all 126 LGBTQ sonnet videos now online

I have finally put all of the contributions to the 126 LGBTQ sonnet project online. You can view them all in this album here. I'm looking into potential ways of displaying them, perhaps with a dedicated website, but for now they are all there for your viewing pleasure.

The exhibition at Sutton House has finished and it was a great success. I was sad to see it go, but looking forward to writing about it for my thesis, and I don't think this is the end of the project, I am hoping to edit them in to a second version of the film and to continue to look for opportunities to screen it to make sure it can be seen by as many people as possible.

I want to extend my thanks again to the staff at Sutton House, but especially to the 125 (I was the 126th!) volunteers who gave up their time to contribute so creatively and generously to this project. I am overwhelmed and moved by the contributions, which range from funny to really moving. All of them are brilliant. Visibility is still really political for queer people, so we have all done something towards ensuring that we are seen and heard, and I think that's a beautiful thing. I'm also delighted to have met so many of the contributors since, at Sutton House, the V&A and various other queer events. I never imagined this project would help me feel so much more a part of the queer community, and that I would make so many friends through it.




















I'm really excited that the exhibition had a brief mention in an article in the Independent. Unfortunately it was only two days before the exhibition ended, meaning that it wasn't an effective marketing device, but still great to have been noticed, and I hope the higher ups in the National Trust are paying attention to our success.




















Special thanks to Alex Creep, who has put up with me being quite insufferably stressy during the build up to the exhibition! and who also made the beautiful poster for the exhibition.

'126' press

The private view for '126' took place on Thursday 5th and was a huge success. It was great to meet so many of the participants of the project, and we had over 100 people turn up!

There is a little feature about the exhibition on the Exuent blog.

Plus it features in 'Hackney Today'

I'm also really pleased that the exhibition featured in the National Trust members magazine (which apparently has an absurdly high readership of 4.5 million...) a friend of mine pointed out that in his many years as a member of the National Trust, this was the first mention of anything LGBTQ he'd ever seen in the magazine, which isn't hugely surprising, but a great honour to be the first if that is the case. Unfortunately the text for the magazine needed to be done quite early, so it features the artwork from last year's exhibition instead of for '126':

I've written a piece that will be published soon on the Notches blog, which is a great blog about the history of sexuality. I'm also planning to storify the tweets about the exhibition at some point, and will also be sharing some of the feedback gathered in the comment books at the exhibition, my favourite comment so far said 'Beautiful. Made me laugh and cry. Everyone should see this especially younger visitors to Sutton House'. This is particularly interesting as one of the complaints (yes, there have been a few...) was concerned about children seeing the exhibition. A particularly surprising claim, since the complaint arrived before the exhibition had opened...

'126' and 'Queer Season' at Sutton House

We're less than a month away from the exhibition that I (and 125 volunteers) have been working on. I'm delighted to unveil the trailer here:


'126' LGBTQ exhibition trailer from Sean Curran on Vimeo.

I'm also delighted to announce that owing to the success of last February's exhibition Master Mistress, the staff at Sutton House have decided to eschew the confines of LGBT History Month by hosting a two month long Queer Season throughout February and March. Below is the exhibition blurb and more information about the other events taking place throughout Queer Season:

Queer Season at Sutton House

Starting in LGBT History Month, Sutton House is hosting its first Queer Season, a series of exhibitions and events celebrating the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer communities.

National Trust’s Sutton House presents:

126 
5th February to 29th March,
Weds to Sun 12pm to 5pm

Building on February 2014's exhibition 'Master-Mistress', the first LGBT History Month event to be held in a National Trust property we think, '126' is a crowd-sourced audiovisual experience featuring all 126 of Shakespeare's Fair Youth sonnets as read by members of the LGBTQ community. Each sonnet is self-recorded and is accompanied by video portraits of the contributors.

Admission: Adult £3.50, Child £1, Family £6.90, National Trust Members FREE.

The Amy Grimehouse and National Trust’s Sutton House present:

The Craft Valentine's Massacre 
14 February 7pm to late

 Join The Amy Grimehouse for their special presentation of that 90s classic, The Craft. Explore Sutton House and participate in some anti-Valentine's spells, Hex-Your-Ex, the Nancy Booth, The Craft Craft Room with binding and poison pen Valentine's cards and more. All before the pre-screening show with the Bitches of Eastwick. The screening will make way for the 'Invoking the Spirit of Manon Ball' with Connie Francis on the jukebox and more til late. "Now is the time. This is the hour. Ours is the magic. Ours is the power." 

Nick Fox and National Trust’s Sutton House Present:

Bad Seed 
5th February to 29th March,
Weds to Sun 12pm to 5pm

 This will include the first comprehensive survey of work by South African-born artist Nick Fox. Arranged over seven rooms, the exhibition brings together artworks created over the last ten years, principally painting but also films, installations, cyanotype prints and intricately laboured object d’art from his celebrated Nightsong and Phantasieblume series. Fox has also chosen Sutton House to launch a new artistic project called Seedbank, which invites members of the public to select seeds linked to a veiled dictionary of floral meanings to give as long term and living tokens of love and loves loss. Bad Seed will be shown simultaneously with Fox’s International touring exhibition Nightsong, at Angus-Hughes Gallery (7th February – 7 March 2015), which is also located in Hackney.

Admission: Adult £3.50, Child £1, Family £6.90, National Trust Members FREE.