Letting vulnerability and authenticity shine through spoken word, non-binary poet S-Bars brings something raw and real to queer poetry. The poet hosts LGBTQIA+ open mic poetry nights throughout the year, amongst many other queer-centric events. 


We chatted to S-Bars about these poetry nights, the importance of queer spaces and their journey. 







The support. There’s such support and wholesomeness in the room, and everyone is truly just so lovely, whether that’s the audience or the per...

Irish singer CMAT has been all over the festival scene this summer. From her music going viral on social media to her political activism on stage, we’ve got all you need to know about this brilliantly wacky queer icon. 


The 29-year-old uses the acronymic stage name, CMAT, representing her full name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson. She spent most of her childhood in and around Dublin, including her studies at Trinity College Dublin, before dropping out to focus on her music in Denmark. Now living in...

Iris Prize, the world’s biggest LGBTQIA+ short film prize, has revealed the films competing in this year’s festival for the grand prize of £40,000. The Iris Prize aims to celebrate LGBTQIA+ stories from around the world, which are often overlooked in mainstream media, by providing budding filmmakers with a platform and support. 


A total of 35 films were shortlisted for the 2025 festival, with diverse queer stories spanning topics from disability to race to witches. 


Director of the festiva...

Today (22 August) sees the return of Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of BoJack Horseman, with his new animated series Long Story Short. Praised for his emotional and sharp animation, BoJack Horseman, Bob-Waksberg knows just how to do queer representation right, and this new adult animation is no different. 


Long Story Short is centred around a Jewish family, the Schwoopers, with key focus on the overbearing but proud mother and her three children, Avi, Shira and Yoshi. The series takes the uniq...

Actor and model, Julia Fox, has revealed she identifies as pansexual in a recent interview with Allure, stating, “I’m pansexual; I could be attracted to anyone and anything.” 


The fashion icon previously had been thought to come out as lesbian, via a TikTok video she shared last year, and back in 2022, suggested she has a “gay bone” and was ready to explore dating women.


Fox has admitted her queer awakening was a difficult journey, explaining that she had to find a chosen family after her...

“If you walked in front of the TV, he’d swear at you. If his team lost, he’d take it out on me.”
For one domestic abuse survivor, Isla*, who was supported by Woman’s Trust, major football tournaments were not a cause for celebration but a source of dread.
As millions of fans prepare to cheer on their team at this year’s World Cup, she remembers spending match days walking on eggshells, carefully monitoring her partner’s mood and fearing what might happen if the result did not go his way.
“I woul...

The female gaze …
A success on the screen, but one that has not transferred all too well onto our smaller screens. The term originates in film theory, countering ‘male gaze’ cinema and the objectification of women that follows. But on social media, the female gaze appears to morph into its misogynistic predecessor, used to rank women based on appearance, judging and objectifying them just as before.
This disturbing similarity highlights the deep-rooted and often subconscious nature of the male g...

You may have seen it on your underground commute, or in your local bank. More recently it’s gone viral as a funky feature piece for flats, it’s the convex mirror and it has a bewitching backstory you may not have known. The clue is in the name. The convex mirror is an outward facing, rounded mirror, encapsulating a fish-eyed like image in its reflection. These mirrors are often used for surveillance, hence their common name “banker’s mirror”, or to make a space appear bigger than it actually is....

What is art? How do we define something so broad and complex? Has anyone got it right? George Dickie gave it a go back in 1974, but the definition he posed faced much backlash. Although his definition did partially succeed by casting the net wider for art that was not typically ‘aesthetic’, it encountered issues of exclusion and authority. The Institutional Theory ultimately failed to encapsulate non-Western artworlds as well as any female input. How we think of art today would be entirely different...

Why is it we rank one ballet dancer better than another if her pirouette looks easy? Why is it that we find her spin more aesthetically pleasing when she has no strain on her face? Or does effortlessness not have any place in aesthetic appreciation at all? I must say it does, but why? Some argue it is because of grace, others argue skill, but I suggest an aspect of identity is partly the reason effortlessness tickles our brains so.Past thinkers have argued that perhaps the reason why we find eff...

Although great breakthroughs in pregnancy prevention have taken place over the last few decades, they are perhaps not as progressive as we’d hoped. Though the growing fight for increased access to abortions and the availability of birth-control pills, signals to the liberation of women, the hidden social meanings behind it all limit her freedom once more. The patriarchy uncovers once again how deeply entrenched its claws are, that progression towards freedom from its grip can never come easy.Rad...

Returning to Hackney Bridge this weekend (11 – 12 October), for its fifth year running, is the award-winning Black Eats Festival. If you’re looking to celebrate Black History Month with eats, beats and booze, this isn’t one to miss.


Expect Black-owned street food vendors, with dishes from the Caribbean, Africa and beyond. As well as a Windrush 1027 Cocktail bar, prizes from Deliveroo and others, plus pop-ups, including a Fresha x Slider Cuts booth if you’re in need of a free trim.


If that’...

This week sees the opening of three new exhibitions at Tower Hamlet’s Whitechapel Gallery. The hub for contemporary art in the East End presents the work of Joy Gregory and Candice Lin, with the exhibitions running from 8 October to 1 March.


Spanning forty-years of work, this exhibition is a celebration of Joy Gregory’s art, and the first major survey show of the artist. Expect over 250 works from photography and film to installations and textiles exploring race, history, identity, gender and...

This week, UAL’s London College of Fashion are opening their studio to Darcey Fleming for her immersive exhibition. Free to the public, the studio takeover will run from 7 October to 11 October at the London College of Fashion campus in Stratford.

Fleming completely transforms the space into “wearable” sculptures, and “squares” of discarded twine donated by local farmers. Visitors are encouraged to walk through her work and chat to Darcey herself as she weaves even more twine in the studio. Th...