This event includes a march followed by a founding ceremony.
The march departs at 16:30 from the old bus station. Please make sure you arrive at the starting point in good time. Address of the starting point: Puijonkatu 45. See the location on the map. The venue is accessible.
The march will proceed along Puijonkatu to Kuopio Market Square.
Queer Autonomous Zone (Kuopio) is a participatory public performance that imagines the founding ceremony of the Queer Autonomous Zone, a transnational conceptual site by queers, in Kuopio.
Every nation has its ceremonies. Every ceremony decides what deserves to be remembered.
Ceremonies do more than commemorate the past. They write one. They raise flags, honour heroes, repeat stories, and gather communities around a historical narration. They decide what is carried into the future and what is left behind.
Developed together with queer residents of Kuopio, the Queer Autonomous Zone has formed its own ceremony as a gesture to trace the past and to write a future. It works with what is already present but cannot be named: the traces carried in rumours, friendships, shared spaces, and lives that resist fixed naming. Rather than trying to complete the historical record, the ceremony gathers around these fragments, asking how we might publicly honour those whose histories remain unfinished.
Borrowing the visual language of demonstrations and national celebrations, the performance unfolds as a march that leads into a ceremony. Through banners, speeches, slogans, flags, it celebrates local queer lives, everyday anti-heroes, and those whose presence continues to shape the city beyond the limits of official history.
Queer Autonomous Zone (Kuopio) invites you to join the march, amplify its voice, and take part in the historic moment of its founding.
The Queer Autonomous Zone (Kuopio) consist of three events:
The Daily Flag-Raising Ceremony 15.-17.9.
From 15 to 17 September, a daily three-minute flag-raising ritual will take place at the flagpole in front of the Kuopio City Hall, calling the city and its residents to gather for the founding of the Queer Autonomous Zone.
Propaganda Lab (workshop) 17.9.
Propaganda Lab is an open, drop-in workshop where everyone is invited to contribute to the visual language of the Queer Autonomous Zone.Read more about the workshop.
The Founding Ceremony 18.9.
The event will include a march followed by a founding ceremony of the Queer Autonomous Zone. The march will depart at 16:30 from the old bus station (Puijonkatu 45) and proceed along Puijonkatu to Kuopio Market Square. If you are taking part in the march, please make sure you arrive at the starting point in good time.
The Founding Ceremony will begin at 17:00 at Kuopio Market Square.
You are welcome to attend the march and the founding ceremony, or observe as an audience member.
