Art Installation
Saturday 26 August 2023
Let's Talk About Chemsex is a Recoverist Month trailblazer taking place at Manchester Pride Festival, and will see artist Harold Offeh as a 90s radio host.
This art installation is the start of a year-long project that aims to explore the queer communities' broad range of experiences of sex on chems. Harnessing the power of the legendary Salt N Pepa track Let's Talk About Sex, to talk about consent, intimacy, and desire.
Themed as a vintage radio show on a Community Lane market stall at the Gay Village Party, Offeh will invite passersby to enter the show as a guest or respond to prompts and questions on the topic of sex on chems, intimacy, and consent. Visitors can interact with the host, or record a message on a special answering machine. Activities allow visitors to contribute words and phrases to a collective song about queer intimacy or they can suggest a track for a collective playlist on consent.
Over the next 12 months, people will have the opportunity to participate in further artist led workshops. Directly informed by the lived experience, the creative outcomes will contribute to the production and presentation of the final artwork over Manchester Pride Festival 2024.
Chemsex panel discussion
Sunday 27 August 2023, 2.30-4pm
FREE
Hosted by artist Harold Offeh with Cheddar Gorgeous and Duncan Craig OBE, CEO of We Are Survivors, this event is for people with an interest or have had a variety of experiences that contribute to discussions on Chemsex.
This event complements the previous days market stall art installation on Community Lane within the Gay Village. Offeh will introduce the afternoon session with Cheddar Gorgeous and Duncan Craig OBE, offering their thoughts on the recently published report Sex, Chems, HIV & Consent. Then followed by a round robin of creative activities, led by Offeh, to engage with ideas on Desire, Intimacy and Consent. Attendees will then come together to review and reflect on the different responses to the activities.
Let's Talk about Chemsex led by artist Harold Offeh, is the start of a year- long project that aims to explore the queer communities' broad range of experiences of sex on Chems. Harnessing the power of the legendary Salt N Pepa track Let's Talk About Sex, to talk about consent, intimacy, and desire. Let’s Talk About Sex (1991) tried to de-stigmatize discussion of sex and desire in popular culture. The track was released at the height of the AIDS pandemic and was accompanied by a now forgotten B’side called Let’s Talk About AIDS, featuring the same tune but with lyrics addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis as something to address without shame or prejudice.
Using workshops, talks and performance the project seeks to visually map and survey a diverse range of experiences without guilt, shame, or stigma, Let's Talk About Chemsex will draw on this history and aims to support efforts by organisations in Manchester to promote non-judgemental discussions on Chemsex, consent, HIV and queer intimacy.
The session follows the previous days, public event at the Manchester Pride (Saturday 26th) where offeh invited passers-by to enter his ‘radio show’ as a guest or respond to prompts and questions on the topic of sex on Chems, intimacy, and consent. Visitors interacted with the host or recorded a message on a special answering machine. Activities allowed visitors to contribute words and phrases for a collective song about queer intimacy or suggested a track for a collective playlist on consent.
Over the next12 months people will have the opportunity to participate in further artist led workshops. Directly informed by the lived experience the projects creative outcomes will contribute to final artwork production for presentation Manchester Pride 2024.
Commissioned by Portraits of Recovery and supported by Manchester Art Gallery.
An event as part of Recoverist Month Sept 2023
Recoverist = recovery + activist
