In celebration of Norwich Pride’s 15th anniversary, we wanted to honour how pride began… a protest. When the Stonewall riots erupted in 1969, gay prides began popping up all over the US and Europe. Although now we think of pride as a celebration of the queer community, a time to come together and fly the flag for the LGBTQIA+ population, pride has and always should be revered as a protest.
As Norwich Pride, we strive to continue our work in protecting the rights and lives of LGBTQIA+ people no matter their background, and to this day fight for queer revolution.
For Norwich Pride’s annual exhibition, we chose the theme queer activism history with the title ‘Revolting’. Artists have responded to this theme by looking to their queer history, community, and experiences relating to demonstrations, protests, and politics. Inspired by historic events such as Section 28, the AIDS crisis, and the marriage equality act. It also looks at recent events such as conversion therapy, ‘the trans debate’, and the increase in violent hate crimes.
As an exhibition highlighting marginalised experiences, we welcomed submissions from all members of the LGBTQIA+ community, especially those with intersecting identities such as people of colour, disabled people, those identifying as transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming, and those with lived experience of the historic events mentioned.
We proudly partnered with Queer Norfolk, a grassroots volunteer-led project based at Norfolk Heritage Centre which aims to hand ownership of queer collections back to communities and empower people to access, discover, and contribute to collections that reflect their shared histories.
This partnership has integrated historic objects such as protest signs, AIDS crisis memorabilia, and Section 28 ephemera.
These objects are displayed amongst the artworks to bring context and remind us of the roots that came from the activist work of generations before us.
Here are some images from the Open View held on Monday the 24th July
Norwich Pride 