Polaroids from clubs and a zine workshop: Honey Dijon has made a night at Tate Modern

Honey Dijon curated a one-off programme at London’s Tate Modern for LGBTQIA+ History Month.

Mixmag reported on it.

What was in the programme

The night ran as part of the Tate Lates series on Friday 27 February, from 6pm to 10pm. It opened with a listening experience, ‘Honey Dijon Presents The Nightlife’, in the South Tanks: the music was chosen by the artist herself, shown alongside her polaroid collection of “candid, unfiltered moments” from club culture.

Two workshops ran across the gallery: queer zine-making with sweet-thang zine, drawing on Audre Lorde’s essay ‘Poetry Is Not A Luxury’, and Tate Draw using digital sketch pads.

“You’re invited to respond to the questions: what is possible within yourself, what hopes and fears can be made tactile, what words hold power, and what does creative expression excavate?” read the description on Tate’s website.

At 7:30pm an hour-long talk began in the Starr Cinema — about Honey Dijon’s music, her artistic inspirations and how queer club culture has evolved. A gallery tour closed the programme.

Where the theme comes from

Honey Dijon has spoken before about the clubs she grew up in.

“It was a spiritual awakening for me really; it was at the beginning of a lot of electro-pop and 80s new wave and disco and acid, and all of it was mashed together,” she said.

“No, I think we’ve peaked. We have because of the internet. Nothing is allowed to mature and nothing is allowed to evolve; everything is digested and spit out and done quickly,” she said of the state of club culture.

The polaroids from her collection were shown right beside the listening session — as a document of the very culture she talks about.