Glenn Belverio
Downtown

If the city is the site of culture, downtown is the space of a permanent social war. In the early 1990s, the drag queen Glennda Orgasm (Glenn Belverio) documented the cultural clashes which animated New York City in a series of public access television programmes Glennda and Friends. The shows capture a maelstrom of activity – gays seeking conversion therapy, feminists denouncing other feminists, for example – not all of which was solely satirical. 

With co-hosts that included the feminist critic icon Camille Paglia and the gay film director Bruce LaBruce – both already then notorious for their pronouncements on art, porn, and sex – Belverio created a record of a city where ideas had consequences and led people onto the proverbial barricades.

When does the erotic frisson of ‘just doing things’ turn into activism? The cultural fallout captured in Belverio’s films is of its time – that time being the latter stages of the AIDS crisis in New York – but its questions are present even in today’s London. Battles over the prominence of sexualising narratives, for example, could be the fodder of TikTok confessionals or campaign clips even in 2025.

Join Glenn Belverio for a screening of a selection of Glennda and Friends films – including the legendary Glennda and Camille Do Downtown – and a discussion on the renewed relevance of cultural activity and transgressive just-do-it ideas to the rebirth of Downtown, the scene of the city.