Sutton House LGBT History Month exhibition- updates!

Just thought I'd share a few updates about the LGBTQ sonnet project exhibition to be exhibited at Sutton House in February 2015.

The exhibition will open on the 4th February, which is also when the house reopens after the closed season. The private view will be the following evening, on the 5th, and we're toying with holding a second event to follow up on the success and interest of this year's panel discussion. I'll keep you posted!

Here is another teaser of the exhibition, featuring snippets from 5 of the contributions so far:


126 sonnets - teaser video [three] from Sean Curran on Vimeo.

I really can't express how pleased I am with all of the contributions so far! You can listen to the sonnets so far here.

The exhibition will be taking place in the chapel, here are a few pictures of the space for those of you who have not visited yet (obviously it will look very different once the exhibition is in place):

I'm also delighted to say that the posters and promotional material will be designed by a super talented queer artist, more on this soon, but I'm really excited about it! In other great news, this year's Master-Mistress exhibition and the upcoming follow up will receive a brief mention in the National Trust magazine that goes out to members, a readership of approximately 4.5 million...

I'm also hoping to soon be able to reveal some other LGBTQ related things that will be taking place at Sutton House during February and beyond, it's really great that the success of this year's exhibition is increasing the visibility of LGBTQ identities and narratives more widely throughout the property, I can only hope that other National Trust properties follow the lead soon.

By November 30th I should know for sure exactly how many more contributors I will need as, for various reasons, some of the original contributors are no longer able to commit, so I will be posting a second call out in an attempt to fill the final few spaces by the end of December, so that I have plenty of time to experiment with how the audio and the videos will work in the exhibition space.

A huge warm thank you to those who have already contributed and those who are planning to, this exhibition would literally be nothing without you all!

LGBTQ sonnets exhibition

When I first suggested collecting all 126 sonnets read by LGBTQ people to the staff at Sutton House I was half hoping for them to suggest it was a bit too ambitious. However, with almost all of the sonnets now assigned to willing volunteers (there are still a handful left!), and the contributions coming in thick and fast, I'm delighted that they had faith in me!

Here are two little teaser videos of two of the contributions, I'll be posting more in the build up to the - as yet unnamed (I have a few ideas) - exhibition, which will take place in February 2015. As well as the recordings of the sonnets, I am also asking contributors to record a ten second video portrait, or a moving "selfie". In the exhibition, I don't think the sonnets will be matched with the videos, but rather will all run into each other, but I will have to wait until I have received them all before I experiment with the best ways to exhibit them all.


126 sonnets - teaser video [one] from Sean Curran on Vimeo.



126 sonnets - teaser video [two] from Sean Curran on Vimeo.

I can't tell you how overwhelming I am finding the generosity and creativity of the contributors so far, and it's a real treat every time I receive a new submission, it really strengthens the love I have for a community I'm so proud to be a part of, and it feels like we're all part of something really big and meaningful!

I'll continue to document the progress of the exhibition, and in the next few days I'll blog about my experience of volunteering at the Balfron Tower with the National Trust.