Built by queer immigrants reclaiming joy and cultural memory, Temple Of is a collective transforming resistance into celebration through sound and care.
“We are a collective of proudly immigrant artists; misfit queer punks whose drug is folklore. We’re not trying to fit in anymore. We’re building something new.”
Lea Elisha, co-founder of Temple Of
With this blog series, we’re sharing insights from the work of LGBTI organisations tackling injustice, racism, and the unique challenges faced by racialised LGBTI communities in Europe. We hope their stories and practices will inspire and resonate. We believe that community-rooted approaches – even when locally or culturally specific – can highlight pathways and possibilities far beyond their original context. You can read the previous blog in the series here.
What if club nights could feel like both a rebellion and a reunion with your roots? What if dance floors held space for ancestral memory, political resistance, and queer joy all at once? Temple Of, a queer immigrant-led collective based in Prague and Berlin, does just that.
Founded in 2023 by Lea Elisha and George Itzhak, Temple Of is home to artists and DJs from across the SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa), Central Asia, and the Caucasus. It began as a response to exclusion from cultural institutions, from queer spaces, and from narratives that separate queerness from tradition. “We were tired of being the cherry on top,” Lea says. “We wanted to be the whole cake.”
Temple Of creates immersive cultural events that centre racialised queer migrants, combining music, performance, and community care in ways that are both deeply political and deeply joyful.
Sound as memory, music as home
Every Temple Of event is built around sound as cultural resistance. Their three signature music stages span from techno inspired by regional percussion, to groovy SWANA folk, to nostalgic “wedding” pop. “This is the music we danced to in our grandmothers’ living rooms, uncle’s radio… This is our true heritage. If you grew up as an immigrant kid, you try to tone it down and play it ‘cool,” says Lea. “Going to weddings and family gatherings, hearing folklore, folk pop music, dancing to it was my way of reconnecting with my Caucasus roots and culture. And now I can make it in my way and how I am: loud and proud, queer, punk, vulgar, genderfluid, flamboyant, and simply freaking gorgeous!”
Temple Of’s music curation rejects Eurocentric norms and instead celebrates SWANA and Central Asian sounds in all their forms – electronic, retro, folkloric. “Our music is often labelled ‘restaurant music’ or dismissed,” says Lea. “But it’s powerful. It carries memory, identity, and healing.”
This healing also extends to the experience Temple Of creates. Alongside the beats, they offer tea corners, traditional food, tarot readings, and healing rituals rooted in tradition, reimagined through a queer lens. It’s a deliberate shift from mainstream rave culture, a space where people can reconnect with themselves and each other.
Art, politics, and a refusal to be silent
Temple Of’s work is as much about community organising as it is about performance. They host peer-led visa support sessions, skill-sharing workshops, and upcoming events focused on meditative soundscapes and cross-cultural artistic collaboration. “We’ve always included care in our events,” says Lea. “But now, with support, we can make it sustainable.”
Their approach is unapologetically political. The collective refuses to treat music as apolitical and chooses not to collaborate with institutions complicit in nationalism, militarism, or colonialism.
“We’ve seen venues quick to speak on EU-centric issues, yet silent on genocide in Palestine, Sudan, Armenia…,” Lea notes. “We can’t be part of that hypocrisy.” Commenting on the political boundaries and solidarities Temple Of holds, Lea notes, “We boycott zionist and pro-war institutions. If you align with that, you’re not welcome in our space.”
Chosen family
Temple Of sees art as central. Their recent milestone was organising the first-ever all-immigrant queer drag and performance show in Prague, where performers brought their stories, traditions, and cultural aesthetics to the main stage.
“These artists need 100% of attention,” Lea says. “They’re not background dancers. They are the show.”
Future plans include classes in DJing and performance, soundscape collaborations with artists from Georgia, Palestine, and Germany, and more quiet, community-rooted gatherings. It’s a shift away from the burn-out of rave culture, and a step toward long-term cultural infrastructure built by and for queer immigrants.
Reclaiming what was always ours
For Lea, Temple Of is about building a home where there was none after war, displacement, and cultural erasure. “I thought I was the only folklore freak,” they laugh. “Turns out there are many of us – queer punks, misfits, obsessed with culture. And we’re not trying to fit in anymore. We’re building something new.”
That something is grounded in ancestral memory, defiance, and celebration. “We’re supposed to be cool, friendly, loving, supportive, that’s what culture is. That’s what family is,” Lea says. In a world where borders divide and supremacy erases, Temple Of is an invitation to remember who we are – in connection, not separation.
