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Proud Eden celebrates LGBT+ culture for third year

Proud Eden returns in style to the Eden Project on Saturday September 28 for what promises to be its biggest celebration of LGBT+ culture to date.

THE colourful evening will feature a dazzling mix of top music performances, inspirational spoken artists and unique poetry.

Zak Abel
Zak Abel

Headlining this year’s event is North London singer/songwriter Zak Abel. Zak first gained popularity as the featured artist on Gorgon City’s 2014 hit Unmissable, which reached number 19 on the UK Singles Chart.

His 2018 single Love Song has been streamed more than 15 million times on Spotify and he is featured on Duke Dumont’s new single The Power.

Zak shares the stage with an impressive array of talent, forming a packed evening of entertainment.

Rising transgender singer Shea Freedom is a songwriter with a voice of an angel and lyrics that sing of equality and freedom. Shea describes his music as mixing folk music with hip-hop. Shea will also be hosting a TRANSend 101 workshop.

Grace Savage
Grace Savage

Grace Savage is a Beatboxing champion turned electro-pop artist. Her unique electronic sound and lyrical venom has seen her become a prevalent voice for women in music and wider society.

Lots Holloway
Lots Holloway

Lots Holloway is a Newquay-born multi-instrumentalist artist who creates, writes and produces both emotional and infectious music. Based around guitar and piano, her music is inspired by the sixties and seventies but with a unique and fresh new spin.

Also gracing the stage is Kat Lyons. The Bristol-based poet, performer, storyteller and multiple slam winner mixes serious subjects with a light touch. She explores themes as diverse as mass extinction, ageing, the #metoo movement and grief-induced bad haircuts.

Robert Garnham is a spoken word artist who is bringing his own brand of LGBT- whimsy and humour to audiences across the UK at fringes and festivals, poetry nights and comedy cabarets.

The Beyoncé Experience features international Beyoncé impersonator Aaron Carty. Having wowed the judges on Britain’s Got Talent and becoming a viral smash, Aaron has performed for Pride in London at Trafalgar Square four years in a row.

Benji Matthews is a young male vocalist who in 2017 won acclaim from Simon Cowell for his song-writing abilities when he reached the six-chair challenge on ITV’s X Factor.

Also appearing is critically acclaimed performer MCMC Spoken, also known as Cornish artist Megan Chapman. MCMC Spoken has been a favourite at Proud Eden since day one with her poetry rap, freestyle and spoken word.

A Little Twisted are a female duo from Cornwall who will put their own spin on numerous classic tracks. Their extremely diverse set includes music Alanis Morissette and Bruno Mars.

Completing the bill is Bristol Bi-Poet and spoken word artist, 1990s Chris. His open and honest poems on sexuality have gone down a storm, with BBC New Creatives Project recently commissioning him to create an original series of poems.

Proud Eden will also feature a screening of Ashley Joiner’s ARE YOU PROUD? The documentary brings together rare archive footage and interviews from across a spectrum of campaigners to celebrate the progress that has been achieved by the LGBT+ movement.

Imogen Penny, Eden’s Programme Lead, said: “We wanted to make our third Proud Eden event bigger, bolder and brighter than ever before and we can’t wait to showcase all of the exciting performers taking to the stage this year.”

Tickets for Proud Eden on September 28 are £10 per person. Doors open at 4pm and the event starts at 6pm and no general Eden Project admission ticket is required.

There is adult content at this event so accompanied under-16s are welcome at the discretion of their parent or guardian.

For more information and to buy tickets click here:

LETTER TO EDITOR: Labour must do better say the Greens

I’m horrified to see that Labour has allowed some of the UK’s biggest carbon polluters to host events at this year’s Labour Conference. More surprising is the fact that the party is allowing these companies to do so under the guise of caring about the environment, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Cllr Elaine Hills
Cllr Elaine Hills

HEATHROW Airport is simulating an ‘exclusive airport-style lounge’ in the Sandringham Room at the Hilton Brighton Metropole on September 23-24. The company’s doublethink is staggering: it plans to discuss ‘Parliament’s momentous decision in favour of Heathrow expansion’ while holding a ‘Big Environment Talk’. Heathrow is already the biggest single source of greenhouse gases in the UK, and a third runway will all but blow our chances of meeting our targets for cutting emissions.

So why are Labour, who say they are committed to ‘radically transform economically’ to focus on climate change, making space for events like this to happen?

Meanwhile, BP is hosting a public event along with the New Statesman: ‘Net zero: imagining a decarbonised UK’, at the Hilton on September 24. And there are reports alleging that Shadow Secretary for Business and Energy will be taking  part. As we all know, BP is one of the ‘Big 2’ global oil producers, making its huge profits out of polluting our air by pumping massive amounts of carbon into it daily. The company is responsible for one of the worst environmental disasters in history, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, from which the environment will never recover.

Major fossil fuel companies like BP are hardly role models for tackling climate breakdown.  As Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, said: “BP and Shell have been barriers to climate action for years. These two fossil fuel dinosaurs are clinging to their out-dated and out-of-touch business models while the climate crisis worsens.” 

Furthermore, while Shell has stated that it plans to take steps to reduce the carbon footprint of the fuel it produces, BP has said taking responsibility for the fuels its customers use would limit the flexibility the company needs.

Does Labour really think that a company with such a blatant disrespect for the natural world is a suitable advocate of good environmental practice and deserves a platform?

By allowing these events to take place, the message Labour is putting out to our biggest polluters is business as usual. As Greens, we know radical transformation to a carbon-zero economy is key to avoiding the most damaging effects or climate change. It is because of the poor practices of companies like these that we need such dramatic action in order to survive.

This is very disappointing – and we expected better from Labour.

Elaine Hills

Green Councillor for Hanover and Elm Grove
on behalf of the Green Group of Councillors, Brighton and Hove City Council

 

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