Magnus – Interview with Jernej Škof
MAGNUS is gay section at ŠKUC (Students Cultural Centre). It was founded in 1984 as Cultural Organisation for Socialisation of Homosexuality. Its first and most important roles were organising MAGNUS Festival with a wide variety of activities to make acceptable homosexual life style. MAGNUS also organised a Week of Gay Films Festival on which most of the important international gay films were shown. At its beginning MAGNUS was tightly connected to alternative scene in Slovenia. In 1993 with new policy in homosexual movement MAGNUS renewed its activities with the aim to invite students’ population to participate in building homosexual lobby in Slovenia.
For our Members’ Monday, we interviewed Magnus’ Coordinator for cultural and social programmes Jernej Škof, in order to discover more about the activities and initiatives of Magnus.
1) Jernej, what is a very exciting project Magnus is currently working on?
At the moment we have many projects we are excited about. One of them is about Chemsex and is a pilot project trying to figure out the social and psychological reasons for this phenomenon in local and international environment. Then there is Cabaret Tiffany*, which is a project where young and aspiring LGBTQ performing artist collaborate. They create radical and queer contents drawing inspiration from LGBTQ community
2) What is a priority in Magnus’s agenda?
On the 20th of December, we are having a popular vote on same-sex marriages, proposed by Catholic church affiliated civil groups. Our organisation is involved in mobilizing youth attendance for the referendum and promoting equal rights.
3) Why did your organisation want to become a member of IGLYO?
Our organisation believes in the globality of social reality and the importance of international networking with other LGBTQ organisations to exchange practices which can help improve our community. As one of our main focuses is working with youth, IGLYO is a perfect network to connect and exchange good practices and work towards our common goal of freedom and equality.
4)Which is the most useful advice you would like to give to an LGBTQI young person at present time?
Connect with other LGBT persons as soon as you can so you develop your social network and get to know other persons with whom you can share your experiences. And never forget to remain true to yourself and doubt every information you are served as truth.
Would you like to know more about Magnus’ work?
*Cabaret Tiffany is a performing arts laboratory whose main aim is to empower LGBTIQ performers and establish a platform where LGBTIQ performing artists can continuously create their work. On the other hand it is a community initiative with an aim of enriching local LGBTIQ community and presenting their artistic endeavurs to wider audience.
Since its beginnings four years ago Cabaret Tiffany has presented several whole evening cabaret performances, such as Twilight of the Glittery perverts I, II, III and Tiffany cabaret evenings. It is distinguished by lavish costumes and make-up, in-your-face acts, themes and concepts from the lives of community and good sarcastic fun. Acts include outrageous drag queens, snobbish curators, naked artists, awesome dancers and on, who take on subjects like queer bodies, unique personal expression, LGBT politics, and gender issues and of course love. Artists come from all specters of performing and visual arts.
Performer Nasty Suzy at Cabaret Tiffany. Photo is under copyright of SKUC Association, Ljubljana.
Tags: activism, iglyo, LGBTQ, member organisation, Members' Monday, Magnus, Cabaret Tiffany, Slovenia
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