Celebrating Black Queer Artistry with MQBMBQ and Jean Paul Gaultier

Last weekend, the platform My Queer Blackness, My Black Queerness (MQBMBQ) hosted its open day and dinner gala in collaboration with the Tuscan artist residency Villa Lena. This event marked the fourth consecutive year of their partnership, initially conceived to create and curate space for Black Queer artists within the esteemed residency program. For the first time, the collaboration was supported by the French heritage brand Jean Paul Gaultier, which oversaw the project from inception to execution.

This year’s residency artists, selected through an open call, included London-based artist and writer Ebun Sodipo and New York-based image maker and storyteller Kia LaBeija. Sodipo’s work is aimed at Black trans people of the future, guided by Black feminist studies and employing a methodology of collage and fabulation. Her work creates and locates real and imagined narratives of Black trans women’s presence, embodiment, and interiority across past, present, and future. In doing so, Sodipo fills historical gaps to create moments of archival pleasure for Black trans people, with her work spanning galleries, festivals, theaters, digital, and print spaces. LaBeija’s multidisciplinary approach includes photography, text, movement-based performance, collage, and film. She crafts cinematic and theatrical autobiographical works by staging, re-imagining, documenting in real-time, or combining these elements. Her performative self-portraits embody memory and dream-like imagery to tell complex stories at the intersections of womanhood, sexuality, and navigating life as a survivor of HIV and a woman of African American and Filipino descent.

During their month-long residency, both artists spent a week in mentorship with Legacy Russell, the Executive Director and Chief Curator at The Kitchen. Russell, who holds an MRes with Distinction in Art History from Goldsmiths, University of London, explores themes of gender, performance, digital selfdom, and new media ritual. She is also the author of "Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto" (2020) and "Black Meme" (2024). In the final week of the residency, curators, artists, journalists, and other guests gathered to review the work created and celebrate the artists' achievements. The open day began with a studio visit where the artists discussed their work and inspirations. This was followed by a performative reading by Ebun Sodipo in the hills near the Villa. A talk hosted by MQBMBQ founder Jordan Anderson and Legacy Russell on "The Importance of Community in Curating Black/Queer Artistic Spaces" followed. The evening concluded with a commemorative dinner where the artists conversed with guests, ending with an after-party by the pool featuring a DJ set by Khloe Bailey.

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Jean Paul Gaultier's involvement with the residency is part of the wider commitment of the brand to support the LGBTQIA+ community, a commitment that also includes the launch of their limited edition Pride fragrance. This year, the brand has reinvented the Pride all genders perfume. The limited edition Pride 2024 Eau de Toilette is available in the iconic Classique and Le Male bust-shaped bottles, with artwork by artist and activist Keith Haring. Based on Gaultier's signature neroli, the perfume colors the senses with blood orange and balances them with blonde musky woods. The brand's support for Pride goes beyond this project; it is also a partner of the NYC LGBT Community Center, and Keith Haring's mural "Once Upon a Time", a permanent installation within the center, has come back into the spotlight thanks to this release. Jean Paul Gaultier's involvement in the MQBMBQ event, along with the annual launch of the Pride fragrance and the partnership with the NYC LGBT Community Center, underscores the brand's ongoing commitment to the celebration and support of the LGBTQIA+ community. Through these initiatives, they continue to promote inclusivity and the celebration of diverse identities, ensuring their support for Pride extends well beyond a single project or a single month.