Sunday School: Spilling The Tea – Making Art with A Queer Lens
Spilling the Tea: Making Art with a Queer Lens is a camp and chaotic conversation with The Cult of Rhys, Duo Devour and Sophie Hutchinson.
We have gathered these gorge girls, gays and theys together to sip and spill the tea on what life is like for them as professional working queer artists. Each coming from different disciplines, and each having raucous and free spirited nature, this is going to be a talk like no other. Get your saucers at the ready as this is going to be a treat.
NB: The €10 ticket price covers entry for this event and for We’re Coming Out – Local LGBTQ+ Artists Presenting Their Work
To remove barriers for attendance we have a limited number of stipends available for access and/or childcare costs. Please contact natashaeverittarts@gmail.com to avail of this.
Note: Stipends will be distributed on a first come, first served basis.
The Cult of Rhys
Rhys Wallace (They/Them) is a multi-disciplinary non-binary queer artist from Waterford who creates film and performance work around their personal experiences of identity and gender. Rhys seeks to blend a 1960s Twiggy-style super model of the world attitude, with a dusty laurel canyon cult leader flare. Blending nostalgic moving fashion, digital pack rat collage, eclectic editing and an occult following of colour to create the world of Rhys – a strange and enigmatic land where the boundaries of our world are crossed and challenged. By framing these visual experiences within large scale installations, Rhys hopes to create a conversation surrounding the taboo, the underground and the often hidden but technicolour world of queer society. These installations serve to investigate the complex and often times confusing experience of gender within the constraints of contemporary western society. Why is she a man? Why is he a woman? Why haven’t you ascended beyond yet? Trans-vestigation is abound, step into the cult of Rhys and experience the teachings yourself.
Rhys graduated from SETU Waterford in 2022 and was the recipient of the GOMA Waterford studio award, as well as the Waterford Collection of Art Graduate Award. They have since gone on to showcase their work in the 6th edition of the Waxed Lemon, exhibited in Waterford, Dublin and Spain, has been voted Volunteer of the Year for Arts and Culture with Volunteer Ireland and most recently having completed a 3 month residency (Breaking the Patterns) in Seville with Capacity Ireland & Creative Europe.
Duo Devour
Meg and Kitty, also known as Duo Devour, are a daredevil duo based in Waterford, Ireland. Their journey began at Circomedia, Bristol’s renowned circus school, where they specialised in aerial and acrobatics. Building on their foundation, they went on to self-teach a range of danger acts, including knife throwing and target bullwhip cracking. Their dynamic talents have taken them on tour with traditional Irish circuses, Festivals, street theatre productions, and cabaret shows. Most recently, they directed and produced their sell-out hit, Devour the Night, Ireland’s adult circus spectacular.
Sophie Hutchinson
Sophie is a dance artist and somatic movement facilitator from Waterford City. After training at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, work as a performer developed across the UK and
Poland, including collaborations with Company of Others and Song of the Goat Theatre. Thesevexperiences sparked a deeper inquiry into autonomy and embodiment, leading to focused training in somatic practices from 2018 onwards.
Since returning to Ireland in 2021, Sophie has been exploring inclusive and trauma-informed approaches to dance under the mentorship of Adam Benjamin (co-founder of CandoCo). Current projects include a collaboration with Surface Area Dance Theatre and Deaf visual artist and writer Louise Stern, as well as ongoing research with audio-visual artist Billy Kemp into the meeting points between dance and technology. These projects are supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Light Moves Festival.
