During apartheid South Africa, Kewpie lived openly and documented queer joy when it was dangerous to do so. She preserved a history that could easily have been erased. Today, as queer and trans lives again face coordinated attacks and erasure, Salon Kewpie carries that legacy forward.

We are raising funds to run the next Salon Kewpie programme in Cape Town in April 2026. The project brings together queer and trans people of color with elders, artists, and facilitators from the community to connect with history, build collective care, and step into a lineage that teaches how to gather, survive, and resist together.

The Legacy

In apartheid South Africa, queer lives were meant to disappear.

To live openly was illegal.

To gather was dangerous.

To be joyful was an act of defiance.

Kewpie did it anyway.

She lived as herself. She opened her home. She documented her community. The laughter. The beauty. The balls. The everyday moments of belonging. All at a time when the state was determined to erase them. All at a time when their world was being torn apart, as they were forced from their homes and their neighborhood was demolished.

Kewpie understood that memory is not passive. She understood that if the stories of her community were not held, shared, and passed on, they would be lost forever.

Today, as queer and trans lives once again face a global assault through rising violence, discriminatory legislation, and historical erasure, Kewpie’s legacy offers us more than just a history. It shows us how marginalized people have always worked together to survive under tyranny. It shows us how community is built and sustained. How visibility can be turned into protection. How joy itself can become an act of resistance.

In partnership with the GALA Queer Archive and the District Six Museum , Salon Kewpie was created so that queer and trans youth of color can learn what Kewpie modeled in practice: how to live, gather, and resist when the world is telling us to disappear.

What is Salon Kewpie: The Legacy Project?

Salon Kewpie: The Legacy Project is a community-led programme that brings queer and trans youth of color together with elders, artists, and facilitators from the community to connect with this lineage and with each other.

The program creates space to explore history, embodiment, self-expression, and collective care. It is intentionally non-corporate, non-extractive, and rooted in lived experience. The people holding the space are people who know it, who have lived it, and who understand what it means to survive and to thrive against all odds.

Many participants arrive believing that queer history began in the 2010s. Some have never seen themselves reflected in the past. Through Salon Kewpie, they learn something powerful: our people have been here all along.

Participants often describe the experience as “coming home.”

One shared:

“It’s like I’ve returned to my own planet. Falling in love with myself and the community has been amazing.”

Another said:

“Thank you for putting me in a position where I need to own my space. I know now that I am important as an LGBTI member. If they could do it, I can also do it. I can be that girl. I can be that main chick that no one sees me coming.”

Participants have also told us how important it is that the program is held by people from the community:

“It’s not strangers coming in and just speaking. It doesn’t feel corporate. It’s just comfortable.”

That comfort is what makes transformation possible.

Why we are crowdfunding now

So far, this work has been supported through institutional funding. However, we are $8000 short for our next program.

Rather than let this work disappear, we have chosen to turn towards community. We are crowdsourcing because it belongs to the people it serves, and because its strength has always come from collectivity.

At a time when queer and trans people are being pushed out of public space and told to shrink, this project insists on the opposite.

The April 2026 program

We are raising funds to run Salon Kewpie: The Legacy Project from 12–18 April 2026 in Cape Town, culminating in a ball. Held on Kewpie’s birthday, the ball is a celebration of lineage, survival, and queer joy, and a public act of presence. Each cohort of participants makes their ballroom debut here, formally entering the ballroom community and stepping into a lineage of chosen family.

This will be the fifth Salon Kewpie program following:

Each program builds on the last, strengthening relationships and deepening a growing, intergenerational community.

What your donation supports

Your contribution directly supports the April 2026 program, including:

Every donation helps keep this work accessible, grounded, and alive.