Bringing together items from across Brighton & Hove’s rich history, Queer The Pier is a major new exhibition for Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. It celebrates the city’s ongoing reputation as a place where people of all genders, sexualities, social classes, ethnicities and religious beliefs have come to seek pleasure and liberation.

Opening last Fri, with a selection of speeches, performance artists and special guests ,the exhibition is a timely reminder that LGBTQ+ people have always been part of Brighton & Hove’s story.

BN1 looks at the launch of Queer the Pier, an exhibition celebrating LGBTQ+ culture which runs until Feb 2022
Daniel Hay-Gordon of Thick and Tight – by Rosie Powell

Visitors can explore the selected experiences of local people from the last 200 years, beginning with a blackmail letter written in 1798 from a solicitor to an army captain, accused of propositioning another man on a coach to Dorking. Donated collections include ephemera from a range of LGBTQ+ community members, including the indictment of John Spershott, the last man to be hanged for buggery in 1835.

BN1 looks at the launch of Queer the Pier, an exhibition celebrating LGBTQ+ culture which runs until Feb 2022
Lydia L’Scabies – by Rosie Powell
BN1 looks at the launch of Queer the Pier, an exhibition celebrating LGBTQ+ culture which runs until Feb 2022
Brighton queer historian Daren Kay – by Rosie Powell

By way of contrast, a photo of the Sussex Gay Liberation Front, protesting in front of the war memorial in 1973, is displayed alongside a selection of costumes and drag outfits belonging to local performers and activists.

Queer the Pier is at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery until Feb 2022

www.brightonmuseums.org.uk/brighton

Top image Lasana Shabazz – by Rosie Powell

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR