Travis Alabanza, Wet Mess and Nando Messias lead queer performance night at ICA in support of akt

A one-night programme of live art, poetry and performance at the ICA will bring together Travis Alabanza, Wet Mess, Nando Messias, Adam Christensen and Emily Pope, raising funds for LGBTQ+ youth homelessness charity akt.

Award-winning writer and performer Travis Alabanza heads the line-up for Cardion Nights: Queer Performance, a 20 March event at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. The evening is organised by Cardion Arts in aid of akt, the UK charity supporting LGBTQ+ young people at risk of homelessness.

Returning to the ICA for a second year, the event gathers artists working across theatre, live art, poetry and sound for a programme of new work. It combines performance with direct fundraising at a time when youth homelessness services report increasing demand.

Alabanza will read from None of the Above, the book that won the Jhalak Prize and was named among TIME’s best books of 2023, alongside new writing from forthcoming projects. Their stage work, including Burgerz and Overflow, has been recognised for confronting transphobia and public space with direct, personal testimony.

Live art duo Wet Mess and Nando Messias will present Trollied, a new collaboration developed during a residency at Somerset House Studios. The piece builds on both artists’ interest in gender, spectacle and bodily excess, combining performance art and theatre in an absurdist encounter between “two freaks and a shopping trolley”.

Multidisciplinary artist Adam Christensen brings poetry and music shaped by his ongoing exploration of intimacy, heartbreak and theatrical self-mythology. London-based artist Emily Pope presents BUST, a sequence of audiovisual vignettes examining economics and austerity culture through satire and karaoke aesthetics.

Curated by Gemma Rolls-Bentley and Katie Della-Valle, the night positions queer performance as both artistic practice and social infrastructure. Cardion Arts’ annual programmes raise funds for akt, which provides housing support, emergency assistance and longer-term development for LGBTQ+ people aged 16–25 facing homelessness or unsafe living environments.

The event is 18+, standing, and may include nudity, haze and flashing lights. A raised platform is available for wheelchair users or those requiring seating. Free tickets are offered for unwaged attendees, with standard and donation tickets available.

What, where, when

What: Cardion Nights: Queer Performance in aid of akt
Where: Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London SW1
When: 20 March 2026, 7pm–10pm
Tickets: Free (unwaged), £12 standard, £18 including donation