“* * * * * (five stars)”
– The Skinny
“An art movement like no other.”
– Nim Ralph, Open Democracy
“Cachín Cachán Cachunga! really matters in contemporary Scotland… it brings together a diverse group of artists, making it both difficult to pigeon-hole and restlessly contemporary.”
– The Vile Blog
“…something of a phenomenon.”
– The List
About CCC!
Cachín Cachán Cachunga! Queer & Trans Arts is an independent Scottish arts collective that produces visual, recorded and live art by LGBTQIA+ people. We mentor, collaborate, and encourage artistic experimentation.
Cachín Cachán Cachunga! engages with intersectional feminism, transfeminism, and the principles of disability justice. We are disability-led, and produce accessible arts events for both audiences and artists. CCC provides free or low-cost entry, relaxed events, quiet space, Braille, large print, audio description, sign language interpreting, film captioning, live captioning/speech-to-text, level access, accessible loos, travel stipends, and fragrance-free spaces.
We currently only do online events. When we feel it’s safe enough for hybrid events these will be fully participatory and an equal experience for those at home.
CCC is dedicated to safer creative spaces for multiply-mariginalised LGBTQIA+ people. We centre radical queer and trans artists who are also Deaf, neurodivergent, Mad, ill, sick, qrip, disabled, racialised, Black, Indigenous, people of colour, asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, global majority, working-class, working-poor, benefits-class, skint, and/or from related backgrounds and experiences.
Most events are curated by Sandra Alland; others are organised and led by committee or community members.
You can watch captioned videos of past events on YouTube.
Recent Events
San Alland hosted Qrip Shielders Solstice Salon on 21 December, 2022. This private online event featured poetry, art and music from Karl Knights, Maria Quinn, m. patchwork monoceros and DL Williams. We also chatted about what keeps us going during the current gaslighting and lack of safety from our governments and peers. Many thanks to the BSL interpreters and live captioner, and to all the qrip shielders who celebrated the solstice with us.
In November 2019, Cachín Cachán Cachunga! and Strathclyde Feminist Research Network co-hosted Bani Amor’s workshop, Decolonizing Travel Culture, at Glasgow’s Transmission Gallery.
In July 2018, CCC produced Disabled and Deaf LGBTQIA+ Pride at The Space, Glasgow. This free full-day event featured: LGBTQIA+ Vocabulary in British Sign Language with Bea Webster; a film programme curated by Sandra Alland including Shelley Barry, Stacey Park Milbern and Patty Berne, Tourmaline, and Matthew Hellett; a film panel with Claire Cunningham, Bea Webster, Bel Pye and DL Williams; an open mic of performances; warm food; and tunes from DJs Nena Etza and Kaiserin. Event information is available as a video in BSL, as text with pictures, and as an audio recording. Special thanks to Nila Gupta and Lisa Li.
CCC! History
Started as a monthly cabaret event in 2009, Cachín Cachán Cachunga! has continued to grow, to shrink again, and above all to change.
CCC has presented everything from noise music and opera, to interactive installations and collaborative photography. In addition to curated performances and film screenings, we’ve offered community-building events like potluck brunches, open mics, PWYC queer and trans haircuts, and two Giant Queer-Ass Trans-tastic Picnics.
In 2017, we hosted Eli Clare, Nathan Gale, Emilia Beatriz, Bea Webster and others at Glasgow’s CCA for a discussion of ideas of ‘cure’, and Clare’s book Brilliant Imperfection (with thanks to Nat Raha). Later that year, CCC co-produced Who’s Your Dandy? with Film Hub Scotland and Edinburgh Filmhouse. The show featured performer Andra Simons, and Sandra Alland’s 2016 multimedia live performance Equivalence. A shorts programme included Dickie Hearts, Tina Takemoto, Françoise Doherty and Shira Avni.
Cachín Cachán Cachunga! contributed posters, photos and other historical information to Proud City, a five-month exhibition at Edinburgh’s People’s Story Museum in 2016-17. We also took part in 2016’s Arts & Precarity: Forging New Solidarities (Glasgow University/Heather McLean), with a talk by members on CCC history and the neoliberal biases of Scottish and UK arts funding models.
Generous donations in 2015 allowed Cachín Cachán Cachunga! to host five Open Mics and four Health Lotteries with prizes like counselling and massage from queer and trans practitioners. Our featured artists were Lake Montgomery, A.B. Silvera, Liz Cronin and Robert Softley-Gale. We screened films from folk including Yasmin Al-Hadithi, Kellee Terrell, Mattie Kennedy, Cheryl Dunye, Ami Nashimoto and Juli Saragosa. We also held our first QTIPOC-only and disabled-only discussions, as well as an open talk on classism in LGBTQIA+ communities led by Matson Lawrence.
In 2014, CCC produced two large-scale visual art exhibitions with live performances and integrated access – SEEP: Fluidity in Body & Landscape at Media Education; and SEEP II: Mirrors & Mires at Patriothall Gallery. We also hosted Who’s Your Dandy? at Edinburgh Filmhouse, with live multimedia performances, and a film programme including Erica Cho, Sophie Norman, and kimura byol/mihee-nathalie lemoine.
For more featured artists and history, read curator Sandra Alland’s article on our 10th anniversary in Disability Arts Online.