Queer Orientations

The prolific 1960s playwright Joe Orton first made headlines when he was sentenced to six months in prison, alongside his lover Kenneth Halliwell, for the ‘malicious damage’ of books at the Islington Public Library. Today, the collaged book covers and lewd type-written blurbs are held as a treasured archival object at the Islington Local History Centre.

Tracing Orton’s navigation of London, from public libraries to public toilets, participants will use items from Orton’s archive to ask how we might consider queerness as an orientation that restricts and enables us as we navigate the city. Thinking of collage as a queer practice, the workshop will feature a creative session where participants will create their own postcard form of ‘malicious damage’.