writing queerstories

LAVENDER SONGS

Since 2015 I have been searching queer and other archives and libraries such as the Spinnboden Berlin, the Fonds Chomarat Lyon, the Archives Lesbiennes and the Archiv Audiovisuel Simon de Beauvoir in Paris, the Lambda Warsaw and the archive of the Gay Museum Berlin as well as online for fragments and traces of queer life and love. What I find are personals, newspaper articles, novels, police files, t-shirts, photos and other testimonies. Since then, I’ve been sharing the stories I find and the characters I met in readings, articles, and a radio play. The questions that occupy me are: How can history be told when the traces have disappeared, been destroyed or erased? How can marginalized groups tell their own pasts, presences, and thus futures against this backdrop?

 

Clubbing on a gay night turns into a glittering party. Among the guests are Olga Rado, Mette, Eri and many other book favourites. The ladies* nestle around the tables, smoking cigarettes, the authors order one beer after another at the bar, while Fräulein Dr. Südekum keeps to her corner, trying not to stick out. A boisterous, familiar air fills the room and chat-ups are whirring around. No-one seems to notice the lone scorpion, which climbs up the wall behind the counter… This is where the women* who love women* meet to flirt, kiss and whisper sweet to one another, to talk, dance and write lesbian herstory…

Research, Script, Concept: Irène Mélix
Direction, Sound: Antje Meichsner
Translation: Olga Hyrckowian
Proofreading: Wero Posnik
Voices: Ulla Heinrich, Rosa Klee, Irène Mélix, Antje Meichsner

sponsored by the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen

Two-part illustration: In the left half of the image, a vertical format book cover with the inscription "lila lieder, lavender songs" and a cover picture that shows a historical bar situation. In front of the bar sits a person in a suit with a cigarette in his mouth, who has placed his hand on the thigh of a second person in a dress and with half-long curly hair. In the right half of the image, one below the other, are two images of the open book, with blocks of black text in different fonts on the upper one and a cut-out image of two people on the lower one. The cut-out photo on the bottom page shows two people facing each other as if for a kiss and wearing period clothing, one in a suit and tie, the other in a dress.

Readings have been held in Dresden (2017/2023), Lyon (2019), Prague (2019), Wroclaw (2019), and Berlin (2019/2020), among other cities.

Landscape image of a person sitting on an armchair, dressed in black and holding a microphone. She looks intently at the white piece of paper she has on her lap. She is wearing short brown hair. In the background, on a stone wall, a large canvas is cropped, showing two hands holding a silver ring, the face behind it is blurred.

Reading at ALMS conference, Berlin (2019)

 

Illustration of a portrait format booklet lying open on a white background. It reads "ÉCLATS DE DIAMANTS" on the left side and "Irène Mélix" further down. Various blocks of text are arranged across the pages, and at the top of the right page are two images, also in black and white, that look like advertisements. The one on the right reads "Ladies Club Violetta.... Magic Flute... A Night in Paradise..." Eclats de diamants, Initiales, Paris (2019)
Illustration of the same magazine with text on both sides, on the bottom left another advertisement with the writing "Ongoing dance events for ladies..." and on the top right a color photograph composed of two photos showing a public square with trees and buildings. The text at the bottom right is arranged like classified ads, many individual blocks separated by lines.
The same magazine, another opened double page. Various blocks of text, from the bottom left page a black and white image of an unclothed person with short hair looking into the camera. In the foreground, an old-fashioned computer, with "Amour sur Minitel" written above it. To the left, an image of a cover with the title "LESBIA" and a photo of a person in short hair and leather jacket in front of a wall on which is spray-painted "be subversive".
Another opened double page of the magazine with black text blocks, on the right side a lot of free white space, below a paragraph in italics.
Cover of a book on a white background. On the upper, dark red part it says: "Tino Heim Dominik Schrage ed.", on the lower, light red part: "Sexualtechnische Konsumobjekte und Metarmophosen moderner Sexualitäten" in dark red writing as well as in white: "Praktiken, Beziehungsformen, Identitäten, Sozialverhältnisse" and on the bottom right "Springer VS". Conference Publication, Dresden (2020/2023)
Opened double page, held by a hand on the left side of the image. The left side is white, on the right is the title "Lila Lieder, Recherchesplitter künstlerischer Arbeit zu lesbischen Räumen, transnational und zeitübergreifend, Irène Mélix" and black text with footnotes.
Opened double page, held by a hand on the right. On both sides gray boxes with text, on the bottom left a picture of a drawn flag that reads "LESBIA, June 1983" and the symbol of lesbians. On the bottom right an image of a cover that reads "IHRSINN, a radical feminist lesbian magazine."
Opened double page of the book, again held by a hand on the right. Text blocks with and without gray background on both sides, top left a photograph of two hands holding a silver ring, behind them blurred a face. On the right, an image composed of two photographs of a public square with trees and buildings, and blue sky with some clouds.