Tarik Elmoutawakil: on secret diaries, creativity, and community

Hi, I'm David Sheppeard. Roni Guetta and this is My Queer Museum, a podcast where our queer stories are valued and collected. Well, I do love to be valued on a regular basis, Roni, so can you tell me a little bit more about this podcast? Well, we have invited some of our favourite queer people in Brighton and Hove to tell us which objects they would put in a queer museum if there was one. And these are their stories. Hi Tarik. Hi. How are you today? That's a good question. We don't need to answer it, but I'll answer anyway just to get some of the words out of my mouth. If you can edit it out. I'm doing not great, but I'm also doing fine. It's lovely to be here and I'm feeling spirited by the company.

Good. Thank you for being here. We're feeling spirited by your company too. Good. So Tarik, would you like to just introduce yourself to our listeners? Yes. Hi, my name is Tarik El Moutu-Wakil. I am 38 years old. You're a Scorpio. I am a Scorpio with Libra rising and Leo moon, Jupiter in the first house, Pluto in the first house, Saturn in the first house. Saturn in the first house. Can you believe it? I'm quite an intense character. But there's some really sweet things in there too, don't you worry. Saturn square Venus for the astrology lovers out there. Anyway, what else do you need to know? I think that's really what we were looking for to be fair. I mean, queers know about astrology now. That actually means things to people. I've known, I've been learning astrology for the last, since for the last 20 years, apparently.

And back in the day, queers in general did not speak in astrological terms. And it's really lovely now that they do. So welcome. So my question then is how might people know you? What's your vibes? What do you do? I am co-director of Marlborough Productions. So for many years I was at Marlborough Pub and Theatre. We've now decamped. So you won't no longer find me in that building, but I'm still carrying the same spirit around the city of intersectional queer liberation. Brilliant. Brilliant. Fantastic. So I started working in Marlborough in the bar in 2001 and having been to Sussex University for my degree and stayed working in the bar for until 2008, at which point I decided to take a risk and take over theatre and make something of that space.

And at which point I started working with David Sheppeard. That's me. Yeah. Who you all know well. And then we've been making Marlborough Productions, basically a thing with lots of other amazing people since then. So that is how you may know me from behind the bar, around the building. You may have seen me at Pride, up on a stage. Or maybe you might know me from Brownton Abbey, the Afrofuturistic Space Church team performance party that centres, celebrates and elevates disabled queer people of colour. And we'll hear more about that later. Fantastic. Roni and I have this shared imagining of this queer museum that does not exist in the real material world. Yet. Yet, importantly. And we are inviting notable folks.

Inspirational people from our city. To come and contribute their items, objects, stories, ephemera, whatever we can think of that could be contained in our queer museum. So we've asked Haric to contribute three items to our queer museum. And we would like you to start talking about your first item. I am putting in a teenage diary. So how old were you when you wrote this diary? Tell us a little bit about it. He's got it out for us. It's a kind of red, I'd say care worn diary from 1995. It has a weird sticker in the front. It's not a weird sticker. It's actually a sticker with a picture of a cacti, a cactus that looks quite phallic. And it says the great mole hunt on it. And it's a sticker that came free with one of the later Adrian Mole books.

I was a fan of Adrian Mole and his diaries. I wanted to pay an homage with my own diary. That is adorable. Perhaps maybe even to sort of like have some of his magic rub off on mine. I don't think I ever really kind of truly understood that it was written by Sue Townsend at the time. Was that right? Was that their author? Yeah, it was Sue Townsend. Yeah. But yeah, I loved the Adrian Mole books too. They were very, I mean, he had a kind of strange, because he was kind of an outsider. I think he did definitely appeal to baby queers in some ways, even though he was definitely a heterosexual outsider. Yeah, I kind of partly maybe was hoping that he might have turned out to be queer. I think I was always waiting for that part of his story in some way and was wondering if some parts of his, you know, similar things were part of, I don't know.

That's what I thought was going on with Adrian Mole. I definitely tried to convince myself that I was heterosexual by fancying Pandora Braithwaite, which was Adrian's girlfriend in the early books. Absolutely. Yeah. And I kind of sort of did a similar thing in the books, reading the books, but also in my in my life as well. And that kind of features in in the diaries as well. And it's interesting to kind of go back to those times and yeah, see how my little queer mind tried to fit a heterosexual one onto what I was experiencing. So tell us a little bit about baby queer Tarik. So this is 25 years ago. So Tarik would have been 13. He knows me better than I do. So, well, I came across, I just opened it up randomly today.

And I've got this bit. First was a little bit about something going on with my nose and not sure what's there, but then, okay. After school, Philip started saying I was gay. He thinks he is so big and hard. He made immature remarks like, oh, no, he'll tell Mr. Mackay is a call. Maybe. And then this is me, my own thoughts. Maybe he hasn't got a heart after all. Typical of people in Christ College. That was a school I went to. I think the other day I'd like early on in the diary a few days earlier, I had thought that Philip and I might have been about to blossom into a friendship. And it's just heartbreaking. I know. And it turns out actually that he thought I was gay. And so, I mean, he was right.

Then you did. Tell us a little bit about your school days then and about what this kind of this diary, what period this diary kind of covers. While I was fasting, I was still a Muslim. So the next bit in my diary, two more days of fasting to go. At last I'll be able to eat properly. I must have lost loads of weight. I've spoken to a couple of people who have braces if they hurt. They say that only when I've lost them onto braces now. But fasting features quite a few times. And it's interesting how, you know, I'm kind of happy to go along with it, although I don't really enjoy it, but I'm doing it anyway. I don't know how I'd cope with it now. I was quite amazed that I went through that. But I also wonder if any of my weird eating stuff can be attributed to that time.

I haven't gone to therapy around that yet. So it's hard to say. Who knows? We'll keep you posted on that one. What kind of stands out for you about 13, 14 Tarik in terms of his character and maybe his latent queerness? Basically, when I was having like thoughts, when I was having gay thoughts, basically, I, when I wrote about that in my diary, because I think there was part of me that wanted to, wanted to document it. But I also was scared that anybody would find it and the risk of that happening. So I never actually kind of said anything kind of explicitly. I don't think, there are definitely hints here and there, but I really kind of do keep it a bit coded. But, and I kind of also keep it coded for myself, I think.

It took me a while to remember, I was having, I was reading through kind of a whole, like maybe six months, and this thing of cheap thrills came up. And basically, I think I'd kind of compartmentalized the kind of sexual excitement that I feel from thinking about boys at the time of my age, as being a cheap, a cheap thriller and something that I would grow out of. And that my, you know, love for, for everybody, which I could also, would also, you know, love for, for my female friends who had most of them. I would, I would think that was me fancying them, you know, if it was a girl and I, and I, and I really liked her, then I must fancy her. But what got me off was a cheap thrill. And it was interesting that that took me, yeah, kind of about six months or like reading through about six months before it suddenly clicks.

I was like, oh, that's what cheap thrills were. And I kind of, we kind of remembered that I'd put it in there to, to in some way document it, leave a little, a little reminder, like, casting a line out, like a, for, for my future self, which I'm pleased to know that I had a thought, foresight would, would be interested in this. So I'm, I'm very curious about what you read to us, because it's someone saying that you're gay, but in the diary, you're not really reacting to that. You're reacting to him being rude and a bit annoying, but it's sort of almost not really hurting your feelings. No, I mentioned it. I think I want to like, I obviously hurt me that he said it, maybe because it exposed me, maybe because it was something that I didn't want to see, you know, it would have been far too.

I think at that time, it would have definitely been something that I couldn't think I could have handled. I didn't know, I didn't actually meet any gay people until I left school and went to sixth form college in Camden. And that's when I met someone else who was gay. So, to that point, I was like 16 going on 17. So there was literally no framing, no, no frame of reference as well. And growing up in a family that I did, gay people were also just not mentioned, just was not a thing. So I think also I had no idea how to respond to that. I just knew that I didn't like it being associated with me and had faith that such a fate wouldn't befall upon me because I was a good boy. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting thing that you brought up about the fear of being discovered and this idea of coding, because it's like something that's very, you know, Ann Lister's diaries where she would code whenever she had a lesbian sexual encounter.

She had a special alphabet for it. And I think that because I like to write, but I was always I had a quite a an inquiring mother who liked to tidy my bedroom. And I never wrote anything down or and then once when I did record something, she found it. And then I was just like, oh, God, because I didn't want to have that conversation, wasn't ready to have that conversation yet. But it's this thing about a fear of being read, isn't it? Rather than almost that comes from that act of writing down. And I think it's just a really I think it's an amazing thing that you've got that insight into your teenage mind, because I can remember it all. And maybe it would be out of my body if I wrote it down because it's all in my head still a lot of it.

But I think it's it's really beautiful. Absolutely. And I just it's also thinking about coding and language and loneliness, the loneliness that queer people used to, you know, experience in their life. And how much this we probably came out about 20 years ago, 18 years ago, something like that. We were born the same year. Maybe maybe came out around the same time. Yeah. Around the same time in our 20s. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Because we thought we'd be about coming out because I guess it's a thing of it happens to my dad when I was 27. Yeah. On my birthday. But, you know, I think we were teenagers around the same time and we didn't know any other queer people. And I think that's not the case today.

And you saying I didn't know what to reply really hit me because I remember being called a lesbian in high school. And I went to high school up until the age of 19 because that's the schooling system in Italy. And there was no other queer people in my entire school of 700 and in my entire family of about 100. And so when someone called me and there was no social media and there was no big sort of comebacks to someone calling you a lesbian. And I just think an 18-year-old child today would have so much more language for it. Even if they weren't actually queer or if they were queer and didn't want to say, they would still have language. And I just had a conversation two nights ago with an 18-year-old young woman who said she just really silenced someone in her class who was being homophobic.

And I thought that's just amazing in 20 years. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it was the same in Italy, but we definitely grew up with like, that's gay was, it was an insult. You know, things were, or gay lord. Gay lord. Yeah. Which I realised later on, I was like, that's a great thing to be. I'd love to be a gay lord. Lord of the gays. I'll take it. Yeah. I mean, it was just definitely a kind of catch-all, like, pejorative, offensive term. But there was also no sort of, you know, there was today to sit in a politic class at 16 or 17 and say that you're homophobic is going to come across really terribly. And you're going to have loads of vocal people speaking up for LGBTQ rights. Well, you know, 20 years ago when we were in school, things were a lot different.

Well, it wasn't allowed. It was actually illegal in school in England back then. It was because of the whole Section 28 business, which I did. It does feature later in my diaries when I was campaigning against Section 28 by doing things like going up to Manchester to see my lesbian friends up there, Manchester Dykes. And we would do things like, well, we boycotted with Stagecoach. Stagecoach buses, who the boss of that company campaigned against, campaigned to keep Section 28 in place, which basically made it illegal to promote homosexuality in school, which is to say that it was equal to heterosexuality. That presented family relationships and that you couldn't teach that it was a kind of legitimate way of life.

Yeah, you had to say it was lesser than. Well, yeah, what year were you marching with the dykes? I think like 16? About 16. Yeah, I think I started to go up to Manchester when I was about 16. So about three years later is when I started to. So it was actually through my hippie youth group, Woodcraft, that I actually met. We didn't craft wood before I started to meet gays as well. And that was really, and they weren't, so they weren't in the place that I lived. So that allowed me to also be myself. And what was I going to say about marching with them? Oh, yes, one of our protests. So we did boycott stagecoach buses by not getting them. But on the occasions that we did, then there was some like sort of petty vandalism that we would do.

For example, we took one of their seats off the bus, like an actual seat that was a bit loose. It didn't have to dismantle it or anything. It just came straight off because they didn't look after their buses properly. So we took the seat off and then posted it back to them using their free post address. So they had to pay a lot of money for that. So it was just ways of kind of like wearing stagecoach down. We posted them a lot of things. We posted them bricks and all sorts of things. That's fantastic. I imagine a brick is going to be expensive to pay for. Yeah. That's wonderful. That's how you do it. You can still do that with free post companies that you don't like. Oh, good. Good bit of consumer kind of guerrilla behavior there.

So just to finish up on your first object, is there anything with the quintessential RuPaul's question? Is there anything that you would say to your 13 or 14 year old self that you wish that they had you'd known at the time? What would you what would 38 year old Tarik say to 13 or 14 year old Tarik? I think that I wouldn't. I think I would be unsafe to tell them that he was gay and just, you know, you're going to have to get used to that. I don't think I'd be able to say that to him. I think it might have. I don't know what that would have done to him. Little Tarik. Bless him. But I mean, if I came as myself, I would have been able to explain to him because he would have had, he would have ripped some hole in the time space continuum.

So who knows? But if I found a way of messaging of letting that young self know without destroying all of humanity, then I probably would let him know that he's going to have some really amazing, like freeing times. He can just love life in the future. And also be part of something that...

I didn't go for it. I don't know. Just like something. No, I am committed to communities. You know, being something that is part of like doing whatever I can to support people who are marginalized. I'm definitely not some savior, but it's something that I'm invested in. And I think a lot of people are invested in it in the arts communities and loads of communities. We often don't see the ways in which people ultimately what they're doing is using the work that they have to uplift people. And I think young Tarot could be really proud to know that that was something that I was doing. And also that I was still contributing to like fucking shit up. Are you going to call me back? Are you going to call me back?

Are you going to call me back? Are you going to call me back? Would you like to tell us a little bit about your second object? Okay. The second object is something that I'm wearing right now. So I'm wearing a cape that is brown. It has a hood. It opens up in the front. It's like from shoulder to toe. It has like a large hood. It's Moroccan. It belonged to my father. I got it. He bought it for my sister's wedding, but it's a traditional garment. The kind of thing that I believe would be worn by shepherds, which was my father was when he was a boy in Morocco. But also just worn by, you know, it's a traditional piece that can be used for fancy occasions, but also it's very practical and keep you warm on a cold night, but also keep you cool on a

really hot day. I bought it in a desert and it was really, really helpful. Actually, it wasn't a desert. It was a really hot, sandy place in Spain. A Spanish desert. It was framed as a desert by a bunch of hippies. And I believe it because I don't know much about geography. Because they've not been to Morocco. They don't know what a desert is. I don't know what a real desert is. It's a cape that when I wear it, it feels, I feel both glamorous and, but also really sort of homely. And actually I'm going to use a Dutch word for this, cheselich, which is my other half of my heritage, which means it's particularly kind of cozy that it's actually very hard to translate into primitive English language.

I'm not saying that the Dutch is superior at all. BT dubs. It's all European trash. So your dad got you this for your sister's wedding? Did he bring it for you? Did he bring it for... He brought it for himself. And then after he passed, we brought his body to Morocco for his funeral, where we buried him in his village in the mountains. It's quite a lot of work to take a dead body to another country, turns out, even when it's insured for such a trip. And in the house in Morocco, I saw the cape. My cousin was wearing it actually. And I was like, oh, what's that? That's glamorous. And my mum was like, that was your father's. And so I was like to my cousin, hey, that's mine. That's mine now. I've inherited it.

And it's, I think, one of the only things I inherited from my dad. Apart from also, actually, I got his Duracell batteries for my hearing aids. Like a bunch of those.

But this cape is so lovely and I keep it with me. It's been to some really amazing places around the world. I mean, it's made of wool. So I say it's very lovely and I feel very glamorous, but that's partly just its magical swish that it has and the way that I throw it. The different ways that you can wear it, it floats in the wind and it's also very hardy.

But it's come on lots of adventures with me. It's been to places that my father never would have probably come with me in the real, in the waking world. But in the world of spirits, he has been with me on all sorts of adventures, which definitely some of them would, I would definitely not want him to come with me in the real world. They're not father-friendly adventures. Sorry? Not father-friendly adventures. Not father-friendly adventures. But there's been moments when I've kind of like just wrapped myself in a cloak because I've left a dark room and been like, oh, that's funny to have that. In some way, they kind of feel that protection. And I guess there's, in my own way, something of healing something in me.

You know, some people do have fathers that they can tell them everything about their lives. It's been heard of, right? So there are some queer people who have dads, right? I know it might sound like a fable. It sounds like a mystical creature to me. It doesn't sound... I know. Actually, I'm going to say, some of the people have like cis dads, because of course, if they're all like, you know, cis straight dads, who actually can, who still love their kids. It happens. And sometimes those kids can just like have no shame and tell them about their lives. And I hear it happens more and more. I know someone who's fairly young whose dad is like that, and it makes me very happy. But that's definitely not something that I felt that I had.

And I don't think my father would have known how to have given me that kind of love at the time.

But yeah, so now I keep it with me at all times, well, not all times, but when I need it. I don't necessarily think I'm taking my dad's spirit out with me. But then there are moments when something happens, and I'm really glad to be sharing that moment with him, whether it's something beautiful or something difficult. It does feel like getting a hug from him in a way that he actually never hugged me in real life. Maybe he did when we were younger. And probably how he would have... Do you know what he did as he got older? I brought hugging back into the family, and I was like, we're going to hug now. Because I queered my family. That's wonderful. I think we do that, don't we? Yeah, definitely.

So I'm sitting with that image of you coming out of a party, a dark room, and hugging yourself, wrapping yourself in your father's hug. And it's just absolutely intimate and beautiful. And to think that that would be probably the most difficult place to bring you that to. I've seen you at Glastonbury with that cape. I've seen you in Canada in freezing weather in that cape. Chicago. Yeah, Africa, South Africa in pictures. It's been a lot of different queer places. Yeah, it's been to Bergheim, I believe. Has it? Yeah, I think it has. It's been, it really has. It's been all over the place. It's gone into some really sweaty places. And had all that kind of like imbued into it. So that, that in its own reason is like a beautiful thing to kind of take around.

I mean, it doesn't stink, by the way. It has lots of, it's aired beautifully. Maybe it might have some sort of musk to it. Does it? I don't know. I'm really being mean to it. No, I just smell pure taric coming my way. Yeah, it's kind of a heady musk. Well, that's beautiful. I think that's Perth. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. We're loving having your cape in our queer museum on a tariki mannequin. Yeah, which would only be, this is something I was thinking about on the way here. I was like, if it was a physical place, I would not put this item in there. Because it's a runoff cherished thing. And it's not something for that. And I was thinking about, I guess, the sacredness of it. I'd put in something like, you know, a hologram of it.

I'd love to share that. Yeah. A brown hologram. Well, they invented how to do brown holograms rather than green ones. Boring green holograms. At that point, yes, I would very, I'd very happy to share that. But I think... It would be Tarik swishing the cape. Yeah, it would be a 3D animation. Oh my God. People put the glasses on and it's you twirling.

Please tell us about your third object story item thing for our queer museum. So Tarik is now currently dipping into a... Large, very large bag. Large bag. Let's see what's in here. It's a kind of shopping bag that you would see on a market. Don't mention this bag. Do you? Sorry. I totally thought it's fine. We're in a podcast. Yeah. It doesn't matter that I'm bringing this bag. I'm saying you're saying I'm painting a picture with words. I know you're just doing your job, but if I had known, I would have left the bag outside. It's fine. It's actually... It's one of them cool washing bags, the red, white and blue ones. But it doesn't like... You didn't describe my outfit. No. Do you know what I mean?

A kind of tie-dye, streetwear fusion. It's dabbling on the tie-dye, which you don't see every day. So explain to us what your third item is. I'm going to bring this thing out, actually. This is now like deflated. But what it is, is a pair of tights, they're pink tights, and they've got balloons in each leg. And I would put them on my head, and I still do from time to time. And that combination came to me in a flash of inspiration in, I believe, 2009.

As a way of help getting my friends into festivals. Because I was already doing the festival scene. I'd got back onto the festival scene, and it was giving me a lot. It had already given me the inspiration to take over the Marlborough. And so I was getting back on the festival scene, and I had a bunch of friends who wanted to come with me. And we decided that the best way to get in would be to come up with a walkabout. And collectively came up with an idea of sexy vintage aliens. It kind of ticked three different boxes. It was a Venn diagram of parties that we'd done before, that we really did well at dressing up for. And thought, if we can mix all those three costumes together, what would that bring?

So we became horny Victorian aliens, the Nubal Venetians.

We became horny Victorians, the Nubal Venetians of 1901. And we travelled festival circuit with tights and balloons in our head, which made them look like extensions of our bodies. And then we would make the rest of our bodies all the same colours as a tights. So, for example, if I had pink tights on my head, I'd make the rest of my body bright pink. Although there was one character who was in purple, another one who was orange and a green. We were a whole rainbow of different coloured aliens with these bobbly tentacles on our head. And then we'd have our own individual outfits and mess around the festivals. And it was a really great way to get people into festivals. And it was genuine, you know, it's for people who weren't necessarily performers, but who performed when they were at parties.

You know, who really knew how to party, who understood the seriousness of a good party.

And so we'd go with our own characters. And I realised it was a way that people could get into performing. It's actually kind of a way that I got into performing as well by doing walkabout at festivals. It's a very freeing place to do it. And you have a lot of people to engage with and to test things out. Thousands of people to test things out in the moment. What I now actually understand is a thing that the Arts Council loves. It's something when you have non-performers and they have engagement with the arts, you see. So you can get funded for that kind of shit now. And probably you could then, but I didn't know. But I did manage to get us into festivals and get free tickets. And that in itself felt like an amazing thing.

And over time, actually, I managed to kind of realise that I needed to make it better for the artists, actually, who were part of it. So I'd find out what was, because we weren't getting paid. Who were the people when you saw a festival you just wanted to be? And I realised that was the people who were driving around in golf buggies. So I thought, what if we were horny Victorian aliens and we were driving around in golf carts dressed as spaceships? And then who's not going to want to do that? So we did that and it was a really good summer. And we carried that on for quite a number of years. Secret Garden Party and a bunch of other festivals as well. But Secret Garden Party was our main one. And eventually, the very final year that we did that was at the very final Secret Garden Party.

And it happened that year that all of my aliens were people of colour. And it also happened that year because of the theme of the festival that we decided that the aliens would be alien gods. And then it was a very interesting experience to suddenly be in a space where we're gods, where we could quite legitimately ask to be worshipped because we're gods. That's art, you know. But we're also brown Afro-futuristic aliens. You're all like bringing our heritage into the space, into our costumes, into our bodies. We're performers. So there was this kind of like tribal energy within that space that we brought. And I would say it was maybe the unknown union that collects people of the diaspora, that kind of tribe that we were sort of building upon and connecting with.

And it felt incredibly empowering. So much so that after we had done our first alien gods party, a secret garden party, we stayed up all night, me and a friend, and realised that this was a party that was celebrating difference, that put queer black and brown people at the centre and allowed us through the guise of art to perform difference in whatever way we wanted and to play with difference and to really use it to transform our lives and how we were able to be seen in the lenses in which we are seen in which we see through. At the time I was going through grief as well and I had a breakdown either before or afterwards, but it wasn't long before I realised that actually that is what my next focus should be,

not just doing this little Afro-futuristic party in a festival. It was the last secret garden party anyway, but instead that should be the nucleus for a much larger party. And that was the birth of Brownton Abbey, which is the Afro-futuristic space church-themed performance party that centres, celebrates and elevates disabled queer people of colour that I mentioned earlier. Wonderful. Yeah. I didn't know any of that. I mean, I obviously know your event, but I did not know. It's very interesting to learn about the origins. One of the origin stories. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Well, there are a few and I think that's also important to remember that there's never just like one singular origin. That's right.

So many stories. We've got a mannequin or a headpiece, which has got in the museum, which is going to have Tarik's balloons and tights affair that I have seen on many occasions in many different formats and stages of its development. And I think what does Brownton, what's it kind of as, so it's born, it's in the world. And what does it feel like to put those tights on now as opposed to when you first put them on? What's changed, I think, about the experience? It's just, there are moments when I reflect on how far those tights and balloons have come. You know, just a moment of inspiration in which I was actually at a party. No, I was at a brainstorming gathering for my friends. We were trying to figure out what would be a good costume

for a way to get us into festivals. So it's pre-coming up with this alien, whole new Victorian idea. And I hadn't had much time to plan anything. I think some of my friends had already started. They had a little bit more time. So they'd been working on some ideas. And so on my way to meet them, I just threw a few random things that I had in my room and threw them into a bag. And when I arrived, I looked in the bag and saw the balloons and tights. And suddenly, just like in a flash, I saw the balloons filled up in the legs and on my head. And I saw all of us like that. And in a moment, I kind of, it felt like I saw our future. And actually, how many years now is it like? At least 10 years later,

it actually has been my future. It has something that, it is something that has been well supported by the arts, by the Arts Council and Unlimited. It's had a lot of love around the world. I've got to work with loads of amazing artists and we've got to travel together. And I think for queer, disabled artists of colour to be able to travel the world together is, you know, with the safety of each other in a funded, in a well-funded way, is such a rare thing. And it's such a gift to the places that we travel to and to share between. So, yeah, I'm just really quite sometimes blown away by that such a kind of simple thing has been a catalyst for so much joy and change in not just my life but a lot of people

around me who have had similarly unusual and interesting lives marked by both the joy and pain of difference. Thank you so much. Amazing. That's a lovely note to end on. So, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for joining us. You're very, very welcome. Thanks for having me here. We played Tarik's beautiful interview to EJ, our resident queer museum curator. And this is what EJ had to say about it. Well, Roni, I really think that, you know, Tarik's brought us nicely full circle in our museum podcast series because, again, it's another fashion of item, but in Tarik's case, the donkey brown cape is, as they've highlighted for us, is from the North African country, Morocco. And what Tarik has done

for us, thinking about donating this, which is, you know, essentially a family heirloom to our virtual museum, is to remind us that we can't talk about museums, even queer museums, without talking about decolonisation. And we can't talk about decolonising museums because there's no such thing. Decolonisation is not a metaphor. It means to give back objects and give back land to the communities that they were stolen from. And so to say to decolonise a museum is a bit like saying you're going to take religion out of a church. It ain't going to happen. And it reminds me of the five activists who were arrested in June last year for taking back, trying to take back a Moroccan funeral staff from Paris'

Quai Brunelais Museum. Sadly, it's not just existing collections in colonial museums that need repatriation. 35,000 objects were returned from France to Morocco again in October last year that had been seized by customs at the borders. Cultural artefacts that were looted, that were destined to go into the hands of private collectors. So the question is what does this have to do with our queer museum? Well, I think it has everything to do with it. When we colonise Africa, when we colonise gender and we colonise sexuality, same in India and places all over the world, our queer museum must be proactively anti-racist and our collections built by consent, not by purchase. We are the curators of our own stories

and our queer community values must remain at the heart of our collections, at the heart of our exhibitions and the way we save our collective heritage needs to be inclusive and it needs to be proactively representative. We can't just save the queer history of people who feel safe enough to engage with museums because that means that we were, you know, completely at risk of repeating the exact same mistakes of the past that wrote out queers in the first place. So, you know, I just want to say a huge thank you to Tarik for being so generous with imagining giving us his cape and I want to say, you know, to everyone out there that when we think about our queer museum, we need to think about it being built

on the queer community values that we must always stand up to protect. Thanks for listening. The My Queer Museum podcast is a Queer Heritage South project created by Marlborough Productions and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. For more information about our work, visit queerinbrighton.co.uk Original music and editing by Olive Mondegreen.