Christine and the Queens on queerness, curating Meltdown and an enlightened death

Against a backdrop of footage from Christine and the Queens’ two sold-out Royal Festival Hall shows, Red talks about his curation of the 28th Meltdown festival. In particular the artist talks about how his role as curator offered him the opportunity to create and re-establish a space open to everyone. ‘Why am I happy to say yes to curating Meltdown? …because then we are inside this ship together, it’s free for a second, and we can do whatever we want with the ship, we can create the world we would like to live in.’

The singer also draws attention to the repetitive nature of conversations around queerness – a central thread to Christine and the Queens’ Meltdown. In particular Red expresses his frustration that rather than moving on and asking what queerness can be, and what it can open up in terms of human experience for everyone, the conversation around queerness is instead preoccupied with the same question. ‘It’s always about ‘do we have the right to be here?’ We shouldn't have to ask this question any more.’

Red also reflects on his own journey as an artist and performer, his need to be challenged in what he does, and the want to continue to be a revolutionary in a society which is all too keen to position people beneath fixed labels.