COVID-19 UPDATE
April 2020
Hello magical queers,
We hope this message finds you and those you care for accompanied by wellness and with access to the support(s) and dreams you need to nourish you.
The HotBits team would like to share our response to recent Covid-19 events and changes in upcoming touring film/performance festivals. It is important for us to contextualize and ground in some embodied and historical truths. For many of us, Covid-19 was not the beginning of the struggle against racial, gender, economic, and disability inequity/injustice. Long before Covid-19, we struggled with housing/rent and food insecurity, racist health care systems, and barriers to basic resources. Disabled folks of color have and continue to confront our ableist US culture and systems of production; they have and continue to push back against employers who prioritize able bodies and render employees/ consultants etc bodies as expendable means to make profits. All of these articulations of oppression existed before Covid-19 and too many undocumented|under-resourced| un/under-employed Queer Trans Indigenous, Black, and Brown community members face these harmful practices everyday. We understand that Covid-19 is a pandemic that effects all communities, however, the effects are not equal and in turn do not manifest equally. Covid-19 has exasperated and amplified the effects of oppressive systems (historical and current) on QTBIPoC folks in ways that make it important for us to adapt individually and collectively.
We also want to acknowledge the fact that QTBIPoC folks (disabled and abled) have created and relied on mutual aid practices and collective care as a way to not only survive and heal from traumatic experiences but also as a means to sustain community, explore creative possibilities, and attempt to thrive in an unjust world way before this current pandemic.
Recently, Hot Bits' organizers agreed to intentionally pause so that we could reflect on the best ways to move forward with care and consideration. We acknowledge the need to adapt to the lived practices of shelter-in-place and physical distancing and understand that these practices and the expansive variety of all the other challenges we are experiencing simultaneously impact folks to different degrees and in different ways despite some of their similarities.
With this said, we have decided to postpone our touring film/performance festivals and host virtual HotBits workshops to members of our amazing communities for free in the wake of Covid-19. We will move forward by working closely with the creatives and organizers that help make HotBits XXX festival the delicious event that it is. We will practice processes that collectively uplift and support each other in ways that meet as many of our collaborators (creatives, organizers etc) needs as possible while we continue to adapt to the world now as well as any changes that may arise in the near future.
New Hot Bits Festival dates will vary by location and will be updated as they become confirmed. Please know that some of the festival dates and virtual event dates and times may have to shift again as needs shift, we will communicate any and all updates we may have with folks as quickly and as accessibly as possible via our website and social media platforms. Reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.
With love,
Hot Bits (Arazel, Bashezo, Genevieve, Heart, Icon, Snax, Stokely, TJ, & TopShelf)