Colossal Queer Cape
Client: Green Man Festival (The Wishbone Tent)
Role: Participatory artist and workshop facilitator
At the time of studying for my MA, I pitched an idea to Green Man Festival: to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the new Wishbone drag performance tent while also nurturing the festival’s already blossoming queer community. The idea was simple but powerful — to create something collective, joyful, and lasting. Together with an amazing team of support staff, I hosted a series of craft workshops where participants were invited to design a patch from reclaimed materials in response to the question: “What does queer joy mean to you?”
Over several days, 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.
“Colossal Queer Cape is a brilliant example of collective creation. It reminded me, of course, of the AIDS Quilt, where individuals contributed a small piece to something that became an epic collective expression of love, loss and anguish. I also think that textiles are having a moment right now and the cape, with its slightly folky, handmade feel, is an excellent example of using a tapestry format to represent the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community.”
– Mark King, Head of Design and Special Projects at Queer Britain
Behind the scenes: The making of the cape
See how we co-designed this perfectly camp cape at Green Man festival 2023.
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The cape unveiled
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Messy outpourings
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Big Beautiful Queer Kisses patch
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Piecing the patches together
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I love my queer fam
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Beautiful patch-makers
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LGBTQ+ celebration patch
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Gay S*x patch
“Queer joy is when you find your people and they support you for who you are and they don’t give a fuck about what you’re wearing and who you’re interested in, and you can find this amazing community anywhere in the world, anywhere you go, honestly seek out the queers because they’ll be the best friends you can find.”
Flora, ‘Demon Vagina’ patch
“Don’t take the kink out of pride: homosexuality was once seen as this sexual deviance and something that’s gross and perverted but it’s not, we should look upon all the kinks and see that there’s a place for them and not judge.”
‘Blow me’ patch maker
“It was a wonderful highlight of an amazing weekend, it was pure queer euphoria to find this workshop and it gave us the chance to meet wonderful new queer friends and family. The experience of being creative with other queer people meant we made friends that have lasted beyond the workshop, strengthening the queer community at Green Man and beyond! It’s the shared experience of creating something together which I think helps create these strong bonds!!””
Todd, Wishbone performer and patch creator
Speculative futures…
After the festival, I began drawing the patches and it enabled me the time to process their meanings. I then, with the help of an additional storytelling workshop hosted with my queer community, began to craft the story of a team of drag super heroes called ‘Queerlandia’, from all of the ‘clues’ I had been presented at Green Man. This made me realise how powerful they are as a series of motifs.
