Mission Statement

Bonanzafest is the festival for trans and non-binary art and performance in Germany.

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Founded in 2022 by Will Saunders and Hans Diernberger, in 2023 it has been curated and organised by a group of people rooted in the trans community in collaboration with a diverse team. It invites international trans and non-binary artists from the fields of music, performance, film and fine arts to Cologne.

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The Bonanzafest takes the space:

We create a public sphere and a stage for trans and non-binary art and its protagonists - art that is rarely shown in its diversity, and still is often only represented as "the Difference".

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The Bonanzafest understands itself as from the community for the community and beyond:

‍we want to be a place where connection and exchange take place and new perspectives can be experienced.

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At Bonanzafest you will meet a bunch of lovely people from all walks of life. We invite you to meet and connect with compassion and curiosity. We are sharing the space and experience of Bonanzafest together, building communities, meeting on common grounds. This may also include different opinions. We strongly believe that we can grow individually and communally by also holding our contradictions and sitting with discomfort sometimes.
Please keep in mind from which personal background and positioning you and the people around you are speaking. Let us aim for not policing our interactions but talking to each other, let us venture into this space with open hearts and minds.

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The BONANZA FEST is a place of inspiration and belonging:

we want to show more possibilities for identification, role models and paths that still exist far too few for trans and non-binary people. At Bonanzafest you are not the Other, but one of a strong community. The festival follows a Braver Space Policy with a visible and approachable awareness team.