Queer Food
a summer course curated by Barney Pau
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Course Description
Food and the queer are intrinsically intertwined, shaping social perceptions, cultural narratives, and personal identities. From historical taboos to contemporary activism, food offers a unique lens through which we can examine the politics of consumption, gender expression, and community-building.
This summer course on Queer Food, curated by Barney Pau, editor of The Gramounce Journal, explores the intersections of queerness and food. Through historical case studies, theoretical texts, and lived experiences, participants will engage with topics such as the history and politics of consumption, queer domesticity, alternative economies, and the ways in which food can serve as both resistance and reclamation.
This course is designed for those interested in exploring food beyond taste and nourishment—seeing it instead as a site of identity, power, and transformation.
Summer Course
Deadline 31 May
06 Jun - 15 Jun 2025. Residency in London
17 Jun - 29 Jul 2025. Online course
Online course + London Residency
1000€
This option grants you access to the full program, including 8 weekly lectures and discussions, curated literature, and an online community space.
Additionally, you will participate in a residency in London, featuring workshops, field trips, and opportunities to deepen your understanding of the theme.
*Accommodation and travel to London are not included in the price and must be arranged by participants independently.
Online course
500€
This option grants you access to the online program, including weekly lectures and discussions, curated literature, and an online community space.
A limited amount of scholarships are offered for the online programme.
See more info below
Structure
The course consists of two main components:
- Online Seminars (2 months) – Eight weekly sessions featuring guest speakers, group discussions, and workshops.
- London Residency (10 days, optional) – A hands-on, immersive experience applying course themes in a creative and collaborative environment.
Participants may choose to attend just the online seminars or combine them with the residency for a deeper engagement.
Queer Food Fundraiser
Guest Lecturer’s Workshop
Guest Lecturer’s Workshop
Queer Food Fundraiser
Guest Lecturer’s Workshop
Methodology
This course embraces a multidisciplinary and participatory approach. The online seminars will combine:
- Guest Lectures – Experts from different fields, including food studies, queer theory, and activism.
- Group Discussions – A collaborative space to reflect on readings and case studies.
- Creative Workshops – Engaging exercises exploring queerness through food-making, storytelling, and sensory experiences.
- Personal & Collective Projects – Participants will be encouraged to document their learnings through writing, cooking, or artistic interventions.
The goal is to blend theory and practice, fostering a space where queerness in food is not only analysed but also felt, shared, and experimented with.
Guest Speakers
Sandor Ellix Katz
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Fermentation Revivalist
Sandor Ellix Katz
Fermentation Revivalist
Sandor Ellix Katz (he/him/they) is a fermentation revivalist. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, he is the author of five books. Sandor's book The Art of Fermentation, which received a James Beard award and has been widely translated, was selected by the New York Times as one of "The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years." Sandor's books, along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught around the world, have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts.
Gal Sherizly
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Artist, Writer, Researcher
Gal Sherizly
Artist, Writer, Researcher
gal sherizly (they/them), aka fungal 9669, is a transdisciplinary artist, a writer and FEELed researcher. From a place of longing for belonging, they aims to create bridges through listening to differences. gal generate sensorial storytelling, and collages edible & audible, visual & tactile, written & spoken into rituals, collective gatherings, installations and workshops. They chooses each ingredient, word and frequency intentionally to heal bodies and cistems by trans/forming dietary lexicons and expanding linguistic and cultural terrains. They writes non-edible recipes for the preservation and accessibility of knowledges, using and questioning wor(l)ds as ingredients for cooking a planetary change.
Soñ Gweha
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Artist, Researcher, Community Organizer
Soñ Gweha
Artist, Researcher, Community Organizer
Soñ Gweha (formerly Anna Tje) is an artist, researcher, community organizer and vinyl collector born in 1989, who lives and works between the outskirts of Paris in France and Vienna in Austria. Through a transdisciplinary practice, Soñ Gweha works with music, poetry, video, performance, installation, sculpture to deconstruct the mechanisms of survival, mindfulness and healing.
Noam Youngrak Son
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Artist, Communication Designer
Noam Youngrak Son
Artist, Communication Designer
Noam Youngrak Son is a communication designer, design theorist, and cultural worker. Their design work encompasses small-scale publishing projects, speculative worldbuilding, workshops, lectures, writing, net art, and occasional performative interventions. As a cultural worker, they have co-organized the Ghent-based queer publishing collective Bebe Books (https://bebebooks.be/) since 2021. Son has expanded their focus from design to theory in order to critically engage with the ontology of the design industry, media, and broader material culture. This turn is informed by their observations of cultural assemblages that echo the extractive operations of capitalism on racialized and more-than-human populations. They are particularly attentive to the interconnected notions of speculation—both as an open artistic approach and as a process of value increase in capitalism. They research the tendency of the former in design to be subjugated by the latter and explore alternative methods for speculative design practices to realize their transindividual potential through collective organization and workshop facilitation. In this process, Son utilizes queer publishing as a technology for mobilizing attention beyond the financialized “scarce resource” of the attention economy. In this context, publishing extends beyond mere printed matter to encompass the maintenance of communities and the cultivation of interspecies relationships. The term "queer" here is not used as a statement of identity but as a process—small yet collective strategies of publishing that challenge the modern myth of the heroic designer.
Stephen Vider
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Professor Gender and Sexuality Studies, Author
Stephen Vider
Professor Gender and Sexuality Studies, Author
Stephen Vider (he/him) is Associate Professor of History and co-director of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Bryn Mawr College. He is the author of The Queerness of Home: Gender, Sexuality, and the Politics of Domesticity after World War II (University of Chicago Press, 2021), and curator of the exhibition “AIDS at Home: Art and Everyday Activism” (Museum of the City of New York, 2017). His popular writing has appeared in the New York Times, Avidly, Time, and Slate, among other places.
Sophie Seita
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Artist
Sophie Seita
Artist
For about a decade, Sophie Seita (she/they) has worked with language as a sensuous, sculptural, and sonic material, translated and moulded into live performances, performative objects, publications, sound pieces, drawings, and textiles. She teaches in the Art Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, and recently held the Werner Düttmann Fellowship at Akademie der Künste (Berlin), and a research residency at Studio Voltaire. Often working collaboratively, she’s currently developing an artistic research project on ecoliteracy with Youngsook Choi, and a performance ritual for and with queer ancestors and water alongside Victoria Perrie, Jehan Roberson, Naomi Woo; and is nurturing the ongoing flourishing of The Hildegard von Bingen Society for Gardening Companions.
Marf Summers
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Artist, architect, leatherworker
Marf Summers
Artist, architect, leatherworker
Marf Summers (they/them) is an artist, architect and leatherworker whose work explores themes of trans dyke identity, domesticity and class. They work in mediums ranging from sandpaper to hard candy, creating object work that turns a subversive and eroticising eye on the everyday. Their work often employs butch camp sensibilities to open up playful dialogues with the often fraught terrain of the home. Marf’s work has been exhibited internationally and they are currently part of the Conditions Studio programme in Croydon, London.
Ghost and John
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Artist-researchers
Ghost and John
Artist-researchers
Ghost (he/him) and John (he/him) are two multidisciplinary artist-researchers, a cultural entrepreneur duo, and a married couple, from computer science and marine biology research backgrounds. They are best known for their collaborative approach to delivering socio-politically pertinent projects, and using technology to create embodied experiences. Ghost and John’s works are presented internationally in theatres, galleries, outdoor and other odd spaces. They collaborate with local governments, community organisers and cultural workers to drive social change through imagination infrastructure building work. They are two of the six co-founders of Hidden Keileon CIC.
Residency
For those seeking a hands-on experience, Barney has designed a 10-day in-person residency in London to expand on the themes explored in the online seminars. Participants will engage in:
- Workshops – Exploring how queerness manifests in the kitchen.
- Site Visits – Visiting queer-owned food spaces, alternative economies, and cultural institutions.
- Experimental Exercises – Developing creative projects around food, performance, and identity.
The residency provides an opportunity to connect theory to lived experience, fostering a collective exploration of queer food in an immersive and dynamic setting.
Scholarships
In order to facilitate access to participants from less favorable economic backgrounds and people of colour, The Gramounce offers a limited amount of scholarships opportunities for the online course.
However, scholarship applications will only be made available once the course is confirmed with sufficient sign-ups.
