CREATING QUEER COMMUNITIES

For more than 25 years, Creating Queer Communities (CQC) has been QCC’s signature artist development program and one of the longest-running programs of its kind for LGBTQ+ artists anywhere in the country. What began as a small grants program has grown into a full artist development ecosystem, a place where QTBIPOC artists in the San Francisco Bay Area come to deepen their practice, sharpen their craft, and find the community and resources they need to make their work sustainable.

We built CQC on a simple conviction: that queer and trans artists deserve real infrastructure. Not just inspiration or a blank check, but the nuts and bolts: sustainability, narrative building, budgeting, marketing, taxes, production skills, the practical knowledge that lets artists focus on making work instead of scrambling to survive. CQC cohort artists receive small grants, hands-on professional development training across these areas, mentorship, and the opportunity to develop and present new work as part of our annual National Queer Arts Festival. Over the decades, CQC has been a launchpad for hundreds of artists and a prep ground for many of San Francisco’s most celebrated performers.

The program is rooted in a commitment to the artists who have historically been most shut out of institutional support. We especially encourage QTI2SBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Gender Nonconforming, Intersex, Two-Spirit, Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists, curators, and culture-makers to apply, because the artists who need resources most are the ones this program was built for.

Stay tuned for information about our next cohort. Our call for applications goes out this fall!