What does community mean to you?

Community means showing up to help each other, support each other, and witness each other – to see one another in a way that we don’t always get to in wider society. A community is a subgroup, and within it I want to feel more seen than in the broader world, and to also truly see those around me.

How do you find your community?

My path to Village came very much by chance. I met someone who was supposed to be my coach at the job centre – also a queer person – and in the course of those sessions, I was talking about being fairly new to Berlin and early in my transition, and about wanting to find community. He recommended Stretch Festival and actually used job centre training funding to buy me a ticket. When I arrived at that first Stretch, the very first person I met was another transmasculine person, and my doubts about whether I’d be accepted were already a little soothed. I think a lot of finding community comes down to chance and instinct – noticing that one person you feel something with, sharing what you’re looking for, and letting them connect you further. And then it’s about taking a risk. For me it was a risk to come to that first festival, not knowing if I’d be accepted. But you go, and you try, and you look for someone you might connect with.

How do you celebrate yourself and your community?

Sharing food together is a big part of it – even just a lunch break with someone, connecting over a meal. I also celebrate myself by taking off some of my masks. Being trans and autistic, I wear a lot of different masks in different spaces, and in community I get to show more of myself – sometimes dressing more femininely, or expressing parts of myself that feel too complex a message to bring into other groups. And then with others, I like to tell people when I enjoy something about them. To share an observation, a compliment about their appearance, their energy, something they did that I found beautiful or delightful. I think we don’t receive enough positive feedback, and I like to offer it when I feel it.

What do you think makes this project unique?

For me it feels like a space that is truly alive – elastic. It has an identity but it’s always changing a little, always responsive to different influences and the people who come through it. It feels like an organism that responds in a very living way. That’s not something I’ve found in many other queer or community spaces, which tend to have a very fixed brief and identity. Village has many different tentacles, and they’re all moving and evolving.

Can you share a moment at we are village or Stretch that felt meaningful or stayed with you?

Last year I came to a Stretch feeling really exhausted – I had a ticket and wanted to be there, but didn’t feel I had the capacity. Instead of not going, I decided to just show up and take the pressure off. On the second day, I ended up lying on a mattress in the lounge with a friend – another transmasculine non-binary person – and we spent the whole day just taking naps, waking up, talking a little, cuddling, napping again. Other people gradually joined and it became its own little constellation. It wasn’t on the schedule, but it was exactly what I needed, and what they needed too. I love that that’s a possibility – that I can show up however I am and still find a way to be connected.