CREATING QUEER COMMUNITIES

Queer Cultural Center is thrilled to relaunch Creating Queer Communities, our beloved professional development training program for queer and trans artists in the San Francisco Bay Area. For over 25 years, Creating Queer Communities has been an incredibly successful program that gives artists an opportunity to build their knowledge base around their artistic practice by providing small grants, free educational opportunities, and mentorship. Starting in 2024, QCC is offering this paid, structured learning and performance opportunity at two levels for the first time. 

Creating Queer Communities, our longtime artist professional development program and prep program for many NQAF lead artists, is back and better than ever. CQC will now run as a 12-month training program for emerging and established QTBIPOC SF Bay Area artists tailored for the needs of artists at those differing levels. CQC Level One artists will apply for a program cycle starting and ending in the Fall, while CQC Level Two artists and artist collectives/collaboratives will apply for a program cycle starting and ending in the Spring. (Confused? Remember it like this – Level One in the Fall, Level Two in the Spring).

Graphic dsplays faded image of a forest of trees, overlayed with different white highighted text and a green text bubble. At the top of the graphic in white reads “ESTABLISHED ARTISTS & COLLECTIVES (SECOND LEVEL).” A white curved line connects that text to text at the bottom of the graphic, that reads “EMERGING ARTISTS (FIRST LEVEL)” and “CREATING QUEER COMMUNITIES.” In the middle of the graphic, the green text bubble holds text that reads: “For more than 25 years, Queer Cultural Center has been training LGBTQIA2S+ artists and culture workers to round out their professional development with training in critical topics such as grant writing, marketing, budgeting, taxes for artists, and more. For the first time we are branching our Creating Queer Communities program into two groups based on level of experience. Now, we can offer tailored services to artists and artist collectives who are already established in their practices.”

In addition to showcasing the work of these peer training cohorts of CQC first- and second- level artists, QCC will round out programming for the Fall and Spring National Queer Arts Festivals by curating a smaller number of longer-term collaborative projects with seasoned QTBIPOC leaders. The main anchor for 2024 is the culmination of three years of collaboration between QCC and Tongva queer / two-spirit artist L. Frank Manriquez for the creation of the second ti’at (wood plank) canoe build in the last 200 years. Stay tuned for more information about this beautiful, life-affirming project.

2024 CREATING QUEER COMMUNITIES

OPEN CALL – 2025 Creating Queer Communities – First Level

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What is Creating Queer Communities?  Queer Cultural Center is thrilled to announce the next round of Creating Queer Communities, our beloved professional development training program for Queer and Trans artists in the San Francisco…
Headshot images of seven diverse LGBTQ artist

Announcing Our Creating Queer Communities Level 2 Cohort!

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This is an exciting moment - we are announcing the first Creating Queer Communities (CQC) Level 2 cohort, designed to help local LGBTQ2IA+ artists advance their technical and creative production skills. This is our first ever level 2 cohort, a new aspect of our artists development program designed to help local LGBTQ2IA+ artists hone their ability to devise and produce original artworks for our community. We’re excited to welcome Deon Brown, Tiara Amar, Esotérica Tropical, Grupo Chuqui Chinchay, Lyn Patterson, Sagaree, and Yanni Brumfeld. Read their full bios through the link!

OPEN CALL – 2024-25 CREATING QUEER COMMUNITIES – SECOND LEVEL

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Queer Cultural Center will select 5-7 applicants for the CQC2 cohort. CQC2 cohort members will receive professional development workshops and will produce an individual cultural event as part of QCC’s 2025 Spring Queer Arts Festival.  The artistic theme for the 2025 Spring Queer Arts Festival is “Pleasure in the Storm”. We invite projects that address queer approaches to sustaining ourselves and our communities through cultivating inner joy, community connection, and sensory pleasures amid the ongoing political, cultural, public health, and climate crises that shape our current material conditions.

CQC PAST COHORTS

Visit some of the past works our grantees have produced for the National Queer Arts Festival. These shows represent our Emerging Artist, CQC1 and CQC2 programs.

Creating Queer Community Grantees (2018)

This year’s theme—#Resist—for the National Queer Arts Festival seems a natural progression. With the systematic cruelty, hate speech and “fake facts” that are besieging all of our communities, it was time to both withstand and take action: the very definitions of Resist.

Creating Queer Community Grantees (2017)

Artistic Director, Pamela Peniston, wrote "I asked our artists: How and who do we see and how do we want to be seen? What are our new alliances made of and how will they be constructed? Looking back to our beginnings, what old ideas can be re-examined and what completely new allies, methods, and issues will we explore?"

Creating Queer Community Grantees (2016)

Twenty-two Creating Queer Community commissioned works made their debut during the 19th annual National Queer Arts festival in 2016 that spanned multiple venues in San Francisco and the East Bay.

Creating Queer Community Grantees (2015)

Our grantees for this year produced work around the theme of Connections. As LGBTQ+ people, we make connections across many so-called borders of ethnicity, gender, ability, and economic status as well as physical borders across cities, states and countries to assemble a family, to create art, to provoke commentary, to weave social justice issues into our practices, to explore spirituality and to have a hella good time.

CQC PAST SHOWS

Precarious Lives Tour

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In This Body

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The Turning, Queerly: Precarious Lives

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Sprint

Nana Duffour – Sprint

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The Crooked Room

The Crooked Room

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Precarious Lives Film, Curated by Celeste Chan

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Manifesto

Manifesto

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Mother The Verb

Mother the Verb

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baruch

Baruch Porres-Hernandez

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How to Have a Body

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American Boys and FemmeSpace, Qulture Collective

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Precarious Lives

Precarious Lives

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