What Matters? Queer Poetry Slam

What Matters? Queer Poetry Slam

LOCATION: Cell Block Theatre
DATE: Friday 28 February
TIME: Doors open at 6.30pm for 7pm start
TICKETS: $20/15

Discover Australia’s most subversive and boldly original queer poets at our raucous poetry competition. Our slammers tell us what matters as we heat up the historic Cell Block Theatre with words of protest, love, rage and power. With a special guest host and some guest performances throughout the Slam, we’ve got the night before Mardi Gras Parade completely covered.

Poets and guests announced closer to event date.

Add on to your poetry slam experience with our Moonlite pop-up bar, Print with Pride workshop and a curator’s tour of Mistfit: Collage and queer practice and i hate my dad.

Artist line-up

Host: Kween G
Renowned for potent content, Kween G delivers dynamic style as an MC, performer and Hip Hop artist. She makes consciousness-raising music that excites, entertains, and enlightens her listeners. Her fighting spirit – for women’s rights and those in disadvantaged communities – courage and humility have earned her respect across the country. In strong demand as a MC, performer and host, Kween G is a community icon.

Special guest performer: Betty Grumble
Emma Maye Gibson (AKA Betty Grumble) is a Sydney-based performance artist. Largely through the avatar/war mask/love letter/totem critter of Betty Grumble she engages her body as a political and medicinal site of performative catharsis, often in a genre smash of ritual physical theatre, cabaret, performance art and multi-media. She is a proud ecosexual and believes in the shamanic/shawomanly power of live space. She has her Masters in Fine Arts/Arse and has presented work at Dark Mofo, Sydney Opera House, Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe, Perth & Adelaide Fringes, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI), Belvoir St Theatre, The Bearded Tit, Berlin Fringe, and beyond. She believes in the flesh riot and is currently engaged in developing a new work under the guidance of mentor Annie Sprinkle in her world-saving trilogy of performance ceremony.

Music act: KYVA
Crafting a delicate balance of alternative pop influenced by the likes of The CurePrince and Elliot Smith, KYVA embodies a union of worlds: drawing equally from spheres of Dark Wave and Soul to create something entirely new and sonically beautiful.

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What's happening at the National Art School on 6 September? RSVP to our Open Day today to find out. (Link in bio)
Hear artist James Nguyen (@jamesnguyens) discuss the process of his artwork ‘Homeopathies_where new trees grow’ (2025), a site-specific installation created for The Neighbour at the Gate, now on at NAS Gallery.

In response to the exhibition, Nguyen created a large-scale suspended textile, dyed with introduced weeds and contaminated mud collected along the Duck River and Parramatta River in Sydney. These local sites, like many places in Vietnam, continue to be contaminated by Agent Orange, dioxins and toxic leachates that account for the industrial scale manufacturing of chemical weapons along Homebush Bay.

The Naarm/Melbourne-based, Vietnamese Australian artist positions his personal experiences and perspectives in dialogue with others in his interdisciplinary practice, moving between live and online performance, video, drawing and installations. This work was made in conjunction with Nguyen’s aunt, Nguyễn Thị Kim Nhung, and uncle, Nguyễn Công Chính, who you can hear in conversation with the artist in the Artist Talks archive on our website.

The Neighbour at the Gate is now on until Saturday 18 October 2025. 11am – 5pm, Monday to Sunday. Plan your visit at the link in bio.

The Neighbour at the Gate has been made possible with the generous support of the NSW Government through its Blockbusters Funding initiative.
Congratulations to our recent BFA graduate Samuel Chan (@__szwc), who has been named one of three recipients of the ‘most exceptional’ prize at the Dr Harold Schenberg Arts Awards.

Now in its 16th year, the Dr Harold Schenberg Arts Awards offers the largest prize pool for emerging artists in Australia and is part of PICA’s ‘Hatched: National Graduate Show’. To be part of ‘Hatched’ exhibition is an honour as it showcases the next generation of Australia’s contemporary creative voices, presenting artworks by 23 outstanding art school graduates from across the country.

Sam’s award-winning installation work includes 'At Eventuality’s End' - an evocative sculptural piece previously featured in our ‘Queer Contemporary: Chaosophy ‘exhibition as well as the NAS Grad Show.

Inspired by our alumni success stories? Join our Open Day on 6 September to explore your own creative path and get application-ready with one-on-one consultation sessions. (Link in bio)

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(In order of appearance in the video)

'Embrace', 2024, resin, stainless steel hook, Conte crayon, 47 x 14.5 x 9.5cm

‘Transfiguration’, 2024, Chillagoe White Pearl marble, mild steel, incense, 172 x 26 x 26cm 

'Noose', 2024, resin, graphite, titanium rod, 30 x 14 x 5cm 

'At Eventuality's End', 2024, hand-dyed paper, wire mesh, mild steel rod, 255 x 80 x 60cm

Image courtesy and © the artist, photograph: Jennifer Leahy (@silversalt_photography)

@pica_perth
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