OTP 2020 Hub Programmes - Charleston, East Sussex
Charleston has an incredible LGBTQ+ history, having been home to the Bloomsbury group – a largely queer group of artists, writers and thinkers that included Duncan Grant, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes and E M Forster. Together, they forged new ways of living at Charleston in the early 20th century, with the house acting as a space to explore love, friendship, pacifism, atheism, same-gender relationships and polyamory.
This year, Charleston is delighted to be a hub for OUTing the Past for the first time. On Saturday 8 February, we will have a line-up of presentations exploring hidden aspects of LGBTQ+ history, and our newly rewritten queer house tours will run from 11:30 - 14.30. The tours explore the history of Charleston, delving deep into the many queer relationships within and beyond the Bloomsbury group.
Talks are free, but spaces are limited and we recommend booking online in advance.
A shuttle bus will be available on the day from Lewes station to Charleston. Charleston, Firle, Lewes, East Sussex, BN8 6LL www.charleston.org.uk
@charlestontrust
Programme
11:00 - 11:40:
Jane Traies – Bloomsbury’s Hidden neighbours
The Bloomsbury group were not, it seems, the only people ‘loving in triangles’ in Sussex in the 1920s and 30s. Jane Traies’ presentation uncovers a transatlantic tangle of same-sex relationships among some of the most distinguished women of the day.
Caroline Spurgeon was a leading academic of her day – the first woman in the UK to become a Professor of English Literature and widely known as the author of important books about Chaucer and Shakespeare. Caroline chose female companionship rather than marriage, and lived quietly in a small Sussex village with her ‘faithful friend of forty years,’ Lilian Clapham. Their graves, lying next to each other in the pretty churchyard, suggest a lesbian idyll – but, on closer inspection, the story becomes more complicated.
Jane Traies is an academic and author, who gained her PHD in Gender Studies from the University of Sussex. Her research has had a particular emphasis on personal histories and giving prominence to the lives of older lesbians. She is the author of The Lives of Older Lesbians: Sexuality, Identity & the
12:00 – 12:40:
Andrew Lumsden – E M Forster & the Labouchere family
In 1885, wealthy MP Henry Labouchere passed the Labouchere Amendment, making homosexual acts of ‘gross indecency’ illegal. The amendment and became known as the blackmailer’s charter and is estimated to have led to the conviction of tens of thousands of men, including, famously, Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing.
E M Forster, a friend of the Labouchere family, had a life-long ambivalent attitude towards his sexuality. Although open with his friends, he never declared his homosexuality publicly and his novel Maurice, a tale of homosexual love written in 1914, was only published posthumously. In a diary entry of 1964, Forster reflected that ‘I should have been a more famous writer if I had written or rather published more, but sex has prevented the latter’. Andrew Lumsden tells the story of the complicated relationship between Forster and the Laboucheres, and how the backdrop of hostility embodied by the Amendment impacted on Forster’s attitude to his own sexuality and his writing. Andrew Lumsden is a journalist and gay rights activist. He was an original Gay Liberation Front (GLF) Activist and co-founder of Gay News.
13:00 - 13.40pm:
Josh Rivers – Busy Being Black
Charleston hosts a live recording of the acclaimed podcast ‘Busy Being Black’.
Too often, and throughout history, the stories of queer Black people are not deemed worthy of telling. ‘Busy Being Black’ podcast has been described as a ‘beautiful love letter to the queer Black community’. Host Josh Rivers interviews activists, writers, artist and poets, exploring how in live in the fullness of queer black lives. The podcast takes an ice pick to the dominant narrative and monolithic portrayals of queer Black people and dives deep into the vast interior of people who continue to be marginalised, silenced and underestimated.
Josh Rivers is the creator and host of ‘Busy Being Black,’ the podcast exploring how we live in the fullness of our queer Black lives. He was the first Black editor at Gay Times, where he launched the magazine’s annual flagship event, Gay Times Honours. He is the founder of Series Q, a network of mentorship, learning and support for LGBTQ entrepreneurs, and was part of the founding team behind Second Home, a cultural venue and workspace in East London for creative companies. He is a Role Model for Diversity Role Models, the Head of Communications for UK Black Pride and is inspired by conversations that go beyond the one-dimensional selves we’ve learned to present in the social media age.
14:00 - 14:40:
Sarah Carr – The ‘Special Problem’
Much is known about the institutional brutality experienced by homosexual men within both the medical and the penal system. Homosexuality was classified as a mental illness until 1973, and homosexual men in England were criminalized and risked imprisonment or aversion therapy in a psychiatric hospital. But what happened to samesex attracted women in the mental health system? Although female homosexuality was not criminalized in England, it was still officially classified as a mental disorder (“sexual deviation”).
As part of a cohort of studies on the theme of Sexualities and Health funded by the Wellcome Trust, Dr Sarah Carr and Dr Helen Spandler conducted an archival study of women’s and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LBG&T) archives in England to investigate what happened to same-sex attracted women in the mental health system from 1950’s until 1970’s. The title of the project itself is called 'Hidden from History?'
3pm-3.40pm
Dan Vo - Queer Eye for the Museum
The existence of queer lives is evident across place, time and culture, and applying the queer lens to any museum collection can yield rich returns.
Looking "in between the lines and in the margins” can reveal clues left behind decades or even centuries earlier. In the worst cases, curators sought to hide, erase or suppress stories of queerness. In the best cases they left a trail of breadcrumbs for those who would come later to follow.
Celebrating 5 years in 2020, Dan Vo founded the award-winning LGBTQ tours at the V&A museum in London, presenting non-binary and non-heteronormative narratives that explore a spectrum of gender and sexual identities through a selection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) related objects.
Driven by collections and led by the community, Dan Vo speaks about the power of communicating queer lives in the setting of museums.
LGBTQ+ = ME
How has the experience of being gay, bi, trans, queer and non-binary changed over the last 100 years for people in East Sussex? LGBTQ+ = ME is an exhibition curated by young people identifying as LGBTQ+ who have been exploring and connecting with LGBTQ+ heritage across East Sussex over the past year. This is a project funded by the National Heritage Lottery Fund and delivered in partnership with Charleston, Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex County Council, Towner, De La Warr Pavilion and local schools and young people.
The display of the work made during this project will be in display in the Hay Barn during OUTing the past.