The drag artist Dairy King, dressed as a cow, milks its udders and squirts it at the crowd. Another eats an enormous cake by the fistful then vomits it back onto the plate. Spectators cover their eyes, groaning “I can’t watch!”. But this sense of gleeful disbelief is precisely what they signed up for at Ziber, a “deranged and grotesque queer club night”. Founded by Eddie Glotzer and hosted by promoter, podcast host and “ur favourite doll’s favourite doll” czech.hunter.schafer, Ziber finds a home at Tottenham Hale warehouse Distillery N17 when it’s not throwing parallel parties in Berlin. By embracing the monstrous and the shocking, guests find liberation from everyday norms – and beauty standards. 

“Beauty for us has never been about looking good. If anything, it’s the opposite,” says Glotzer, who set up the collective with self-proclaimed “professional pervert” Matt Skully in 2023. To Glotzer, subcultures getting weirder, louder and harder to categorise is the logical consequence of an increasingly rigid world. “It’s a middle finger to a society that wants everyone to fit one size,” he says. Laughter serves as an antidote to what the organisers see as a horrifying political landscape. Akış Ka, the cake-eating drag artist, fights diet culture through radical gluttony. “By eating to excess, I reclaim the grotesque and resist a culture obsessed with shrinking the body, from Ozempic to the pressures that seep into trans communities, turning pleasure into an act of resistance,” they say.

Nonsense is at the core of Ziber, the name of which is just two syllables put together. “It has no literal meaning,” he explains. “Nonsense is our compass and our currency. It’s hedonistic and fun, but everyone leaves in one piece afterwards. It’s a cute little collective.” The aesthetic is how Ziber attracts its tribe, with music coming second. Whether the attendees spend one minute or months preparing their outfit, their style is unique. It can be a poodle or pig mask, wearable silicone breasts, or a cow costume while feeding a friend with a baby bottle. “Looking like total freaks is how we remind people we can still do whatever the fuck we want. We’re all united in rejecting conformity, and the aesthetic is used as a weapon,” says Glotzer.

The collective draws on the world-building elements of the New Romantics, the 00s electroclash scene and 90s cybergoth. The subversive legacy of Leigh Bowery, who ran the short-lived club night Taboo in the 80s, is visible in the distorted faces. The decorations are thoughtfully designed by Micky Exposito, but keep a non-professional aesthetic to stay flawed and human. The grotesque elements partly stem from pagan folklore in Glotzer’s Italian heritage, which is entwined with the uncanny.

“Ziber is Tranny Burnham – unlike Andy, they make sure the transsexuals are looked after,” says czech.hunter.schafer, sporting her usual balaclava to remain anonymous. “They always protect me from my landlords’ eviction notices by paying me to serve cunt. ‘Protect the dolls’ isn’t just a t-shirt, it’s a lifestyle.”