We look forward to presenting

Completing the Past: LGBT+ History and Creative Production

9th-10th September 2021

After a delay necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, we look forward to presenting ‘Completing the Past’ later this year. The conference is (provisionally) scheduled for 9th-10th September and we’re excited to showcase the work of our very patient presenters. Details regarding the event will be available here soon, but some of the contributions we expect to offer as part of the programme include:

❏    After Hours Chez Madame Arthur: Staging a 1970s Lesbian Bar Material Engagement and Commemoration (paper)

❏    ‘Foul, Filthy, Stinking Muck’: The LGBT Theatre of Project Arts Centre 1966 to 2000 (paper)

❏    Hear Us Out: Performance Techniques for a Queer Celebration of Age (paper)

❏    Sound Excavations: Exploring Audio's Unique Power to Excavate and Reconstruct Erased, Lost

❏    and Hidden LGBT Pasts (paper)

❏    Stormé Weather: How Gen Z Students Developed, Acted and Danced the Stonewall Uprising and its After-Effects (paper)

❏    Writing LGBT+ Historical Fiction / Drama (workshop)

As we work to finalise and announce details for the September conference, please check out the recordings from our 2020 virtual symposium, at which some of our presenters and other invited guests helped us to set the stage for ‘Completing the Past’.

Opening remarks and panel discussion I: Creatively engaging with the LGBT+ past

Overview: Panelists shared and discussed the impulses that compel them to tell stories about the LGBT+ past in the ways they do; their impressions of the potential benefits and limitations of creative responses to the past; and their thoughts on areas of contestation that have arisen -- or are likely to emerge -- among practitioners and/or audiences. The session began with opening remarks as well as information about OTP and upcoming events related to promoting LGBT+ history.

Panelists: Sam Arbor, James Brown, Alyson Campbell, Clodagh Chapman, Poppy Corbitt, David Edgardo, Billie-Gina Thomason

Facilitator: Ken Valente

Watch below:

Heritage at home: Connecting and engaging with the LGBT+ past through creative production

Overview: The session featured guests invited to share visually a personal object that reflects or connects with a creative undertaking (a piece of art or music, book, film poster, theatre program, etc) and to describe how, for them, that work opened a door onto the LGBT+ past.

Guests: Joey Hateley (Artistic director of TransAction), Abi Hynes (Writer), Yuen Fong Ling (Artist), Cheryl Morgan (OutStories Bristol), Cyril Nri (Actor, writer, director), Richard O’Leary (Co-ordinator of LGBT Heritage Project, HERe NI), Grainne Starrs (LGBT Heritage Project, HERe NI)

Facilitator: Dan Vo (https://www.salonoutre.com/) Project Manager, Queer Heritage and Museums Network

Watch below:

Panel discussion II and closing remarks: Creatively engaging with the LGBT+ past

Overview: Panelists shred and discussed the impulses that compel them to tell stories about the LGBT+ past in the ways they do; their impressions of the potential benefits and limitations of creative responses to the past; and their thoughts on areas of contestation that have arisen -- or are likely to emerge -- among practitioners and/or audiences. The session ended with closing remarks as well as information about OTP and upcoming events related to promoting LGBT+ history.

Panelists: Stephen M Hornby, Hilary McCollum, JulieMc, Richard O’Leary, Peter Scott-Presland, Lauren Vachon

Facilitator: Molly Merryman

Watch below:

Questions about the symposium can be sent to outingthepast.conference@gmail.com