VSSL Studio is excited to present Trans Get Down: Hospicing He-Man at the Bitter End, a performance talk by Mijke van der Drift (text) and Zissel Aronow (visuals), as part of the Entanglements of the Apocalypse programme.
Join us on Friday, 26th September, from 7–9 PM at VSSL Studio. Doors open at 6:45 PM, with the talk starting promptly at 7 PM.
ABOUT TRANS GET DOWN: HOSPICING HE-MAN AT THE BITTER END:
By Mijke van der Drift (text) and Zissel Aronow (visuals)
Patriarchy’s tantrum of death sees attacks on trans people, refugees, migrants, and “politics of inclusion” which is shorthand for the right to racism and misogyny. The end might come in the guise of climate breakdown, or social uprisings, but it is coming closer, and we are part of it. In this performance talk, combining text and visuals, Mijke van der Drift and Zissel Aronow offer transfeminist concepts and practices for helping patriarchy face its own bitter end.
ABOUT MIJKE VAN DER DRIFT AND ZISSEL ARONOW:
Mijke van der Drift works on transfeminist and anti-imperial ethics through philosophies of movement, collective action, and counter-cultural production. This work takes the form of writings, performances, and sound pieces, often by way of inter-disciplinary collaborations. Mijke is Tutor (Research) at the Royal College of Art, London and co-chair of its Union branch. Mijke is founding member of the arts collective Red Forest. Together with Nat Raha, Mijke co-authored Trans Femme Futures (Pluto 2024), and co-edit the Radical Transfeminism Zine. Mijke published in Alternatives, Social Text, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, with Cambridge University Press, and many other outlets.
Zissel Aronow is a community organiser and artist from Philadelphia. Their work focuses on bringing people together through the co-creation of spaces and objects marked by experimentation and collective action. Zissel recently curated an exhibition titled Out From the Centre at Mimosa House, highlighting the political work of queer, trans and disabled people in London over the last 40 years. They currently facilitate Queer Minds, a peer support programme for LGBTQIA+ people in South East London and recently published Until Palestine is Free: Lessons From a Student Intifada, which they co-edited with Tessnim Tolba.
ABOUT ENTANGLEMENTS OF THE APOCALYPSE:
Entanglements of the Apocalypse is a transdisciplinary programme exploring queer and trans imaginaries of world-building in response to apocalypse(s). Grounded in ongoing research, the programme critically reinterprets the idea of apocalypse through queer and trans lenses, actively resisting capitalist and colonial narratives that frame apocalypse as a singular or final event.
Drawing inspiration from Oxana Timofeeva’s concept of apocalypse as a cyclical and continuous condition, this project engages with apocalypse as an ongoing transformative process that shapes collective memory and artistic practices.
Led by independent curators and artists, the programme challenges conventional narratives around ‘the end,’ creating spaces for dialogue, experimentation, and collective expression. The programme imagines exhibition-making as an inclusive and collaborative learning process, working closely with queer communities to build spaces of resistance, care, and speculative creativity. Through radically intimate and emergent methods, this initiative uses apocalyptic thinking as a means of envisioning alternative and transformative present and future.
The continuing programme will unfold over the following six months with a series of exhibitions, public gatherings, workshops, talks, and experimental learning events at VSSL Studio and across community spaces - FURTHER ARTISTS AND CONTRIBUTORS WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON - The programme invites audiences to collectively engage with post-apocalyptic thinking, queer world-building, and trans-led imaginaries that centre care, pleasure, hybridity, and embodied knowledge.
www.vssl-studio.org
ABOUT VENUE ACCESS:
VSSL Studio is accessed from Resolution Way via a raised, fenced path. There are 3 steps. Step free access can be found via the carpark on Tidemill Way. The studio entrance door is wide and wheelchair accessible. There is an accessible toilet within the studio block.