Chris Jepson achieves Kickstarter goal to bring The Identity Project to Brighton during LGBT+ History Month

Photographer Chris Jepson has achieved his fundraising target to bring The Identity Project – which explores what it means to identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community today – to Brighton in February to coincide with LGBT+ History Month.

This project and its exhibitions are a way of raising awareness of the real diversity of LGBTQ+ communities across Brighton & Hove and wider UK. They also raise interesting questions around the media’s representations of LGBTQ+ communities, and how that can be challenged and changed using honest representation drawn from all intersecting groups that are experienced as part of LGBTQ+ lives.

Chris said: “All you lovely people – Feel free to laugh, dance, smile, pump a fist in the air, or all four at once – we made the target and YOU have backed not one, but TWO exhibitions for LGBTQ+ History Month.

“I am passionate about this work and giving young queer people and those from marginalised backgrounds role models to look up to that we may not have had in our youth.

“The project’s initial target was £1,500 for one exhibition with a stretch target of £2,500 for two. Although we sailed thru the first goal, we didn’t make the second, but I am still 100% going ahead with both exhibitions and paying any additional funds required from my own pocket as I firmly believe this collection of the diverse faces of Brighton & Hove’s LGBTQ+ community will reduce stereotypes in the wider public by challenging assumptions of what this marginalised demographic looks like.”

Chris is still taking donations to support the ongoing work through either PayPal or Ko-Fi.

He added: “If you know anyone with a recent inheritance, a mattress full of notes gathering dust or a lottery win burning a hole in their pocket…”