The incredible TRANS-FUSION Trans Arts Festival is back with an amazing line-up of events. Here we take a look at some of what to expect and speak to Sara R Phillips, Chair of the Organising Committee.

Returning to venues across Dublin from May 31 to June 8, TRANS-FUSION Trans Arts Festival is bigger and better than ever. Featuring a host of events including workshops, talks, film screenings, comedy nights and exhibitions, it’s a jam-packed celebration of the trans community and a way of promoting positive mental health.

This is the fifth TRANS-FUSION event, returning after a hiatus of two years. An open call was released welcoming artists and those who wanted to be involved to apply. As Sara R Phillips, Chair of the Organising Committee (and Chair of TENI) describes, “We are not limited to any type of art, we welcome sculpture, photography, drawings, paintings, art installations. A lot of our community are very artistic and they want to be able to show their work. Anything that has any relationship to a trans person themselves or specifically to trans representation is welcomed. For instance this year we will have Eva O’Donovan’s Chrysalis exhibition joining us as part of the festival. The piece was recently launched in Dublin City Hall.”

Chrysalis, a series of portraits of transfeminine subjects, is an attempt to redress the lack of visibility of those identifying as transfeminine in the visual arts and portraiture in particular. O’Donovan collaborated with TENI to find the portrait subjects for her stunning collection.

Sara will also find time in her busy schedule to host two Trans History Talks over the course of the week. She explained what attendees can expect at the first event, to be held in the Epic Museum on Monday, June 3. “It will focus specifically on trans people, especially the diaspora, people would have had to move away from Ireland in order to be able to identify with their true gender. It will begin with the starting point of the year 1786 and go all the way up to the present day, touching on Irish rights in more recent years.”

Also on June 3, there will be a creative arts workshop for kids run by TransParenCI - a peer support group for parents and family members of trans people.

There’s an unmissable film night on June 5, with a screening of Major - a documentary about the legendary trans activist, Miss Major. Showing alongside this will be Boy To Woman: A Story Of Trans Formation, a new short documentary by Irish filmmakers Derek Carter and Jamie Jay Car, depicting the journey of a trans woman, Nicole Barbosa-Winther, through the process of gender reassignment surgery.

Over the course of the week there will be workshops on the topics of non binary folk and resilience, a trans visibility showcase, and a comedy night featuring some of the funniest folk on the scene.

Sara explained the aim of the festival, “TRANS-FUSION is aimed to empower, build confidence and improve the mental health of trans people through positive visibility. It’s not just a trans festival for trans people, it’s very much an open festival for the rest of society, our allies, our friends and our families to come along to. It’s to show the positive visibility of trans people especially in a time now when things have been pretty tough with a lot of attacks in the media, specifically on trans females. TRANS-FUSION provides that platform to share our stories, our histories, our experiences, therefore people can be educated and learn from those expressions of both art and performance. But more importantly, we hope that trans people themselves will benefit hugely from a festival like this. Transfusion will captivate, dazzle and rejoice, it’s a time for celebration but also a time for supporting everyone else.”

TRANS-FUSION Trans Arts Festival is run with the support of TENI, Dublin Bus, Dublin Pride and CHQ. For more information on events, visit www.teni.ie.

Chrysalis

One of the wonderful inclusions in the TRANS-FUSION Trans Arts Festival is Chrysalis, a series of portraits of transfeminine people by artist Eva O’Donovan.

Eva worked with styled photographs and fabrics to create the images, taking time to develop relationships with the subjects before any work commenced. “This project has taken almost a year to put together and it has been a year of great growth and fun,” said Eva.

To see more of Eva’s work, visit www.evaodonovan.com.