A two-day event on art, ritual & memory
30 April – 1 May 2026
Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling
& The Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
Download the full programme including abstracts (PDF).
Additional registration is required for the Culture Night Stirling portion of our programme (1 May, 17:00-22:00) at The Smith Art Gallery and Museum in Stirling. Please register here.
Overview
Trans Cosmologies 2 is a two-day multimedia art, research and community event beginning with lectures, roundtables and an evening book launch at Pathfoot Building, University of Stirling, and ending with an art evening and a reception at The Smith Art Gallery and Museum as part of Stirling Culture Night.
It explores the intersections of trans, gender-nonconforming and queer cosmologies with memory, ethics, and artistic practice. It brings together artists, scholars and activists to reflect on how trans communities navigate and resist the legacies of colonialism, racial capitalism and systemic erasure, while generating resilient, insurgent forms of knowledge grounded in ritual, oral tradition, place and everyday practice.
The programme includes large panel discussions, interdisciplinary lectures, a book launch, as well as poetry, painting and theatre performances, with contributions from Raphaël Khouri, Nat Raha, Mijke van der Drift, Vanja Hamzić, Celestine Salomé, Lucian Summerisle, Bex Wade, Lou Carberry, Izzy Osborn, and many others.
Programme
Day 1 – 30th April
Pathfoot Lecture Theatre, Pathfoot Building
09:30–10:00 Coffee & welcome
10:00–10:15 Safet HadžiMuhamedović – Introduction
Session 1 – Offerings & Introductions
10:15–12:00 This large open panel invites all of us to raise brief points for conversation as a community. Over two days, we’ll engage a plethora of topics, from everyday rituals of care to nationalist erasures, featuring Myla Corvidae, Bex Wade, Dale Leorke, Hana Morgenstern, Lucian Summerisle, Celestine Salomé, and many other voices.
12:00–13:30 Lunchtime
Session 2 – Duration & Change
13:30 Mijke van der Drift – Embracing the Void: Lucretius and the Magic of Social Change (talk)
14:00 Vanja Hamzić –Worlds Within Lineage: Trans Cosmologies in Arabo-Amazigh Greater Senegambia (talk)
14:00–14:30 Conversation
14:30–14:45 – Break (& a peek at Lucian’s and Celestine’s art)
In the Crush Hall, adjacent to our main lecture theatre, Lucian Summerisle and Celestine Salomé present A Golden Pit in the Sky, a durational ritual painting and performative exploration.
Session 3 – Body & Self
14:50 Bex Wade – A Lecture in Five Acts (talk)
15:20 Myla Corvidae – A Facade of the Self: Revealing the Masc (workshop)
15:50 Izzy Osborn – Embodied Epiphanies (talk)
16:10–16:30 Conversation
16:30-17:00 Break
17:00–18:30 Book Launch
Nat Raha’s and Mijke van der Drift’s Trans Femme Futures: Abolitionist Ethics for Transfeminist Worlds (Book launch with the authors and reflections from Phil Crockett Thomas, Jacky Collins and Safet HadžiMuhamedović)
18:30–19:00 Lucian Summerisle and Celestine Salomé – A Golden Pit in the Sky
We return to Lucian Summerisle and Celestine Salomé for a conversation about their work A Golden Pit in the Sky.
Day 2 – 1st May
Pathfoot Building, Pathfoot Lecture Theatre
& The Smith Art Gallery and Museum
10:00–10:30 Coffee
Session 4 – Localities & Connections
10:30–11:00 Lou Carberry – LGBT Youth Scotland
11:00–12:00 Offerings and Connections
As a continuation of the first day, this large open panel invites all of us to raise brief points for conversation as a community, with a focus on Scotland, trans solidarities and antifascism, and play as a queer/cosmological method.
12:30–13:30 Lunchtime
13:20–14:30 – May Day Blessing with Lucian Summerisle
This activity will take place on campus, outside the main venue. Further details are available in the full programme. Please arrive promptly at 13:20 at the main entrance of the Pathfoot Building.
Culture Night Stirling Programme
1 May 2026, 17:00-22:00
The Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Dumbarton Road, Stirling, FK8 2RQ
Please note that the registration for the Culture Night Stirling portion of our programme at The Smith Art Gallery and Museum (1 May, 17:00-22:00) is separate. Please register here.
This evening of performance, poetry, and visual art creates a vital space for trans, gender-nonconforming, and queer voices. Blending intimate storytelling with experimental and immersive practices, the programme explores themes of identity, memory, and collective futurity. Audiences are invited not only to witness but to reflect, gather, and engage in a shared atmosphere of creativity and care, culminating in a relaxed garden reception.
The evening concludes with a garden reception, offering space for conversation, reflection, and community.
17:00 Welcome, thanks and introductions (Gallery 2, 20 minutes)
17:20 Bex Wade – ‘Tenderly Dancing Towards Joy’ (Gallery 2, reading, 20 minutes)
17:40 Myla Corvidae – Being the Self in Spite (Gallery 2, poetry performance, 20 minutes)
18:00 Raphaël Khouri – It Was Paradise, Unfortunately (Lecture Theatre, documentary play, 1 hour)
19:00 Lucian Summerisle & Celestine Salome – ‘A Golden Pit in the Sky’ (Ailie’s Garden at The Smith, ritual painting & discussion)
19:30-22:00 – Reception, Ailie’s Garden at The Smith
Centre for the Sciences of Place and Memory 