OUTing the Past to host virtual symposium on Saturday, September 12

The Covid-19 pandemic led OUTing the Past (OTP), which celebrates the LGBTQ+ past, preserves our present and looks towards our future, to pospone the conference gathering – Completing the Past: LGBT+ History and Creative Production – that was scheduled to be hosted by Queen’s University Belfast. OTP now look forward to showcasing the presentations selected and are currently considering May 2021 as the most likely time to meet in Belfast.

In the meantime, OTP is hosting a virtual symposium, as a stage-setting event, on Saturday, September 12. For this, selected presenters will join invited artists and practitioners to share their thoughts on creatively engaging with the LGBTQ+ past. Among many other things, the one-day symposium will provide an opportunity to foreground themes, motives, perspectives, and provocations that will be part of the rescheduled conference gathering. OTP especially welcomes this opportunity to highlight the vital role that creative endeavours – which have been so significantly affected by events in recent months – play in fostering an understanding or appreciation of the LGBTQ+ past.

The symposium is free to all, but registration is required. Information on the following symposium sessions is subject to change. Biographical information on anticipated contributors can be found HERE.

Opening Remarks and Panel Discussion I: Creatively Engaging with the LGBTQ+ Past

Saturday, September 12, 11am-12.30pm (BST)

Overview: Panelists will share and discuss the impulses that compel them to tell stories about the LGBTQ+ past in the ways they do; their impressions of the potential benefits and limitations of creative responses to the past; and their thoughts on areas of contestation that have arisen – or are likely to emerge – among practitioners and/or audiences. The session will begin with opening remarks as well as information about OTP and upcoming events related to promoting LGBTQ+ history.

Panelists: Sam Arbor, James Brown, Alyson Campbell, Clodagh Chapman, Poppy Corbitt, David Edgardo, Billie-Gina Thomason

Facilitator: Ken Valente

Click here for session registration

Heritage at home: Connecting and Engaging with the LGBTQ+ Past through Creative Production

Saturday, September 12, 1-2pm (BST)

Overview: The session will feature guests invited to share visually a personal object that reflects or connects with a creative undertaking (a piece of art or music, book, film poster, theatre program, etc) and to describe how, for them, that work opened a door into the LGBTQ+ past.

Guests: Joey Hateley (artistic director of TransAction), Abi Hynes (writer), Yuen Fong Ling (artist), Cheryl Morgan (OutStories Bristol), Cyril Nri (actor, writer, director), Richard O’Leary (co-ordinator of LGBT Heritage Project, HERe NI), Grainne Starrs (LGBT Heritage Project, HERe NI)