On Thursday night in London, Dazed teamed up with London gallery Mimosa House for the launch of EXCHANGE: an initiative powered by Burberry to foster collaboration and support creative communities. Off the back of Pride month, the inaugural EXCHANGE focused on celebrating queer artists, all while championing creativity, performance, and the broader arts in the process. On the night, guests hopped between venues to witness a series of video works, cutting edge performance pieces, and DJ sets from London’s most exciting creative talent, plenty of whom caused quite the stir. Here’s what went down. 

GUESTS GOT TO EXPLORE MIMOSA HOUSE

Now one of London’s most vital queer spaces, Mimosa House was founded in 2017 by curator Daria Khan, a longtime champion for LGBTQIA+, POC, and diasporic artists. EXCHANGE: LONDON proceedings began in the early evening at the gallery in Holborn, where guests watched video installations from choreographer and performer Marikiscrycrycry and the African-Mexican video artist Vir Andres Hera. 

As the clock struck seven, Maltese artist Romeo Roxman Gatt kicked off the night’s performances with a live piece alongside his film Smoke Machine, Lion and Jeep (2021). As in the film, Gatt performs a dance piece for the crowd, a love letter to his younger self – a footballer, pre-transition, misunderstood by those around him – building in momentum until reaching its crescendo under the pumping music and strobe lights of a club. 

The audience included some of Dazed’s other favourite artists, like Michael Moon, Bones Tan Jones, and this year’s Frieze London winner Adham Faramawy, while drinks from Heineken Silver and Select Aperitivo’s spritz kept guests hydrated.

A TRANSGENIC MUTATION EXPERIMENT TOOK PLACE

Time for a venue jump. After walking the short distance to 180 Strand with some beers for the road, guests arrived at Dazed Space for the next performance on EXCHANGE’s line up, curated by Khan to showcase some of Mimosa House’s community. 

This next stage of the evening was even busier, with hundreds of guests coming together to gather around semi-opaque plastic sheeting masking a surgery-room-like installation that would become part of the evening’s second performance piece, delivered – quite literally – by trans-species artist Agnes Questionmark. 

Agnes Questionmark creates immersive habitats that question the human body, its genesis and future potentialities of becoming. As part of the piece Attempt 1: Transgenic Mutation Experiment (2022), Questionmark performed surgeries on an artificial womb atop a medical table, putting it through a process of metamorphosis to reveal the creature inside, delivering its birth as guests looked on in awe and at moments, horror. Over the course of the performance, strange bodily matter, blood, and a non-human organism emerged, while guests attempted to capture what they were seeing on their phones.

THE AFTER PARTY SLAPPED

With the crowd still digesting the performances over a drink, across town a party kicked off at East London queer club Queen of Adelaide to mark the launch of the new initiative. 

The first set came courtesy of Pxssy Palace founder and DJ Nadine Noor – who also took over the Dazed Instagram on the night. Next up, London DJ Basmati filled the dancefloor while photographer Roxy Lee documented the night and Dazed family members – like director Iggy London and artist Rene Matić – propped up the bar. 

To extend their support beyond the all-queer lineup of talent for the evening, as part of EXCHANGE, Burberry capped the night off with a donation to Mimosa House, to amplify their work supporting next generation queer artists beyond Pride month.

Thanks to Heineken Silver and Select Aperitivo for keeping the party going.

Check out images from the event by photographer Roxy Lee and Dazed Club members Holly Lavelle and PIXXX in the gallery above.