ADAM CARVER

Hiya.

I’m a midlands based creative producer, performance-maker and cultural activist.

My work embraces liveness, I’m on a mission to celebrate low-culture and camp and to use them as weapons to disrupt normatively – expect power ballads, gameshows, politics, and glitter.

I am interested in what it is to celebrate queerness in a world without shame, where shame itself does not (and has not existed). I’m interested in what queerness has to offer the world, and actively creating a new way of viewing and navigating world (rather than moving away from an old one). To do this I play many roles; producer, community organiser, curator, artist, drag queen, consultant, developer, creator, vocalist, and hot mess. The majority of my work falls into one of two strands; either as maker or producer. I do not view these strands separately – they are the tools I have at my disposal to affect change and create a more capacious queer world.

In 2021 I formalised my work and formed Fatt Projects Ltd, a midlands based company dedicated to creating socially engaged queer performance projects of which I am artistic director.

I was a 2020 Jerwood Bursary recipient, researching new directions in socially engaged queer practice, and am currently developing my music production and composition practice through an arts council DYCP grant. I believe in the re-prioritisation of regional perspectives within national queer discourse and decentralisation of queer narratives outside of London. I am a studio holder at A3 Projects.

My research interests include deconstructing camp, gendering the fat queer body, the phenomenology of queer fandom, non-binary histories, queer spirituality, and the radical potential of queer space.

AS PRODUCER

I have worked as an independent producer with organisations including Cambridge Junction, Birmingham Hippodrome, and DanceXchange. I am currently the producer for drag iconoclast Ginny Lemon, and delivering PALAVER!, a two-year artist, audience, and sector development programme supporting the creation of queer positive performance work for children and family audiences. From 2016-2020 I was Festival Director for SHOUT Festival, Birmingham, developing the organisation into the UK’s largest festival of Queer Arts and Culture, winning Midlands Zone Magazine’s Best LGBTQ+ event 2017, 18, 19, & 2020, and joining Arts Council England’s National Portfolio in 2018.

AS MAKER

My work has been commissioned by Birmingham Hippodrome, Home Live Art, Without Walls, Appetite Stoke, Offsite, and GDIF, and has been supported by In Good Company. My recent projects have focused on developing pioneering queer positive performance work for children’s and outdoor audiences, including FANTABULOSA – a drag show for kids.

I perform in drag as Fatt Butcher, and am the creator and host of Fatt Butcher’s Disco Bingo, currently resident at the Nightingale Club, Birmingham. I regularly work as a host and cabaret artist on the UK Festivals circuit including for Birmingham International Dance Festival, Flatpack Festival, Fierce, Birmingham Pride Pride & Wilderness festivals.