The Present is not Enough

With its project “The Present is Not Enough”, the HAU Hebbel am Ufer theatre in Berlin has hosted an interdisciplinary festival which presented the artistic positions of the past and future of the LGBTIQ* community. The festival has featured artists from many different countries, for example Central and Eastern Europe or the United States. In the face of rising populism and the sharp political turn to the right, queer artists in many countries have found life and work increasingly difficult. This festival wanted to give them the freedom and opportunity to develop utopian scenarios and at the same time wanted to offer a contribution to the politics of memory. Based on an analysis of various queer theories and scenes, queerness was understood as a vision for the future in the spirit of the Cuban American scholar José Esteban Muñoz: “Queerness is essentially about a rejection of a here and now and an insistence on the potentiality or concrete possibility for another world.”

The festival included performances, dance, theatre, visual arts, film and music, and featured such renowned guests as the famous Polish stage director Michał Borczuch, the Polish artist Karol Radziszewski, the Hungarian filmmaker Mária Takács, the American multimedia artist Wu-Tsang. An accompanying programme has presented interviews with the artists, discussions, lectures and the selected projects of an open call for “Manifestos for a Queer Future”, targeted at artists from Berlin. 270 artists replied to the Open Call, handing in their “Manifestos for Queer Futures.”

Artistic director: Ricardo Carmona (PT)
With works by: Sara Ahmed, Travis Alabanza, Michał Borczuch, Maria Kulikovska, Mehdi-George Lahlou, Jota Mombaça, Carlos Motta, Moved by the Motion (Wu Tsang und boychild), Mamela Nyamza, Karol Radziszewski, Jam Rostron, Mária Takács u. a. and others

*Abbreviation for: Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender/Transsexual-Intersexual-Queer