PROUD VOICES
A Multi-City Audio Festival
Proud Voices was a multi-city, interactive queer audio festival redefining togetherness by safely celebrating the diversity of queer expression. Proud Voices showcased the beauty and diversity of queer artists and stimulates the queer economy by highlighting queer-owned businesses through a unique form of safe community engagement.
In 2021 Proud Voices took place in Austin, Brooklyn, and Auckland. In each city the festival revolved around "stops", which were a total of eight participating queer-owned and queer-friendly small businesses. At each stop, participants could discover an exclusive QR code that allows them to stream a song, poem, or auditory piece from a local queer artist.
In 2020 the inaugural PROUD VOICES festival invited participants to take a walk around the queerly iconic West Village in New York City, discovering a unique audio track by a BIPOC LGBTQIA+ artist at each stop. The festival was inspired by Pride month, which was birthed in 1969 at the Stonewall Riot and led by Black and POC queer folks. Our inaugural PROUD VOICES was therefore a fundraiser for Queer organizations benefiting the Black and POC LGBTQ+ community. The experience was free, but we invited audience members to donate what they could. All money donated by audience members went towards For The Gworls, House Lives Matter and The Audre Lorde Project. The experience was available from June 28th - July 12th, 2020.
Auckland, New Zealand
In 2021 we brought Proud Voices to Auckland’s Karangahape Road. PROUD VOICES: an audio festival, was a free self-guided auditory experience designed to elevate and showcase queer artists. The festival operates as both an in-person walking tour, whilst also being fully accessible online for folks who wish to stay home.
Funded by Creative Communities Auckland.
Austin, Texas
In 2021, Thee Gay Agenda, Embrace Austin and Butch Mermaid partnered to bring Proud Voices to Austin.
Thee Gay Agenda (TGA) exists to create a platform for queer artists to be discovered, seen, & connect with other like-minded creatives to make space for otherness everywhere.
Embrace Austin aims to build bridges between queer people and queer initiatives, boost Austin’s queer economy, and set a new standard for cultural competency in LGBTQIA2+ Austin*.
Brooklyn, New York
With generous funding from a Brooklyn Arts Grant, in 2021 we brought Proud Voices to the historically queer Park Slope area of Brooklyn, celebrating Brooklyn-based artists.