Western’s Australian-Chinese LGBTQIA+ community celebrates Sydney WorldPride
Coinciding with Sydney WorldPride, the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture is celebrating identity and cultural diversity within the Australian-Chinese LGBTQIA+ community with special events during the international festival.
William Yang’s ‘Claiming Heritage’ Solo Exhibition Opening
Thursday 9 March
Internationally renowned performance artist and photojournalist, William Yang’s solo exhibition titled ‘Claiming Heritage’ will officially be launched by Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Barney Glover AO at the University’s Parramatta South campus on Thursday 9 March.
Recognised as a Rainbow Champion by Sydney WorldPride, and a recent recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Sydney Theatre Company, Yang’s newest solo exhibition celebrates his journey on claiming his Chinese heritage and personal identity.
In the mid-eighties, Yang began to explore and embrace his Chinese heritage which had previously been lost to him by his complete assimilation into the Australian way of life.
“I knew I was gay from a very early age, and I came out as a gay man in the early seventies, during that exciting time of change and the Gay liberation movement. It politicised me, as I had to take on all the baggage of public opinion which had a very negative view of homosexuality.”
“Strangely I never quite realised I was Chinese until my mid-thirties, I identified as being Australian and I was in a state of denial about my Chinese heritage. Now, I see this as a liberation from racial suppression and I prefer to say I came out as a Chinese,” Yang said.
“This exhibition is about my journey to make that claim.”
To book free tickets to the official exhibition launch event, please click here (opens in a new window).
Dr Quah Ee Ling proudly represents Western at the 2023 Sydney WorldPride Mardi Gras parade.
Queer Chinese Voices Forum
Tuesday 14 March 2023
In the first online forum of its kind, the Queer Chinese Voices forum will feature prominent voices in art, literature, history, music, cultural studies and queer studies via keynote speeches and panel discussions by leading experts on LGBTQIA+ topics throughout the Sinosphere (mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong), Australia and around the world.
Presented by the Institute for Australian and Chinese Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University, in partnership with the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, the forum will be opened by Western Sydney University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research, Enterprise and International), Professor Deborah Sweeney.
Amongst the list of guest panellists is Dr Quah Ee Ling, Senior Lecturer and Convenor in Culture and Society – as a fire dragon feminist and Singaporean of Chinese-Hokkien, Indonesian-Peranakan heritage and a queer migrant woman, she has little patience for racism, patriarchy, misogyny or queerphobia.
Dr Quah has developed her own strand of feminism – fire dragon feminism – to blow flames at injustices and build solidarities for a more just and equitable world.
“It is important to recognise multiple and diverse cultural meanings, systems and practices of gender and sexuality. There is no one, universal way to be queer. For example, ‘coming out’ and ‘use of pronouns’ are not necessarily applicable in specific cultural contexts,” Dr Quah said.
“Queering dominant, normative systems of gender, sexuality and sex characteristics is about not letting powerful systems dictate singular meanings and practices concerning gender, sexuality and sex characteristics, and incentivise state-endorsed practices and discriminate others.”
Registration for the Queer Chinese Voices online forum is free but essential. To book your place, please click here (opens in a new window).
ENDS
28 February 2023
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