The Queer Migrations Festival will be held across the Royal Museums Greenwich, Firepit Art Gallery, and PARKSfest 2025. Bold Melon Collective, who are presenting the festival, talk to QX about what we can look forward to.
Tell us about Queer Migrations Festival
Queer Migrations is a community arts festival foregrounding the intersections of queerness and migration. Taking place from July 9th – August 9th across Royal Museums Greenwich, Firepit Art Gallery and PARKSfest 2025, the festival centres the experiences of queer people who have journeyed, fled, or resettled, often in search of safety, freedom, or belonging.
By highlighting the resilience and creativity of queer migrants—past and present—Queer Migrations invites audiences and attendees to consider how histories of movement shape queer life today. Through performances, workshops, and community-led events, Queer Migrations asks us to reflect on what it means to move — and to be moved — as queer people in a world shaped by borders.
What inspired the festival?
Queer Migrations has grown from Bold Mellon’s expansive past programme of community events spanning performance, live music, visual art exhibitions and community workshops. Over the past 3 years we have nurtured creative connections – building coalitions of queer and migrant artists. This festival comes from a driving desire to celebrate our communities, queer world-building in the pursuit of borderless futures.
What is your ambition for the artworks?
In the context of the current socio-political landscape in the UK, we want to uplift queer migrant stories and to meet this time of growing scarcity in the arts by sharing space and resources with others. We are thrilled in imagining that the artist commissions and new connections found through Queer Migrations will grow into something new in the future. These opportunities to connect, discuss, and see differently together are what nourish us.
Festival Programme: More Info & Book Here
Exhibition:
The Queer Migrations Exhibition will run from: July 15th – August 9th 2025
Tuesday (10AM-5PM), Wednesday (10AM-5PM), Thursday (12-7PM), Friday (10AM-5PM), Saturday (11AM-5PM), Firepit Art Gallery and Studios CIC
The Queer Migrations Exhibition Opening Event: Thursday, July 17th 2025, 7-9PM, BSL Interpreted Event
Workshops:
Opening Lecture: Painting the ‘Right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent’, with Dr Elvira Pushkareva: July 9th 2025, 6-8pm
Lecture Theatre, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Mapping Our Roots: An interactive workshop with Touch Grass C.I.C: July 27th 2025, 2-5pm
Orangery and South Parlour, Queens House, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Zine-making workshop with Sold Out Publishing & Plan B: August 2nd 2025, 2-5pm
Learning Space, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
Performance:
Queer Migrations Live-Art Performance Event: August 9th 2025, 7-9pm
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. BSL Interpreted Event
Queer Migrations Festival is supported by Royal Museums Greenwich, Firepit Art Gallery and Studios CIC, The Royal Borough of Greenwich and Royal Greenwich Festivals.
