Thinesh Thillai
Thinesh is an Eelam Tamil Queer creative hailing from Toronto, Canada. Whilst his formal training has been limited to sound design and music production, his creative interests have been multi-faceted. Thinesh's ideas around community, multiculturalism and identity were heavily influenced by his upbringing in Toronto.
His lived experience in Australia has felt "...as if there was one way of being Australian and that embracing any other part of my identity was at odds wit my ability to claim space in Australia". Accordingly, his creative pursuits all involve exploring what it means to be Australian and how we can better occupy multiple spaces simultaneously.
Current work and inspiration
Most recently, Thinesh has started developing Hot Sauce. Hot Sauce is a project that aims to create an intentional space to celebrate the lives of queer people of colour.
To recalibrate in the era of COVID, Hot Sauce: Home emerged as an intimate gathering to live at the intersection of music, food, and community.
"Our first COVID edition of Hot Sauce featured Arjunan Puveendran, a Tamil carnatic musician who co-produced Bhoomi: Our Country for Sydney Festival".
Hot Sauce recently collaborated with H_MEW_RK, a group cultivating a sharing economy of South Asian artists, to produce a fundraiser for the Bangalore Pledge Project. The fundraiser provided a three course meal with regional variations, their lesser known histories, and works by:
• award winning interdisciplinary artist Amitesh Grover,
• comedian, performer and writer Vidya Rajan,
• writer, director, and performer Gary Paramanathan, and
• writer and spoken word performer, Uncle Mohammed.
On 31 July 2021, Hot Sauce is presenting Diastopia at the Red Rattler Theatre. Diastopia is a roving dance party centring queer people of colour. A few hours of freedom, a respite from having to explain culture, diasporic experiences, our bodies, and ourselves. Mowgli May, Charlie Villas, TRad and Sveta will be providing the tunes whilst Govind, Twot Plist, Faux Fur and Pink Chyna hit the stage.
Website hotsauceparty.com
Social Media @tamildaddy
@hotsauceau