After the removal of the portraits of LGBT Malaysians in August in Penang, it felt risky to be doing anything queer in Penang again. But three months and several risk management meetings later, we pulled off a very queer George Town LITERARY Festival, where we asked ourselves questions like “Are the Arts just bigger closets?” As this year’s George Town Literary Festival was themed The State of Freedom, festival director Bernice Chauly felt it important to celebrate queer writing and invited me to be one of the curators. My task, particularly, was to help programme some of the queer panels as well as invite a few queer writers to speak.
Yes, we were all a little nervous, but Bernice was adamant we take this chance. It was going to be her last festival as director. If we are going to celebrate the freedom of expression, we must do it, not just talk about it. Even if we needed to have risk assessments to make sure we do it right.
