About Birmingham Queer Archive
In 2007 Birmingham LGBT launched the Gay Birmingham Remembered website with National Lottery Heritage Fund support, utilising archive material and user submissions to compile stories spanning the past hundred years of Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ history. Nearly twenty years later, the popular website is showing its age, in functionality as well as its curatorial approach to intersectionality and untold perspectives; meanwhile LGBTQ+ culture in Birmingham faces new threats, from loss of venues to pushback on trans rights, focusing a need to better document and celebrate our heritage.
A new generation of Birmingham LGBT practitioners will now repurpose, re-catalogue and refresh the existing website, improving accessibility, inclusion and navigability, capture a new layer of LGBTQ+ stories of Birmingham through interviewing – focusing particularly on women, global majority, trans people, and those outside the dominant white paternalistic narratives of LGBTQ+ history. This project is called Birmingham Queer Archive.
Elements of the project will include:
- Oral histories transcribed and made available condensed on a new iteration of the Gay Birmingham Remembered website and in full at Birmingham Library’s Archives, along with community photographs, flyers and images.
- An exhibition at TBC location curated by Birmingham Queer Archive team and community steering group.
- A Birmingham LGBTQ+ heritage talks programme for activists, academics, artists and historians.
- Multiple creative outputs developed and created by the Birmingham Queer Archive team showcasing their journey working on this project as well as their lived experiences
The Team
Owain (he/him) Historian & Artist
brutalisturinal is an artist who makes work about trans and queer sex, BDSM and cruising practices and public space, temporality and transience. His work has been described as equal parts horny, sad and funny which also sums him up as a person.
I’m excited to join Birmingham Queer Archive to help preserve and work with often overlooked but important queer histories in our city; those of cruising, kink communities and sites of sexual self discovery both past and present.
Sym (they/it) Assistant Interviewer
Sym is a live artist, arts & community facilitator and ritualist based in Birmingham. Its practise primarily focuses on connection and communication, and how liberatory practices can be attempted on both micro and macro levels.
As a Brummie / Black Country bab who experienced their queer becoming in various communities in Birmingham – as well as working with queer and QTIBPOC folk in the city for over 8 years – Sym is interested in queer archives and histories as a part of their own lineage in Birmingham, and how these stories can bring a new sense of affinity to the city – for themself and other queer brummies trying to find their place.
Fran (she/her) Assistant Interviewer
I’m an artist working in writing, performance and audio. I also sit pets. I make work in response to histories of place, people, nature, objects and the way stories are collected and told. My work has been co- produced and commissioned by Birmingham Rep, Duckie & Fierce Festival and I’ve been artist in residence at The National Waterways Museum and Warwickshire Archives. I made podcast Stories to Tell in the Middle of the Night (strange stories for sleepless nights) and audio works for Coventry City of Culture and The National Trust. I’m usually trying to get wet in a pool, pond or puddle.
I’m excited to be part of the team recording conversations for the Birmingham Queer archive for now, for the past and for the future. The importance of an archive to recognise voices that are not always clearly present or heard, to document Birmingham’s queerness and diaspora. The focus on Global majority, trans, non-binary and women’s voices is a reason and passion to be involved with this project. More than ever, giving increasing danger, minimising and taking away of the personhood and rights of LGBTQA+ people, listening, documenting, asking questions of people and their experiences is about care and recognition. Birmingham is a place I live and I’m delighted to be part of this team and project to document people in their own words to show queer life as it has been lived, is being lived, could and will be.
Dr Hassan (he/him) Lead Interviewer
Hassan is a researcher, theatre-maker, and cultural facilitator. His research predominantly investigates the de/construction of queer identities both on, and off, the British stage. His practice explores the transformative effects of (queer) histories and lived experience(s) on present and future iterations of (queer) identities, communities, and (sub)cultures. Hassan loves rewatching Buffy, playing Pokémon & losing himself on the dancefloor.
What really draws me to this project is that it sits at the intersection of things that have shaped my work for years: queer storytelling, archival practice(s), and working directly with communities to document lived experience(s). So, a project like the Birmingham Queer Archive feels incredibly important, particularly because of its focus on voices that have historically been overlooked: women, Global Majority communities, trans and non-binary people. It is also very important to me that the interviews we conduct are not extractive and are instead led with care and as a means to platform underrepresented voices from our community. And on a local level, being based in Birmingham, I think there’s something really powerful about creating a resource that captures the city’s queer histories in a way that people can access, recognise themselves in, and build from.
Candice (she/they) Digital Archive Officer
Candice Nembhard (okcandice) is an artist-curator, writer, archivist and musician. They are the director of sonic practice studio Bedtime Stories, co-founder of queer dance party SHUBZ and a radio resident for Berlin’s Refuge Worldwide. Their practice is concerned with grief methodologies, Black audio-visual archives and uses of the sonic in civic space. Previous positions include Curator (Sheffield Doc Fest), Digital Curator (Birmingham Museum & Gallery), Curator (Eastside Projects), Guest Lecturer (Royal College of Art), Acquisitions Advisor (Government Art Collection) and fellowships with the Woven Foundation, Jerwood Foundation, and Obsidian Foundation. Candice is currently researching the sonic-somatics of grief through their live performance series ‘Offering’ and is training to be a Death Doula.
For the last six years, I’ve been working closely with local archivists and collections documenting various aspects of Birmingham life; Vanley Burke (Soho House), Baff Akoto (BOM) and the Birmingham Now oral history project (Birmingham Museum & Gallery). I’m keen to continue developing publicly accessible platforms for stories derived from my native Birmingham — especially for communities who are often underserved and overlooked in our city’s wider narrative. I’m a firm believer that archiving is a civic duty and my hopes is that in joining the project, we can begin to shift the narrative on who gets to be an archivist and what gets to be recorded and collected.
Lacey (she/her) Project & Marketing Lead/ Curator
Lacey has worked in Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ community in various capacities for over 10 years and is currently an Artist, Marketing Manager and Project Manager. Connecting, showcasing and working with local LGBTQ+ Brummie businesses & creatives is her passion. She loves all things LGBTQ+, kitty cats, pink things & fluffy things.
I’m proud to lead this archive as it’s aims reflect values and goals I’m passionate about and have channelled into my work throughout the years. Being a part of Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ history through this archive project has given the team and myself an opportunity to document many previously unheard voices and hopefully, add a bit of Queer joy and light in a time that feels as though it’s getting darker.
How to get involved
We’re looking for LGBTQ+ people with a connection to Birmingham, to be interviewed as part of our Oral History collection. We’re also looking for volunteers to join our team who will assist with software assisted transcription, item cataloguing and support our future events and workshops.
If you’re interested, please fill in our Expression of Interest form.
Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. Birmingham Queer Archive is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we will be able to explore Birmingham’s LGBTQIA+ histories and heritage.
