Regulating and resisting queer creativity:

In the following reflection, the author delves into the intricate political landscape surrounding Radiodress’s “each hand as they are called” project, a deeply personal exploration of radical Jewish history featured within Luminato, an international festival of creativity based in Toronto. Specifically, the author analyzes how Luminato and the Koffler Centre, a Jewish organization dedicated to promoting contemporary art, managed Radiodress’s work to present marketable concepts of ethnic and queer diversity. Additionally, the author examines the reasons behind the eventual blacklisting of Radiodress and her project by the Koffler Centre. However, the author also explores the inventive and collaborative responses of Radiodress and fellow Toronto artists to these tensions. The author argues that integrating queer arts practices into discussions surrounding contemporary creative city policies reveals arenas of queer arts activism that exert influence on broader policies and dialogues. Such interventions, characterized by disidentification and the appropriation and reshaping of discourses that marginalize minority subjects, challenge oppressive processes of colonization and commodification on various fronts while nurturing more communal and interconnected modes of existence.