New exhibition looking at untold stories of gay and transgender communities opens at art gallery
A new exhibition looking at previously untold stories of gay and transgender communities has opened at New Art Gallery Walsall.
The gallery's collections curator Julie Brown and learning curator Jon Sleigh have been working with artists in the LGBTQ communities to study the borough's collections and to incorporate themes from a fresh perspective.
A steering group explored both the gallery's showpiece Garman Ryan Collection and also delved into the collections store and to dig out works connected to works permanently on display at the Gallery Square attraction.
The result is the new Here & Queer exhibition.
There are plans to look at previously unknown art links to other social groups in the future to address how historically public art collections have been presented in the past to represent heterosexual bias across generations of collectors, donors, curators and directors.
The gallery said this resulted in suppressed stories and hidden in plain sight with public collections not representing all of contemporary society.
"While we can’t ever claim to fully represent everyone, we endeavour for our collections to connect with as wide a range of experiences as possible and to permanently embed visible change and representation into the displays, allowing different communities to feel a sense of ownership, of belonging, of being seen and being celebrated," the gallery website stated.
"Should you be interested in exploring areas around class, disability or race in connection with our collections in future iterations of the Embedding Diversity project contact our collections curator."
Admission is free to the exhibition.
