which glitches reality and live editing. 

More importantly the livestream offers accessibility for so many people and needs that it’s super important to continue doing it for people who might not be able to physically attend. 

It is also key for Ugly Duck to enable accessibility in the arts and support radical, diverse, queer artists, where ever you are based. We want for queers who live remotely can tune in and join us

All shows IRL and online will be translated into British Sign Language as well. 

You commented that @Disturbance makes the way for “paving the way for totally new aesthetics” - can you explain this a bit further? Why is platforming new aesthetics so important to the programme? 

Certain artists struggle to find a place to show their work because of the hybridity of their practice. We do offer them that space and that time to explore with the @Disturbance residency. 

I feel also when one mentions queer aeshetics the first thing that might come to mind is either drag or maybe club / party scenes (which I both love!). With @Disturbance we also want to make space for softness, slowness, with a touch of weirdness obviously too. We want to bring nuances to the front, for example Iranian artist Gisou Golshani will present a multi-sensory, immersive work referencing the mythological creature the Bittern bird who become a symbol to address social issues in Iranian society. In the meantime River Cao will be creating a large set design in which they perform scenes of mourning ceremonies from southern China. 

We want to transport audiences into different realities throught experimental queer story telling. 

How do you choose which creatives to present at @Disturbance? 

We do open calls to reach out to as many people as possible all around the UK. We partner with universities and other queer organisations to extend and share the call. We make a conscious effort to try to include, select and make particular space for neurodivergent and BIPOC artists. For this we also have juries from previous editions who come back to help us on the selection. This year we had Puer Deorum and Amy Pennington who were an incredible aid. We receive more and more applications, it’s always so hard to choose !

Who are some of your favourites from the lineup for @Disturbance and why?

 Ohhh this is a tough question and as cheesy as it might sound I really appreciate them all and especially as a selection, like, they make sense together. 

We have three fantastic performers who will be building large scale installations in which they will perform and 8 video artists who will be shown throughout the space and onto an online film portal.

With them we are creating a year-long program composed of workshops, a residency, three shows (10 - 12 Nov), an online film portal, more workshops and a magazine. All of it with paid artists and accessible tickets for the audience. I’m genuinely excited about sharing the result of our work to the public soon. 

Why do you think collaborative, community work is so important to queer people?

For me it is about creating a platform where more established members of the community help and guide their younger peers who are trying to navigate the artworld. 

It’s always a relief to work alongside people who have a deeper understanding of the complexities of who you are or what you might be going through. It can be super jarring to try to explain your non binary - trans identity.  There is a sense of recognition and solidarity within the @Disturbance community.

Find out more about @Disturbance here.