Queer Spectra Arts Festival, Salt Lake City, UT (2026)

09/02/2026

✨ You don’t want to miss this super special book event with award-winning poet, performer, and cultural critic Danez Smith Danez Smith! ✨

Details: September 15 at 7:00pm at Gore Auditorium in the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business, Westminster University (1840 S 1300 E).

This event is free - please RSVP to reserve your spot! Link in bio.

This evening will begin with a reading by Danez Smith, followed by a moderated conversation with Dr. Eileen Chanza Torres, audience Q&A, and finally book singings. We are so excited to be partnering with Under the Umbrella Bookstore Under the Umbrella Bookstore 🌈 and Westminster University Gender Studies program to make this happen.

Slide two shows a parking map of Westminster University where parking is free after 5:00pm.
- The yellow star indicates Gore Auditorium.
- The pink arrow indicates the West entrance, which is the best entrance to access the Gore Auditorium.

Notes on Accessibility
- Note that face masks are required for all attendees at this event and will be provided for free. Masks are required in order to make this event accessible for all community members, especially our most vulnerable.
- The Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business is wheel chair accessible. Enter through the West Entrance to directly access the Gore Auditorium. The West entrance has automatic doors. There is an elevator to the left of the main entrance to access the Gore Auditorium. There are four wheel chair seats available seats.
- ASL Interpretation will be present at this event.
- If you have other accessibility requests, please reach out q***[email protected].

This project is supported in part by Creative West which receives support in part from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

08/23/2026

Join us September 15 at 7pm for a very special evening with award-winning poet, performer, and cultural critic Danez Smith.

Q***r Spectra, in partnership with Under the Umbrella Bookstore and the Westminster University Gender Studies Program, is honored to present this very special evening with Danez Smith.

Exact building and location to be announced!

Danez Smith will give remarks and a reading, followed by a moderated conversation with a local writer (stay tuned for annoucement.) After a brief audience Q&A, there will be a book signing; books will be available for purchase on-site, thanks to Under the Umbrella Book Store.

Danez Smith is the author of four collections including Don’t Call Us Dead, Homie, and, most recently, Bluff. They are also the curator of Blues In Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes. For their work, Danez has won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and have been a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, as well as an array of grants, fellowships, and residencies including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Princeton Arts Fellowship. Smith teaches at the Randolph College MFA program and the Black Youth Healing Arts Center in St. Paul, and lives in Minneapolis with their people.

This event is free - please RSVP to reserve your spot!

Notes on Accessibility
• Note that face masks are required for all attendees at this event and will be provided for free. Masks are required in order to make this event accessible for all community members, especially our most vulnerable.
• The building will be wheelchair accessible and more building accessibility notes will be shared in the near future. Check out Q***r Spectra Arts Festival on Instagram for updates!
• ASL Interpretation will be present at this event.
• If you have other accessibility requests, please reach out to Rae Luebbert at q***[email protected].

This project is supported in part by Creative West which receives support in part from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

08/02/2026

🏳️‍🌈Check our recap video for the 2026 Q***r Spectra Artist Residency show and get ready for the second year of the program! You can learn more about last years’ incredible artists-in-residence and apply on our website, q***rspectra.com. Video from the amazing Mystic Swan Studios

▫️Applications are open now for Q***r Spectra’s 2026-27 cohort of artists-in-residence. This opportunity is for Utah-based visual, performing, and interdisciplinary artists and runs from September 2026 - May 2027. Artists will receive $1000 stipend and $500 materials/studio space reimbursement.

▫️Submit by Sunday, August 16th at 11:59pm MDT. More info and application at q***rspectra.com 🏳️‍🌈
***rart

07/22/2026

❓Curious about the Q***r Spectra Artist Residency? Check out our website for more info or email us your questions at q***[email protected].

▫️Applications are open now for Q***r Spectra’s 2026-27 cohort of artists-in-residence. This opportunity is for Utah-based visual, performing, and interdisciplinary artists and runs from September 2026 - May 2027. Artists will receive $1000 stipend and $500 materials/studio space reimbursement.

▫️Submit by Sunday, August 16th at 11:59pm MDT. More info and application at q***rspectra.com 🏳️‍🌈
***rart

06/26/2026

As we look back with gratitude to the 2026 Annual Festival, we want to remind you that time is running out to complete the Attendee Survey (link in bio) for a chance to win a $30 gift card to local q***r SLC bookstore Under the Umbrella!
While you can still complete the survey after July 1st, that is the deadline to be entered into the drawing, so make sure to get them in before then!🗳️✍️

Q***r Spectra Arts Festival strives to provide access and funding to artists and attendees at no cost to you.
Consider donating if you have the means. Every dollar helps us continue our programming:
https://www.q***rspectra.com/donate

05/17/2026

Join us for a final, reflective workshop to end the 2026 Q***r Spectra Arts Festival! On Monday, May 18 at 6:30pm MT, Jordan Danielle will offer a workshop entitled Home Gather.In - Lineage, Leakage & Liberation: A collective exploration through ceremony, reflection, and integration.

This event will take place via Zoom. There is a short registration form. Link in bio.
ASL Provided.
Questions or Accessibility Needs? Please contact q***[email protected].

Please bring a journal, something to write with, tea/water.

What lines are you creating, connecting, remembering, releasing, coming home to? This gathering is a ceremony, an experience to remember, to collectively envision, write and speak into existence. Together we will explore what we are coming back home to. Together we will take and share moments to remember and embrace what has felt forgotten, explore and question what is, and create a collective message to close out this year’s Q***r Spectra Arts Festival, in relation to the theme of “Troubling The Lines”. Join me in ceremony as we bridge the lines of physical and spiritual, of voicing and moving, listening for the rhythms beneath the surface that direct us to shift in aligned purpose.

Bio: My practice, work and artistry is deeply rooted in gathering - shaped by and for Black, q***r, and trans communities, where art is inseparable from living, surviving, celebrating, and centering liberation. Through the lens of collective care I enjoy creating experiences that explore what opens, what softens, what releases, what reconnects us to ourselves and each other; weaving sound, rhythm, text, visuals and texture. I create from intuition, guided by what can be felt but not always named; staying open and curious of the abundance that is present physically and ancestrally. My artistry lives in the in between, where multitudes of nourishment - sound, and rhythm become memory, where community builds, where presence becomes offering. I am always listening, for the rhythms beneath the surface, for moments of shift, to hold, to heal, and to collaborate, toward collective liberation.

05/16/2026

⭐️Saturday Performing Artists⭐️

The following artists are musicians, writers, dancers, drag performers, and other interdisciplinary artists!

Join us for free performances Saturday May 16th
Starting at 5:00 PM followed by an artist panel

Hosted at the Sorenson Unity Center (1383 S 900 W Salt Lake)

Masks are recommended for all events

Artist bios: (Continued in the comments)

Venus Death Trap is a q***r punk band from Salt Lake City. We are all about fun, theatrics, and sharing art. Any reason is a good reason to wear a costume and be dramatic!
Above all, we believe that in the face of opposition, art and creativity are the best tools to fight back.
Venus Death Trap consists of Sophi on vocals, Spencer on guitar, Taz on bass, and Bianca on Drums.

As an ever-evolving creature with a penchant for the circus, Shortcake the Clown gallivants through the city, looking to play. Transcending gender and casting societal norms aside for the bright red nose, during a show, anything goes! Now a makeup instructor at Vaudeville Underground, the delightful mess of colors can’t wait to meet you.

Hunter Hazard is a Salt Lake based creator dedicated to facilitating accesible and meaningful movement experiences through education. Hunter works as a special education teaching assistant as well as a creative movement instructor with the Boys and Girls Club. His current research centers around blending games with creative movement expression with a heavy emphasis on teamwork and inclusion.

Salina Marina is a Drag Queen, Community Organizer, and ‘Ecovixen’ currently residing in the wave-made world. She takes inspiration from a wealth of Drag Artists including Pattie Gonia, Eli Nixon, Kay Bye, Sequoia, and so many more, as well as lake-facing artists worldwide. Her performances pair high energy dance with environmentalist messages. Whether she’s modeling recycled materials or adorned in waves, SLC’s conservation queen will always leave you thirsty for more!!

05/15/2026

⭐️Gallery Artists 1/3 ⭐️

The following artists are some of our gallery artists with mediums varying from acrylic paints, textiles, graphic design, and other inter and multidisciplinary art.

Join us and see these artists work displayed in our gallery at the Sorenson Unity Center (1383 S 900 W Salt Lake)

Masks are recommended for all events

Artist bios: (Continued in the comments)

Adrian is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily with collage and image-based practices. He studied art tutoring at university, where his work developed through close attention to visual language, symbolism, and narrative construction. His practice draws from occult and esoteric traditions, mythology, and inherited cultural imagery, using these elements to explore themes of identity, surveillance, persistence, and becoming.

Adrian’s collage work often assembles fragmented images into symbolic landscapes that feel both intimate and distant, combining ornamental detail with political and emotional tension. Alongside visual art, he writes poetry and short texts that inform his image making process, allowing language and image to exist in dialogue.

His work is interested in liminal spaces between visibility and erasure, history and futurity and considers art as a site for quiet resistance, reflection, and continuation.

Ariana Babbitt is a 25-year-old genderq***r le***an artist/historian based in Utah. While she was going to college studying theatrical design and production, she realized she was a le***an at the age of 19. Feeling lost in her new identity, she found comfort in the story of Maude Adams, a historical q***r actress from Salt Lake City, Utah. It then became her mission to find out everything she could about the q***r history that was hidden from her all her life. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and working in the history field.

05/15/2026

⭐️Gallery Artists 3/3 ⭐️

The following artists are some of our gallery artists with mediums varying from acrylic paints, textiles, graphic design, and other inter and multidisciplinary art.

Join us and see these artists work displayed in our gallery at the Sorenson Unity Center (1383 S 900 W Salt Lake)

Masks are recommended for all events

Artist bios: (Continued in the comments)

Ro (they/them), is an artist, architect, and communications professional living in Utah.

Originally from Portugal, Ro’s international journey began with graduate studies in the Netherlands, which laid the foundation for a multidisciplinary approach to art and design. Following graduation, Ro spent five years working as an architect in Madrid, and this experience was further enriched by a nine-month journey across South America, traveling through the Amazon River.

As a q***r artist and immigrant to Utah, Ro finds immense significance in participating in social impact revolutionary creative projects.

There’s a superstition called the Artist’s Curse: paint someone you love, and they slowly drift out of your life. Sophia Keo keeps painting her friends anyway, apparently determined to speed things along. So far, they keep coming back, which she finds highly suspicious.

Her paintings persist as quiet experiments in tenderness, impermanence, and the gentle absurdity of persuading love to sit still for its portrait. She can often be found in India, gazing at a crumbling statue and maybe/maybe not having a conversation with it.

Spencer Hardy is a q***r trans man, poet, musician, crocheter, activist, and aspiring disruptor. Spencer’s art draws inspiration from q***r and trans identity, marginalization, disrupting western imperialism and colonialism, collective liberation and art as a movement for social change. Spencer lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, two kids, and a cute old dog. When he’s not crocheting or writing poetry you can also find him creating noise and chaos with his band the Lavender Menace Brass Collective, tabling at the Salt Lake Artists Against Genocide events, or organizing with the Salt Lake City Healthcare Workers for Palestine.

05/15/2026

⭐️Gallery Artists 2/3 ⭐️

The following artists are some of our gallery artists with mediums varying from acrylic paints, textiles, graphic design, and other inter and multidisciplinary art.

Join us and see these artists work displayed in our gallery at the Sorenson Unity Center (1383 S 900 W Salt Lake)

Masks are recommended for all events

Artist bios: (Continued in the comments)

Jaspen is an artist who lives in Utah County with their pet snake, Spaghetti. They studied Art & Design at UVU. Their work has mainly consisted of painting, sculpting, and graphic design, though they enjoy experimenting with a wide variety of mediums. In the past couple years they have also picked up a passion for writing and stand-up comedy.

My name is Jordan I am 20 years old, and a sophomore in college at Southern Utah university, studying Art Education. I have been privileged enough to come from a big, very artistic family. I am the youngest of 6 and all of my siblings are pursuing art in different fields. I feel most influenced by my 3 sisters, they are my favorite people and have been such inspiration for me. I enjoy sculpting and working with clay but I also enjoy all other types of media. I feel confident in describing myself as a patient person, so learning new forms of art is a treat! I’m also a collector of sorts or a hoarder as my mother would say, but I love me a trinket! I’m trying to get my art into the world so I can feel more confident as an artist. Even if nobody likes it, at least I tried.

Joyce - A 25 year old landscape painter from Salt Lake City. Most of my art is inspired from a life spent in the mountains of Utah. Preserving our climate and respect the rights and heritage of Indigenous peoples has always been a central core that motivates me to paint.

Queer Spectra Arts Festival

09/02/2026

08/23/2026

08/02/2026

07/22/2026

06/26/2026

05/17/2026

05/16/2026

05/15/2026

05/15/2026

05/15/2026

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