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WHAT IS IT?

Colossal Queer Cape

Client: Green Man Festival (The Wishbone Tent)
Role: Participatory artist and workshop facilitator

Over several days of craft workshops, queers and allies gathered around tables to sew, paint, and glue their visions into being. Backstage, all these patches were stitched together into one enormous, dazzling, community-made queer cape. The result wasn’t just a garment — it was a celebration of shared creativity, resilience, and joy.

It seemed to resonate with not only the participants who contributed to it’s being but others, it went wider, as it was invited to be shown at Essex University, at an exhibition entitled ‘Lavendar Menace’. Not only that but it was included as part of a collaboration with Queer Britain, the ‘Being Seen’ online collection, and on Dezeen, a tie-up that celebrated 8 of the best creative projects to come out of UAL that year. I was also delighted to be interviewed by UAL for LGBTQ+ History Month, on the subject. 

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INSIGHT

Green Man has long been a festival I cherish, so in 2023—while volunteering with the new Wishbone drag tent - I proposed a way to deepen its daytime queer spaces. My hunch was simple: celebrate Wishbone’s first birthday by inviting the festival’s growing queer community to gather, create and connect.

The response proved the instinct right. Across two six-hour sessions more than 150 people stitched, painted and glued reclaimed-fabric patches answering the question “What does queer joy mean to you?” The space buzzed with conversation and laughter as new friendships formed and old ones rekindled, cups of tea and pints in hand, rain or shine. The result was a colossal community-made queer cape—and a vivid reminder that collective making can be both celebration and catalyst.