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Queers perForm Space

Collaborative process & performance research
2024-2026

This project is articulated between solo performances, workshops, group performative encounters, body maps, queer lived experience, and public spaces. Conceived in Athens and later taken to other contexts in Europe, “Queers perForm [space]” has developed a methodology to actively shape, unsettle, and restructure the urban environment through performative action. These participatory performances create friction with hegemonic and oppressive modes of behaviour, advancing queer bodies that collectively disrupt the status quo while also strengthening bonds within the community.

Facilitation, direction, performances
Nori Tsouloucha
Supervised by
David Limaverde
Hosted by The Boat Art Collective in Athens, the Faculty
of Things that Can’t be Learned in Skopje, Macedonia,
and queerANarchive collective and LGBT+ Center Split.
Photography by Tonči Kranjčević Batalić

on facilitating (in)visible queerness

Article published on Research Catalogue on 14/07/2025

How can we co-author meaningful artistic work with marginalized groups while honoring individualities and sensitivities? How do we balance an artistic vision with the needs of the community we engage with?

Such questions emerged while I was preparing a series of performative workshops (or group performative encounters) for the Athenian queer community in the context of my project Queer Bodies Performing Athens, an investigation of the relationship between queer performance and the public spaces of Athens, Greece. Knowing first-hand that my participants would be marginalized individuals who face daily hostility in the context of our city, my priority was to maximize their safety while integrating their experiences into my artistic inquiry. To aid this process, I drew on practices learned through my involvement in local self-organized political communities, my experience with BDSM practices, my previous facilitation and teaching, and practices of care.

In this text, I use my work with the queer community as a case study to outline some insights on facilitation and co-authorship. I begin by discussing the intricacies of selecting a theme that is relevant and urgent for the community involved, and then elaborate on the process of developing appropriate methods for the specific population the project engages with. Moving on, I refer to matters of safeguarding the collaborative process, touching on the queer community's particular need for privacy, and end with a provocation at the positionality of the facilitator. This account is not intended as a handbook on how to facilitate interactions with marginalized communities; I view it as an invitation to people creating with people (and myself) to embark on a process of introspection, appraisal, and accountability regarding our working principles. In that sense, this text reflects my own process of cocreation and is meant to be read as a collection of questions and inquiries that will hopefully activate creatives.

framing the research: queerness, public space, and performance

A constructive starting point for a collaborative process would be to ask, “How is this relevant to the people involved?” This question can be related to methodology, as I will expand on later, or to the concept, context, and chosen site. In the case of my project, the selection of the space was weighty both for the conceptualization of the work and for its relevance to the queer community. This selection was based on the fact that the public spaces of Athens are, among other things, spaces of queer demands and struggles. The streets and the pavements are transitional spaces that hold value for queers and queer performance for multiple reasons. Though most harassment and violence against queers takes place in those streets, most of the collective action and protest also unfold on the same pavements (Papanikolaou, 2024). Think of Gladstonos Street in Omonoia, the street where the murder of drag performer and activist Zackie Oh/Zak Kostopoulos took place (ZackieOh Justice Watch, 2024). This space is both the site of a violent hate crime and a space of queer resistance, with activists and community continually activating it with interventions and disruptions. While queers were historically excluded from private or inside spaces (Revenioti, 2015), examples like this solidify the notion that a great portion of queer history resides on the streets of Athens. For that reason, engaging with the streets of Athens as a dynamic site of contrasting actions and reactions was fitting for Queer Bodies Performing Athens.

The hypothesis that the public spaces of Athens are constructed to sustain heteronormative dominance while being hostile against queer bodies, and the notion that queer bodies have the capacity to disrupt and subvert this dominance through their performance and actions (Valentine, 2002; Azzouz et al., 2024; Boomgaard, 2017), is the framework in which this entire work unfolds. Public spaces are not neutral or pre-existing; rather, they are created and maintained through repeated acts and performances that naturalize heteronormativity. Drawing on Judith Butler’s (2002) theorization of gender as performative, I maintain that queer individuals, through subtle actions or overt performances, can redefine these spaces, turning them into sites of resistance.

methods for queer bodies

Ten queer bodies converge on the street in a neighborhood of downtown Athens to meditate for ten minutes, talking about and activating their body parts one by one. Then, they scatter off in different directions, walking around the neighborhood, following their intuition. They are focused and aware of their movements and surroundings. They hold pieces of paper and markers, occasionally halting their movement to take notes or draw. They use walls, cars, or the pavement as surfaces to write on. After thirty minutes, they come together again. They are strangers, and they share this moment.

The scene described above is a fragment of one of the methods used during our exploration of the queer body’s performance in the context of a hostile public space. To apply the question formulated at the beginning of this text: Why is this embodied method relevant, and how does it serve the community it engages with? The body is a central element of queer politics and queer experiences. It is the body that is excluded, harassed, it protests, it subverts norms through its existence, a body that experiences love non-normatively, fucks non-normatively, performs non-normatively, a body that is censored, a body forced to silence. It is then fitting to employ the body as the central axis for research on queer performance and experience.

In this context, I developed a specific approach to body mapping that adopted the practice of Body Territory as its starting point. Cuerpo-Territorio is a decolonial feminist practice rooted in the intersection of bodies and territory, aiming to view the body not just as a physical being, but also as a site of sociopolitical and environmental connections (Zaragocin & Caretta, 2019). It involves outlining bodies on large papers and collectively working on the body map to engage with a multitude of feminist issues. Inspired by this, and considering the intersections between the feminist body and the queer body, I modified this practice into a dynamic conceptualization of the queer body: the outline of the body is substituted by a process of subjective visualization concentrating on sensation, resulting in queer body maps that transcend a realistic representation of a human form. After the participants created the queer body map, they went out in public. They followed a detailed body-scan meditation before separating to embark on individual walks in the city to note their observations about shifts in their performance and the places/spaces/interactions that caused them. This process kick-started an interactive conception of queer performance and public space, with the queer bodies observing how the space enacts onto their performance and initiating a conceptualization about ways to respond to the city. Already a performative action, this resulted in a series of reactions performed on the public space.

When choosing methods of working, it is useful to consider the tactics already employed by the community and their significance. For example, in queer history in Athens and internationally, the voice plays a central role in demonstrating, challenging norms, and receiving silencing and censorship. This approach can create a poetic relationship between concept and execution, as the methods used are deeply significant for the concept they serve, and, more importantly, it can establish a way of working that is familiar and useful to the community it engages with. In Queer Bodies Performing Athens, I developed a way of working that involves a microphone, a speaker, a person talking, and the city’s sounds. These four elements together create a live soundscape, a continual feedback loop that engages queer voices and the public space as sound, and evokee a protest-like overtone, filling the city's public space with sounds and words of queer embodied experiences while also amplifying notions that, within the context of a hostile public space, are meant to remain hidden and private.

visibility and safe space / strange space

Though certainly empowering, visibility for the queer community in the context of a hostile environment is also inherently risky. This risk can arise at multiple levels, both in the harm that can be caused to the performers/participants in the public space, and in the consequences that come from publicizing one’s queer identity.

Any work in public space requires adopting tactics of working within a system (Gielen, 2015) and designing safeguarding procedures, and the necessity increases when the performers involved belong to marginalized populations. Through my work with the queer community in the context of the project, and through other actions and workshops in public space, we have some insights for this safeguarding. First, it helps to prepare by researching the local legal framework regarding performance in public. Second, we understood that whoever has the privilege of owning legal documents in the specific geographical context (ID, residency permit, etc) can aid the group by carrying them on their person and providing them if asked. On the other hand, we must provide proactive care to the bodies that the (Greek) government considers illegal by devising tactics for dealing with possible legal confrontations. Finally, it proved helpful to have a designated person who was responsible for observing the scene, locating any threat to the group, and safeguarding our belongings for the duration of each action in public space. Due to its preventative function, this inspired a sense of safety and comfort in the group as they felt cared for at all times.

Whom does the work benefit if it becomes inaccessible to those who need to remain hidden? At the same time, how can the work reach a greater audience if its creators cannot be seen?

A perhaps unique aspect of working with the queer community, and one that I came across in my work, is the fact that some individuals who wish to participate in the creative process are closeted. Queerness is not necessarily visible, and people have significant reasons to remain in the closet. The fact is, publicizing somebody’s participation in a queer work can have devastating effects on their personal and professional life, with individuals stating that even their place of residence is dependent on them being in the closet. This sort of situation requires great care as people entrust the facilitator to be discreet with the information that they share in the context of their work together. Naturally, this significantly influences the documentation of the work, and, in cases like these, being transparent about our processes and intentions is fundamental for an ethical collaboration. There is a delicate balance between documenting/ disseminating the collaborative process in a way that serves the project and honoring the wishes of the community we engage with. Simultaneously, the project can adopt an interesting visual language through the process of censoring some of the co-creators in visual documentation, an action that comes in bittersweet dialogue with the exclusion that the community faces.

"I wanted to make a record of my life that nobody could revise: not a safe, clean version, but instead, an account of what things really looked like and felt like and smelled like. I don’t think I could, at this age and in this body now, live the life that I lived then."

—Nan Goldin, about her work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency

What does a safe space look like for you?

Other than physical safety in public spaces and the discretion in handling personal information, facilitation work comes with the task of offering a safe space. In my experience, a safe space cannot have a universal definition as it depends on the particular needs of the individuals involved. For that reason, I prefer aiming for a 'strange space', a dynamic environment that adapts its boundaries in a constant negotiation between the parties involved. A strange space is not an end goal or something we can establish; it is a consistent practice of compromise and discussion as needs and desires shift and evolve. For this process, I always find it profitable to look at practices of community care and BDSM practices (Chin-In et al., 2016; Parchev, 2025), both of which deal with accountability, harm reduction, safety protocols, and informed consent with sensitivity and maturity.

on facilitation: inside, outside, and in-between

Working with any community, primarily through an open-call system, means deciding who belongs in that community—and thus consciously embarking on a process of inclusion. In my case, clarifying my definition of 'queer' was an essential step in formulating which bodies the performative encounters were addressing. In the scope of this project, my understanding of ‘queer’ stems from three central notions: (1) local community definitions that speak of intersectionality and fragmented fringe identity, (2) an awareness that ‘queer’ is an imported term in my context and local language precedes it (Manesi, 2021), and (3) from thinkers like Sedwig (1994) who perceives queerness as “an open mesh of possibilities, overlaps, dissonances, lapses, and excesses of meaning.” At the same time, I am steering clear of conceptualizations of ‘queer’ that reduce queerness to strangeness or atypicality; my definition relies on self-identification regarding gender and/or sexual orientation, with the impilcit understanding that the performance of these bodies may also have “strange” (Ahmed, 2000: 21-31) or counterhegemonic appearances. Though I took careful consideration of these definitions and created the framework for who can participate in my work and who cannot, I still have an awareness that my work is as exclusionary as it is inclusive. For example, I excluded individuals who see queer as a solely political or aesthetic movement that does not connect to gender or sexual identity, because most of my work with participants requires some personal experience connecting to gender and sexual diversity. What does this exclusion mean for the work, and how does it converse with the community I engage with?

As taught by black feminist and decolonial scholars (Hooks, 1981; Davis, 1981), an individual’s position regarding social identities like class, gender, ethnicity, race, ability, or geographical location shapes one’s approaches and understanding of the world. Positionality is hence quoted as an essential part of both research and artistic creation. I would argue that, when engaging with marginalized communities, this becomes not just essential but a central influence for the facilitator’s approach.

My work in Queer Bodies Performing Athens came from a personal perspective and concerns as a queer person who lives and works in Athens. I experience the issues researched in the project first-hand, and I have an intimate incentive to deal with them with urgency and sensitivity. This embodied experience places me in a position of a facilitator 'from the inside' and gifts me with an embodied understanding of the concerns of my participants, while also inspiring a sense of trust that comes from solidarity; I am part of the community that I engage with and directly involved in the processes we are performing. Nevertheless, during the development of the work, my positionality was continually challenged and redefined. For instance, as a white person, I am not experiencing any of the prejudice stemming from the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality that my participants would often reference. In these cases, I acted with a heightened awareness that I know less than they do. Additionally, I have the significant privilege of passing as a cis person. That is not the case, however, with other queers in Athens who embody more evidently gay, trans, or queer characteristics. In my involvement with the community, it was essential to keep these nuances in mind and avoid assuming the role of some all-knowing authority.

My primary aim with this paragraph is to urge facilitators and practitioners working with marginalized communities to continually question their position and analyze how that could be affecting our methods and approach. This becomes even more imperative when the researcher is largely unaffected by the prejudice that the community faces. Who benefits from research or a co-creation process on/about/with a community that is excluded from dominant culture when the practitioner conducting the research is an outsider? Reflecting on this and recognizing the need to take a step back is pertinent to the process.

reflections: on dialogue and responsibility

During my work with the queer community in Athens, I witnessed curious intersecting relationships that arose from each participant's multiple identities and our work's dialogue with other types of political or activist work. Placing our work in a network of marginalized bodies and issues and in conversation with them is essential; any body work is political work, and its intersections with other movements must be honored. While writing this, I follow the path of the Madleen—a ship en route to break the siege and deliver humanitarian aid to a genocide-ridden Palestine—and feel the urgency of centering the body: its memory, sensation, and needs. I no longer see it as a solitary body, but as one belonging to a network of bodies exploited and disempowered.

Facilitating this work for the queer community in Athens was a complex and gratifying process. I often sense that the essence of the work is located in the space of the interactions between the participants and me, us, and the public space, in our conversations, and in the creation of ephemeral small communities of care and understanding. These moments are intangible and nearly impossible to convey to anyone who was not present. Facilitation, as I experience it and attempt to outline it above, is an educational experience for the practitioner. To aid this process, I encourage facilitators to regularly question ourselves, our motives, and our choices.

References

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Butler, J. Gender trouble. routledge, 2002.
Chin-In Chen, Jai Dulani, & Leah Lakshmi Piepzana-Samarasinha. (2016). The revolution starts at home : confronting intimate violence within activist communities. Ak Press.
Davis, A. (1981). Women, Race, & Class. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Gielen, P. (2015). Performing the Common City : On the Crossroads of Art, Politics and Public Life. Arts in Society, 273–298.
Goldin, N. (2022, March 4). Why “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” Endures in the Twenty-First Century. Aperture. https://aperture.org/editorial/why-the-ballad-of-sexual-dependency-endures-in-the-twenty-first-century/
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Parchev, O. (2025). BDSM and the Complexity of Consent: Navigating Inclusion and Exclusion. Sexes, 6(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/sexes6010004
Sedgwick, E. 1994. Tendencies. London: Routledge.
ZackieOh Justice Watch. (n.d.). Retrieved June 5, 2025, from https://zackieohjustice.watch/en/category/the-trial/
Zaragocin, S., & Caretta, M. A. (2020). Cuerpo-Territorio: A Decolonial Feminist Geographical Method for the Study of Embodiment. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 111(5), 1503–1518. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2020.1812370

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