no bodies welcome | all bodies welcome

The project welcome, by Aay Liparoto, FACT’s 2019 EMAP artist-in-residence, is a speculative choir piece housed within a ‘void pod’. In their work, Liparoto acknowledges our interdependence with technology for information, work, sex, entertainment, communication, socialising, banking, healthcare and the crossovers in between. What does this web of interdependence mean for queer feminist bodies which rely more heavily on DIY information exchange? Through the ‘void pod’, the project invites us to question the power and politics of the spaces we engage in online, our own and the behaviour of others within them. The ‘void pod’s’ new sound piece is created through workshops with HOT BODIES – CHOIR, a queer, LGBTQIA+ and feminist choir based in Brussels. Cocooned in light and sound, the singers’ voices invite us to reflect on these online spaces and the behaviours within.

Liparoto’s artwork has been informed by their ongoing researchNot Found On, part of which was carried out during the residency, where workshops were held across Liverpool with the aim of discussing the co-creation of an online knowledge bank with, by and for feminist queer bodies to record and exchange community knowledge.

This work was realised within the framework of the European Media Art Platforms (EMAP) programme at FACT (GB) with support of the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union.