Love, Hugs + Kisses - Midsumma Festival preview

Nestled in a laneway near Elizabeth and Londsdale streets, queer underground nightclub, Hugs + Kisses, opened its doors in 2010 and for nine years it was a supportive space for LGBTIQ+ people to get together and make it their own. Music, dancing, liberation, open-minds and self-expression were all welcome. In January 2019, it closed its doors for the last time.

Photographer Nik Epifanidis was at Hugs + Kisses on its closing night. Set up outside the club, he spent the evening taking portraits of who was there, capturing the mood and tone that was present in the crowd. Only able to spend a few minutes with each person, Epifanidis asked them to focus on the emotion they wished to convey to the camera. The result of that is the Love, Hugs + Kisses exhibition, which acts as a compendium to a documentary on the club that is scheduled to be released in 2020, and begin presented as part of the Midsumma Festival.

While not personally connected to Hugs + Kisses, Epifanidis understood the importance and relevance of this venue closing, and was keen to be involved in the project when the film makers of the documentary made contact. "I hadn’t been to Hugs + Kisses, but I've always been intrigued by counter culture and how this is communicated. There is usually a good reason these places come into existence that speaks about people feeling the need to show themselves and be heard in a way they are unable to in the current mainstream," he says.

Convergent Pathologies - Midsumma preview

One of the more intriguing exhibitions being presented at Midsumma Festival is Premier Event, Convergent Pathologies. Curated by myriad collective's darcy t gunk, the work on display by trans and gender diverse (TGD) artists living with mental illness, is a representation of their experiences of making choices to resist or comply with being pathologised.

As co-founder of myriad collective - a group that seeks to create performance, exhibition and professional development opportunities for TGD artists in Melbourne - finding the talent for this exhibition was not an arduous one for darcy. "Almost all of the artists in this exhibition have worked with myriad collective before, which meant that they understood how we do things, and our ethics and values as a collective. We did an open call for submissions and the response we got was that they were really excited to be part of this exhibition. myriad collective is all about bringing together a broad diversity of trans and gender diverse experience, so I wanted to fit as many artists into the exhibition as possible, whilst still allowing them to present up to 3 works each," darcy says.

Exposed art exhibition - Midsumma Festival preview

MrPeeDee by Ross Spirou

While there are many theatre and stage productions on during the Midsumma Festival, there are also a large number of art exhibitions happening around Melbourne. One of these, Exposed, has two artists, Ross Spirou and Steve Edwards, presenting works in different art styles but with similar themes and ideas. Both were winners of last year's Men On Men Art Competition with Spirou winning the Grand Prize and Edwards winning the People's Choice Awards, and as part of that, they have the opportunity to display their work in a joint exhibition at The Laird Hotel during the festival.

"I love to share my art and passion with the world and this exhibition is allowing me to do just that and of course, it is also nice to be part of MidSumma!" Spirou explains. "We enter competitions and hold exhibitions to let the world know that we are here and this is what we do and Exposed is another step taken towards reaching a greater audience. The name of our exhibition is very appropriate as we will be exposing our art and who we are as artists to the community and hopefully beyond."

Absinthe review

In 2013, I had the good fortune of working front of house when Spiegelword brought its show Empire to Melbourne’s Crown Casino. I was able to repeatedly watch a variety of world-class artists performing in some highly skillful and often death-defying acts, which also proved to be an exhilarating experience for audience members. Fast forward three years and Spiegelworld have returned their spiegeltent to the Crown Casino rooftop with Absinthe.

Inspired by cabarets of late-19th century Europe, Absinthe is a variety of burlesque, circus, song and dance that will appeal to everyone. Given the theme of the show and the physique and strengths of the performers, there is also quite a bit of flesh on display and plenty of sexual innuendo and some not so subtle sexual humour by the hosts, The Gazillionaire and his sidekick Penny Pibbets.