»I believe love when used as a verb is true and when used as a noun is a lie.«
Taylor Mac (I Believe: A Manifesto)  

When the Queer Week curatorial team assembled in 2019, the future glittered queerly on the horizon – a promise, a hope, perhaps just an inkling – and Christopher Fares-Köhler introduced the above quote into the discussion. Much has happened since then: an edition of the festival was planned, rescheduled and then fell through; the team changed and attempted to keep as much of the original programme as possible, with all the artistic developments that the year brought with it. In the end, the process resulted in PUGS IN LOVE – Queer Week 2021 coming to life as a mini-festival with over 40 participating artists.

The festival takes its name from the Perverse und Gefährdete (PUGs, English: Perverse and Endangered): ever since they originated in Old High German and Latin, the words »queer« and »perverse« have meant »turned about«, »twisted«, »awry«. And so, over three days, the PUGs add the seemingly unspeakable to the literature forever, search for egalitarian paths into the after-yesterday and – through performances and a theatre-film – investigate what »queer« could mean in the future. One thing is certain: it is to be found – created! – beyond the mainstream. That’s why this festival delights in feeling its way in all directions at once: just like the different guests in the festival discussions, the texts, performances, workshops, films complement one another to form a kaleidoscope, contradicting each other and hopefully themselves as well. 

Power structures not only affect humans, but also shape all figures of thought and impose arbitrary borders between kinds of life. As soon as our eyes are opened to this, the perspective changes constantly. Thus, the concepts for the »queer future« can only be fluid. Keeping the meaning of the word in mind, it must be insisted in every moment that the situation be turned about into its opposite, twisted in its meaning, that one go awry in the landscape: a differal and a gap. And so, one must aim to be active, to think, speak, act; to start out with the verb instead of ending up with the adjective or noun. One must aim to break open the existing order in the here and now, to take up space and occupy it, to expose authoritarian posturing and contradict discrimination sassily, to always rise up, to question, to question again and again, to scrutinize, to tease out dissent while intending cosent – to queer the future: to not accept the world as it is, but instead to design it for a lustful tomorrow. 
 
In that spirit: Here’s to queering the future!

Yunus Ersoy, Monica Marotta, Frederika Tsai
PUGS IN LOVE – QueerWeek 2021 festival curators


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