Welcome to Toronto's annual festival of Queer Culture

The Queer Festival - Pride Toronto doesn't want you to know about

The Queer Community - Pride Toronto doesn't Welcome!

Why a queer arts festival in Toronto when the city has Pride?

Our Philosophy

Why should there be only one ten day gay festival (Pride) in the City of Toronto?

We believe there is room for us too. Queer West has been here twelve years, quietly working away with little or no money and an organization unknown to many.

We believe we hosted the best alternative-queer ten day festival to Pride, the City of Toronto has seen in 2011. To us its not about being the largest or making the city economy grow. Its about you and making sure you enjoy our festival. If your not completely satisfied, we’re not happy. We care about creating a quality festival. We won’t settle for anything less than excellence.

We just happen to believe we are holding exceptional and fun queer art festivals, every year for the past ten years.

We’re constantly focusing on being innovative

In 2008 we launched The Queer West Film Festival.
In 2009 we launched an altera-queer music concert.
In 2010 we added an evening tour of art galleries by bicycle with after party.
In 2010 we added an Open Space unConferences for discussions on arts, the humanities and urban spaces
In 2011 we added the Smash Words Poetry Festival .
In 2012 we added a mix and mingle community fair and artists craft show.

We believe there are tourists in the city all summer long, especially in August; they will be looking for something different than, PRIDE

We believe we are making a significant change, how people view gay and lesbian festivals.

The Battle for Queer Culture in Toronto

Written by Siobhan McGuirk (UK) Research and collaboration by Michael F. Paré (Toronto) Jan 5, 2011.

10 years was a landmark for the Toronto Queer Arts Festival in August 2010. The first Pride event in Toronto took place 30 years ago. It shows how much the visibility and public acceptance of LGBTQ has grown, and how quickly, that Pride Toronto and to a lesser degree The Toronto .Queer Arts and Culture Festival, are each as popular as they are now.

Of course, there was always a gay scene in Toronto long before then, with bars and cafes situated between drag shows, fetish clubs, alternative nights and cabarets – the type of event now more likely termed queer than synonymous with ‘gay culture’. These still attract audiences year-round, but have shifted further out of the spotlight. They have become niche. The scene, it seems, has been sanitised.

It follows a common trend in which liberation rallies commemorating the Stonewall Riots have become Pride parades with organisers able to erect fences and charge entry fees. Pride movements have emerged to bite back, with radical politics and declarations of inclusivity.

For its part, Toronto Queer Arts Festival proudly proclaims that only 50% of its audience is defined as lesbian or gay. It is a celebration of diversity.

Queer West Arts Festival celebrates and supports artists who create work on their own terms; in their own way… here they can make the work they’re burning to make. They can risk and they can play.

Queer movements in general have faced backlash: some see the term “Queer” as offensive rather than reclaimed. Others assert that their sexuality should not be presumed to dictate their politics.

Yet queer arts festivals such as The Toronto Queer Arts Festival, Edmonton's Exposure Arts Festival and Montreal's Divers/Cite among others, at the very least, make space for important questions to be raised. They also offer a platform to unpopular or extraordinary responses. They demonstrate that to be L,G,B, T and/or Q is still seen subversive, even if you don't want it to be. No matter how “pink” mainstream political parties have become, or acceptable gay marriage or civil partnerships are, society still insists on its norms.

The arts can explore the boundaries of equality debates and reveal the tension within them, highlighting the prejudices that persist, both on and off “the scene”: sexism, transphobia, body fascism, ageism, and racism only scratch the surface. When a polyamorous, asexual, mixed race, gender queer artist announces that they will vote Conservative because they, too, believe in “family values”, the audience laughs, recognising that the joke is on us

Many are self-defining queers who feel “the scene” does not cater to their needs or outlooks and see Toronto Queer Arts Festival as an annual highlight. Paradoxically, another chunk of friends have no idea the festival even exists.

Pride Toronto, too, splits opinion. Overly commercial and frustratingly political for many, it is the high point of the year for some. There are overlaps between the two camps, of course, but there is still a discernable divide between the “Gay” and “Queer” festival scenes, and the gulf between them is widening.

It will be interesting to see the results, and by the close of these festival, how far the gay / queer divide has been addressed and whether new ideas will emerge over what it is to be L, G, B, T, I, Q in Toronto.

Siobhan McGuirk, is a Freelance Filmmaker / Journalist with lesbilicious.co.uk and Commissioning Editor, for Red Pepper Magazine. | siobhan@redpepper.org.uk Michael F. Paré is President of the Toronto Queer West Arts & Culture Centre.

Learn more about Gay Toronto's annual Queer Arts and Culture Festival

A Festival has something for everyone; from a film festival to spoken word to a political unConferences to art shows to classical music concerts, from a ramble in the ART AND DESIGN DISTRICT to a QUEER CABARET whether you're gay, straight, lesbian, bi, trans, queer or confused there's something to inspire, challenge or entertain you.

Festival run Dates: Friday August 10 to Saturday August 18, 2012 Visit our New Festival Web Site: http://artsfestival.queerwest.org/

5th annual Toronto International Queer West Film Festival 2012.

Queer West Film Festival is Queering Boundaries going beyond a fixed identity and embracing fluidity. Through the medium of film, the Queer West Film Festival will push for a more inclusive and complex queer identity; a queer identity that is necessarily shaped through interactions with place, space and community.

Saturday Aug18th, 2012 Location TBA & Submission Guide Lines: http://artsfestival.queerwest.org/queer-west-film-festival/film-festival-2012/

The Toronto Queer Arts Festival is owned and managed, by Gay West Community Network Inc. A not-for-profit corporation. Mailing Address 562 Dufferin St. 2nd floor B1 Toronto ON M6K 2A9. Visits By Appointment Only. 416-879-7954 queerwestartsfestival@gmail.com