Inside the Surreal Funhouse: An Interview with Queer Van Kult
Nicie , Jenno, and Zoe of Queer Van Kult , during the opening night of “Revelation,” produced in collaboration with the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art. Photo by @acdemarco
In this exclusive interview, we speak with Queer Van Kult, a liturgy of performance, installation, and music centered on queer artistry. Imagined as a surreal funhouse of queer taste, the collective creates bold spaces for community, unbounded creativity, and celebration while providing a home for experimental works by local and emerging artists.
Queer Van Kult is a liturgy of performance, installation, and music with a focus on queer artistry and medium.
Imagined as a surreal funhouse of queer taste, the events produced and presented by the collective intend to encourage an atmosphere of community, unbounded creativity and celebration, all while providing a home base for the cultivation of experimental works by local and emerging artists beyond.
Artwork by Nicie of Queer Van Kult
Tell us a little about how Queer Van Kult came to be. What sparked its creation?
Feelings of nostalgia and a longing for community are at the heart of QVK’s beginning. Even our name is a nod to Staten Island, specifically the Kill Van Kull, a body of water separating the island from New Jersey. Though each of us came to art from different directions, our timelines overlapped at Second Saturdays (SSSI), a former monthly art walk.
The emergence of Deep Tanks, a gallery and arts venue in St. George, further grounded our individual connections to the arts and eventually brought us together. Deep Tanks had a certain magic, a DIY spirit, the pairing of experimental work across genres, and the intimacy of a tight-knit community space.
By 2013, Kris and Flo had introduced a collective-style stewardship model at Deep Tanks, opening the doors for members of the community to curate events across different practices. Around that time, Jenno began booking shows with touring bands, with the goal of putting Staten Island on the DIY map. There was a shared sense that Staten Island deserved to be part of the broader cultural conversation.
That momentum only grew in 2014 after Eric Garner’s death, when community organizing on Staten Island took on new urgency. But just as the energy was peaking, Deep Tanks was shut down in 2015, shortly after hosting a fundraiser for Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed Garner’s death. Jenno remembers police in bulletproof vests blocking entry to the space. It felt like the closing of an important chapter in Staten Island’s history. When the space dissolved, the loss became a catalyst for us.
Out of that ending, QVK was born. As a collective, we were inspired by what Deep Tanks had built, and wanted to carry that spirit forward, expanding it through a queer lens, shaped by our own tastes and voices. Just as importantly, we were friends. Our different strengths and ways of working made it possible to bring QVK to life together.
A performance during the opening night of “Revelation,” produced in collaboration with the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art. Photo by @acdemarco
Your events feel like full-body experiences—immersive, surreal, and defiantly queer. What kind of world are you hoping to build through QVK?
Community, fantasy, escape, and limitless expression are at the core of what we do. With Queer Van Kult, we try to build liminal worlds: spaces that suspend time, dissolve norms, and loosen the boundaries that restrict potential and being. Our events invite people to step outside of expectation and into possibility. In a way, we’re asking our audience to dream with us.
QVK blends performance, installation, music, and drag. How do you approach curating such layered, multi-sensory events?
We start by gathering around a table and dredging up our most impossible desires. And then, we spend the rest of the process figuring out how to make those impossible ideas a reality. Our curation draws from being deeply immersed in art and performance, being chronically online, constantly discovering new work, following artists, and reaching out to connect. QVK grows out of that mix of dreaming together and building bridges outward.
What does community mean to QVK? How do you nurture that spirit across different events and collaborators?
Community means everything to us.
Crowd gathered for the opening night of “Revelation” an immersive exhibition Queer Van Kult produced in collaboration with the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art. Photo by @jahtieklong
You’ve collaborated with incredible artists—from Dreamcrusher to God Complex to T. Marsh. How do you find and build relationships with your performers?
We started this really wanting to support artists and their work first and foremost. A lot of it is cheering on the talent within our own communities, in addition to the work we see outside of it. We’re not afraid to dream and ask for the things within those dreams.
Often it’s as simple as making the first step and sending a DM, or connecting through friends or friends of friends. Over time, we’ve been able to get bigger performers as bigger grants and venue opportunities came our way, while still holding onto that same spirit of community and connection.
What has been one of the most surprising or moving moments at a QVK event so far?
Nicie’s performance at the closing night of Revelation was my favorite performance from the entire time we’ve been QVK. It was unexpected, sad, and beautiful. -Zoë
For me, it had to be Elle’s “coming out” coffin performance on opening night of “Revelation”. We had one custom built from scrap wood for the “Heaven” gallery, but I didn’t realize she would be hanging out there for an hour or so, waiting to be literally unearthed and re-born in her own image. So many people came in and out of that room, not realizing there was a person in a coffin buried under dirt and fake grass, texting us every few minutes letting us know they’re still chillin’. -Nicie
The Coffin used as part of a performance during the opening night of “Revelation,” produced in collaboration with the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art. Photo by @acdemarco
How do you balance the intention of queer liberation with the logistical reality of producing large-scale art events?
Who are we liberating? I’m barely liberated. I have student loan debt. - Zoë
At the end of the day, we’re just trying to live our lives authentically, pursue meaning and joy, and move away from shame. Queer joy is liberation. Queer survival is liberation. Queer representation is liberation. Showing up for yourself is liberation. Challenging false narratives is liberation.
We’ve worked very hard over the years to make something a little different, something that we personally needed to exist in the world, something we hoped would serve other people in the same way.
That being said, being a little different can ruffle feathers and create room for misunderstanding, but we are here to foster growth, inspiration, conversation and lasting community. Not everyone is going to “get” us, and that’s okay. That’s the whole point. We want you to step a little bit out of your norm.
We make serious art, we make silly art, we play, we mourn, we celebrate. We are immensely lucky to have people that believe in us and our vision, both institutionally and communally. We can’t wait for what comes next and are super thankful to everyone that’s supported us over the years.
“Revelation” on polariods Photo by @shannanimal
What’s something you feel the mainstream art world still doesn’t understand about queer, underground, or experimental work?
Art can be funny. Art doesn’t have to be so serious and self-righteous. Queer art isn’t just about subverting heterosexual norms, but also about society and rigid expectations cast upon everyone. We try not to take ourselves so seriously. It can still be substantial, meaningful, and ironic, but also hilarious.
Looking ahead—what are you dreaming of next for Queer Van Kult event? Any new visions taking shape?
QVK: The House Wears Our Memory Like Skin at Alice Austen House on October 11. The inspiration the AAH provides is really unique to Staten Island and feels resonant with QVK’s mission and purpose. Hopefully, by intervening in the park and using Alice Austen’s life as a jumping off point, we’ll activate the site with new meaning and sensibility, which only QVK can do.
Queer Van Kult: The House Wears Our Memory Like Skin
October 11, 2025 | Alice Austen House Museum, Staten Island, NY
5:00 – 8:00 PM
On National Coming Out Day, Staten Island-based queer arts collective Queer Van Kult (QVK) presents an outdoor, one-day, site-specific performance and installation event at the Alice Austen House Park taking place on October 11, 2025, QVK presents a poetic act of remembrance, reflection, and reclamation: honoring queer lineage, local memory, and personal transformation through sculpture, performance, sound, and immersive installations.
Developed in collaboration with the Alice Austen House Museum, QVK invites the public to wander a landscape charged with objects, gestures, and offerings—conduits of grief, joy, queer identity, and cultural archaeology.
Artist Statement:
Queer Van Kult: The House Wears Our Memory Like Skin is a site-responsive offering: a ritual of remembrance, transformation, and queer imagination. We are intervening in the land, in time, in memory.
This project is an homage to the places that shaped us, the people who saved us, and the ghosts that haunt and hold us. It is our love letter to chosen family, queer ancestors, abandoned objects, and the stories written into the shorelines and shadows of Staten Island.
Alice Austen House, once a home, now a historic LGBTQ+ landmark, serves as a grounding point. We scatter personal relics across its grounds: driftwood shrines, embedded household objects, hair in the hills, pantyhose stuffed with memory. We reflect on queer solitude, secrecy, lineage, and the process of becoming.
We ask: What do we inherit? What do we carry? What are we ready to leave behind?
This is not a monument. This is a living archive.
A temporal, embodied queer spell.
Pre-sale ticket link:
To see more of Queer Van Kult’s work, check out their website and Instagram:
Jahtiek Long is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, community organizer, and co-founder of the Shaolin Art Party. He loves photographing the island and playing the ukulele. Jahtiek is passionate about shifting the narrative surrounding Staten Island and showcasing the vibrancy of the borough. He’s also really excited about all the new Ramen spots popping up. @Jahtieklong