Queerscapes Terminalia | Bristol | Free

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS AN UNOFFICIAL EVENT RUN BY OUR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PAUL BRADLEY AKA SAM JENKS WRITER as PART OF THE TERMINALIA FESTIVAL OF PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY 2023

What is Psychogeography and Terminalia?

Psychogeography is basically how places make you feel. Places are defined by borders and boundaries, what's there and what isn't. Psychogeography is also about transforming the places where we live. It's about experiencing the urban environment in other ways. It's a reaction against the prescribed, officially allowed uses of places - that of consumption, entertainment, transit, habitation. It seeks towards a transformation of the everyday. It offers a critique of urban planning. It is a form of play. It's the poetry of place. It's the effect of an area on your emotions and thoughts.

By doing psychogeography, by walking across places and spaces in a different way, we may learn three new things: About the places themselves, about ourselves and how we relate to these particular spaces, and about space and place in general with possibly seeing a glimmer of whats really going on there.

If ever there was a god of psychogeography, Terminus would be it, and Terminalia would be the feast day. The Festival of Terminalia has therefore been adapted and transformed! It is about the boundaries and borders, real, historical, symbolic and imagined. Places of beginnings, endings and thresholds. (Tim Waters, 2023)

Queerscapes Terminalia

A walk to bring together LGBTQ+ writers to consider the city, the urban environment and how we write about it. To explore what opportunities it offers us to bring the city alive in our writing. I also want to tease Terminus a bit to be honest, he's all rules and boundaries, but like in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books, I reckon Terminus has a soft spot for people who use their quickness of mind to bend around them. We can do that!  The activity is meant to fun, absurd even. And please be gentle with me, I've never done anything like this before!

On The Day

We will meet at the Watershed Cafe from 2.30pm and then at 3pm head off on a pretty random walk through the old city and touching on the old city boundaries and then beyond and on to Old Market.

Along the way, it's very much up to who is there and the direction we take but these are some of the things I've made a note of and might be doing:

- listening to other walkers stories about how they relate to the city

- thinking about actual boundaries and how they might have shaped the LGBTQ+ layers of the city. 

- looking out for city boundary stones and markers.

- talking with others about the queer geography of the city, how I relate to it as a gay man.

- looking out for lines of desire.

- refer to the Outstories App of LGBT+ Bristol

- map my walk on an app I have on my phone

- makes notes as I go along include photographs, sound recordings, written notes.

- collect archival material should the opportunity arise.

- finish up at either Old Market Tavern (tbc) or nearby Cafe for drinks , snacks, where we share our stories, 

interpretations and responses to the walk. The Wardonbe Theatre is not bookable as its given over to Sunday Roasts all day. 

About Sam Jenks

Sam was one of the co-creators of the 2022 Queerscapes Lab, an LGBTQ+ writing group. 

exploring queer approaches to psychogeographical writing.

His fiction writing has a strong focus on his own very personal take on psychogeography. He's currently editing his first novela. Find out more here:

https://samjenkswriter.carrd.co

Listing Image Credit (from G.Debord Naked City map)