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About Pride in Our City
On 25 July 2020 we launched the digital exhibition, Pride in Our City, in the middle of the COVID-19 national lockdown. We worked closely with colleagues at Yorkshire MESMAC and Pride in Hull to capture lived experiences and provide a space for our local communities and audiences to share their own voices. Providing an authentic experience for all, when our museum sites were closed, was an important goal for us.
Explore that first exhibition here – Click Here
However, the Pride in Our City project didn’t start there; in early 2019 we began by acknowledging that LGBTQ+ narratives were under-represented in our museums. We organised staff training and started to discuss what stories we should be telling and considering how to tell them. We then started researching our collections and the local LGBTQ+ history of Hull, and we teamed up with The University of Hull, with some of the students writing excellent blogs exploring the heteronormative view of history from the modern day.
Explore this work here – Click Here
We now welcome you to explore, Pride in Our City – a community-led retelling of our collections. This exhibition celebrates Hull’s LGBTQ+ history and documents people’s own experiences of being part of LGBTQ+ communities in the city. We have been working in partnership with our local communities to rediscover the LGBTQ+ stories our collections hold, identifying the importance of these narratives to individuals and to Hull’s rich LGBTQ+ heritage.
Hull Roundheads
The Hull Roundheads are an inclusive rugby team founded in 2018, where people of any gender and sexuality can come together for the love sport. Early on in Pride in Our City discussions, it became apparent that the “locker-room” holds a great significance to several members of the Roundheads. For many, early memories of this space stem from negative experiences of physical education classes at school. As young LGBTQ+ people navigating their own identities, many considered sport – and its locker-room rituals – hostile to those who didn’t identify as heterosexual and/or cis-gendered. Some players spoke of a vulnerability within the locker-room, and a “double consciousness” to their own behaviours: “you’re there as a young person going through all these experiences, but you’re not really one of them. There was an envy about the casual straightness – how natural and confident and comfortable other boys at school were”.
For this exhibition, the Roundheads have been exploring the locker-room through visual and oral testimonies, challenging the stereotypes that exist around LGBTQ+ communities and sport.
Professional photographer Richard Dafydd is a member of the Roundheads rugby team. In this portraiture series, Richard and the team look to “break down the idea of what it means to play rugby”. Shot over two days, the series celebrates how the Roundheads exist beyond the limitations of stereotype and challenges the barriers facing the LGBTQ+ community in sport.
Visually, there are parallels to David Hockney’s Life Painting for Myself – a work from the Ferens permanent collection which influenced the style of the series. Much like the way Hockney depicts multiple versions of self, the Roundheads have chosen to capture the multi-facetted identities of the team members through this series of layered portraits, reflecting the multiple and varied aspects of what it means to be a rugby player.
Discover the David Hockney painting here – Click Here
Click here to see images in full size
Creating this series of photographic portraits for display in the Pride in Our City exhibition prompted further conversations about the locker-room as a space. We chatted to ten members of the Roundheads rugby team about their own experiences associated with the locker-room and invited them to speak honestly about the dominant masculinities associated with such a space.
Comparing physical education classes at school to the world of inclusive rugby, the Roundheads discuss the vulnerability of communal spaces, and question why sport holds negative associations for so many LGBTQ+ individuals. The resulting audio piece offers a frank look at the spaces which shape us and their influences later in life.
Listen on Youtube – Click Here
Or on Anchor – Click Here
Find out more about the Roundheads here – Click Here
Step Out
Step Out is an LGBTQ+ youth group for 11-16 year olds, run in partnership with Cornerhouse and The Warren. For Pride in Our City, Step Out have been exploring LGBTQ+ histories within Hull Museums’ collections, questioning their relevance to contemporary society.
Queen Anne was said to have shared a “romantic friendship” with Sarah Churchill, who later became Keeper of the Privy Purse. In 1708 rumours began suggesting Anne was having a same-sex relationship, and pamphlets were circulated to try and disgrace and humiliate the queen.
Inspired by the story of Queen Anne, Step Out have created a zine (a self-published, free-form print-work which emphasises personal expression) about the experiences of, and issues facing, young LGBTQ+ people today. Self-made publications have long been associated with LGBTQ+ communities and Step Out have created this zine to tell their own stories, in their own way.
Where Queen Anne fell victim to the power of publicity, Step Out are using the self-published format of the zine as an act of re-claiming power.
Visit the exhibition to pick up your own copy of the zine to keep.
Explore the story of Queen Anne further in this Curator’s Choice blog – Click Here
Find out more about Step Out here – Click Here
Click here to see images in full size
Shout
Shout is an LGBTQ+ youth group for 16-25 year olds based at The Warren. Through a number of artist-led workshops, Shout have identified several objects within the Ferens Art Gallery and Hull Museums’ collections which resonate with them. They have explored the history of these objects in relation to their own experiences.
Inspired by some of the political change-makers represented in the Pride in Our City exhibition, Shout have been considering their own platforms to enact social change. They have come up with a number of slogans and statements that call for a better world. They hope that these powerful placards help visitors to Pride in Our City to better understand the kind of issues facing LGBTQ+ youth today.
Find out more about Shout here – Click Here
Click here to see images in full size
Playlist
This playlist has been curated by LGBTQ+ communities involved in the creation of this exhibition. The chosen songs represent the soundtrack to the life-events and experiences highlighted on the gallery walls.
Whether it’s Lizzo hyping up the Roundheads before a game, or a member of Step Out enjoying Måneskin as distraction from gender dysphoria, each song represents an important memory. What songs make up the soundtrack of your life?
Listen to the full playlist on Spotify here – Click Here
Interpretations
For this exhibition, the community groups and individuals have offered alternative interpretations of the art and the social history collections on display.
For example, one object that resonated with Shout in particular was the As You Like It Theatre Programme from the Grand Theatre Hull (now the Hull New Theatre) which inspired the group to come up with their own analysis of gender in the modern world. In As You Like It, the character of Rosalind must disguise herself as a man following exile. In the play, Rosalind performs a form of masculinity, but the performativity of gender is something we all engage in on a daily basis.
Here are some examples of these interpretations, but to explore the exhibition though these voices in full visit Pride in Our City at the Ferens Art Gallery.
Click here to see images in full size
