Queer Care Conversation #3
29 March 2025
7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Conversation about networks of friendship and solidarity.
March is Queer History Month. In this context, we are organising the third edition in the Queer Care Conversations series on 29 March. This time, the focus is on the relationship between care and migration - a conversation on the historical connection between these themes and the pressing contemporary questions that arise from them. The conversation will be held in English.
Migration, Care & Community organization
Researchers Fabian Holle and Mayalu Mesh will engage in conversation with Marianna van der Zwaag (curator, Oude Kerk) and Julia Visser (co-curator). The discussion will delve into the development of historical and contemporary networks of friendship and solidarity that queer (migrants) have established for knowledge-sharing, as well as medical and legal support. Additionally, the event will highlight new forms of care emerging from queer migration and how these enrich the Netherlands with fresh projects.
To conclude the evening, performance artist Papilicious will take us on a journey of trust with a shibari performance in the Oude Kerk, accompanied by Kuntenserven on the harp.
About the speakers
Fabian Hölle (they/he) is a PhD candidate in the Sociology department at VU Amsterdam and part of the research project Engaged Scholarship and Narratives of Change. Fabian graduated as a theatre maker from HKU (Utrecht University of the Arts) in 2004 and worked with various directors and choreographers. They co-founded the theatre collective Ponies (2005–2015) and performed in drag. In 2020, Fabian completed a Master’s in Sociology (cum laude) at VU Amsterdam and won the 2020 ARC-GS MA Thesis Award (Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality at UvA). Their creative co-creation project LIMBO is part of their PhD research. Fabian initiated and co-facilitated LIMBO alongside queer refugee community organisers and artists, aiming to create a safer space for the stories and art of LGBTQIA+ people with refugee experiences. They are particularly interested in how universities can engage more with (queer refugee) communities and foster inclusive collaborations that generate mutual benefits in terms of knowledge and resources.
Animesh Gautam (Mesh) is an interdisciplinary researcher, writer, and storyteller from Sikkim, India, currently based in Amsterdam. Their work explores the intersections of (eco)tourism, communities, migration, and heritage, with the goal of imagining just and inclusive futures. Mesh is particularly fascinated by human-nature relationships, (queer/Indigenous) subjectivities, world-building, and cultural landscapes. Whether through academic research or performative storytelling, their approach combines everyday realities, sensory experiences, and participatory narratives. In their experimental storytelling, Mesh draws inspiration from personal, shared, and (auto)ethnographic experiences as a queer individual, as well as from sensory stories rooted in their home region of Sikkim in the Eastern Himalayas. They are also dedicated to documenting and amplifying marginalised agrarian narratives of cultural-environmental heritage in the context of globalised tourism and migration. Mesh is a core member of the Critical Himalayan Collective (founded in 2023), a transdisciplinary collective focused on the Himalayan region.
In 2021, they were awarded both the Wageningen University Fellowship and the Anne van den Ban Scholarship, which enabled them to pursue an MSc in Tourism, Society & Environment at Wageningen University. Currently, they are a co-initiator of the Freedom Tours Wageningen Initiative, which develops interactive guided walks exploring the complexities of ‘freedom’ through a gender and queer lens.
About Queer Care Conversations
For centuries, the Oude Kerk was a place where various forms of social care were organised. Charitable initiatives and religious orders dedicated to caring for the poor and orphans, for example, had their own chapels within the church. In this series on queer care, curator Julia Visser explores contemporary forms of care for and by the queer community, applying a critical lens to the concept of care itself.
