ATEŞ ALPAR - QUEER NIGHT LIFE

Queer does not only define individuals who are against genders, binary gender identities and qualities assigned by the social norms, but also rejects definitions, identifications, attributions, classifications, categorizations and transgresses all of these. Queer is not just ‘anti’ but it is much more than that. Queer is not only the name of individuals who are marginalized, excluded, ignored, abnormal, incongruous, anomalous and whose right to live has been taken away, but also of those who object, resist, who are different and other, who live out-of-spite, express, oppose, rebel, struggle for visibility by transgressing public invisibility and saying “get used to it, we’re here”. In other words it is the name of those who deal with well-accepted perceptions and dare to interfere with these.
This audacity finds its most concrete expression in night life. Night life is the fermentation environment and dynamo of queer experience where the foundation of encounters, solidaristic relationships and more ‘serious’ political struggles beyond mere consumption and entertainment culture is established. The ‘queer’ colorization of the pluralized nightlife is a stance with clear expression of the bodies against being ignored, pressure and violence. It is a way of exposing the identities which are forced into being kept secret by turning the night’s cover inside out, even throwing it aside and therefore denying the power over the bodies. It means “we have existed, we exist and we will exist.”
‘Queer Night Life’ focuses on the most colorful, lively and joyful moments when the struggle for existence of a community that is exposed to various forms of discrimination, exclusion and oppression is sprouting.