A place for the celebration of queer joy and strength in the LGBTQIA + community.
Our work extends to collaborations with artists:
We worked with queer dance artist/activist Stuart Waters to make Brighton Loops. Stuart works across the UK with queer communities in a range of different spaces including theatres and galleries.
We produced:
A three channel video installation
A single channel video installation
26 photographic portraits
Collaborative film projects made with communities about space.
Excerpt from Brighton Loops single channel for The Towner Gallery, Margate.
Stuart also makes performance. The Brighton Loops film was sister to a live performance ‘A Queer Collision’ . A project created through Stuart and Willie Elliot, his collaborator, sharing their histories as queer people.
Themes of community, collision and storytelling led to the making of a film of portraits. These photographs were made with a community cast.
This sense of community and sharing extended to how the audience might see the work.
Stuart has a core commitment to access in his work. An audio description track added another dimension to the installation and the film as a soundtrack.
Principles that shaped this project
A mixture of open call and people from Stuart’s own community would produce the best cast
Participants would be free to embody queer joy and strength in whatever way felt right to them.
The photographs would speak to queer histories in portraiture in painting and photography
The making of portraits should allow the participants to have both a sense of ownership and authorship of their image
It was vital that the process be welcoming, enjoyable and accessible for everyone in a diverse cast
The principle of community was central to the design of the edit and the installation.
Method
We worked with Stuart to design a stepped process that would produce an open and ‘safe’ space for collaboration:
Before any images were made participants met with Stuart alone
We ensured that crew were cast as carefully as participants
Each person had an individual shoot in a queer-friendly and fully accessible venue.
The making of the portraits had to be unhurried with time for talking, listening, exchanging ideas and looking together at the image that was being made.
The participants all received copies of their portrait.
