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Research
Subject
Graphite Gay Bars: Drawing Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ Spaces from Memory
First and second supervisors
- Dr Ben Campkin
- Dr Rebecca Jennings
Abstract
Photo elicitation is a tool steadily employed in oral historical research. However, with photographs of historical queer venues lacking or buried in personal archives, histories are rendered unelicited. Working with those who used Birmingham’s past LGBTQ+ venues, this research employs participatory drawing to co-produce a visual archive of now-demolished venues from the 1960s to the 1990s. By reworking a formal tool of architectural communication, this research argues that drawing is a means for interviewees to contribute not-yet-recorded personal and collective experiences, while tracing a multi-layered history of venues and how they are used and remembered in shared but conflicting ways.
Biography
Rían Kearney is a curator and researcher based in Birmingham, UK. He is a PhD candidate at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and a visiting scholar at the Yale School of Architecture. He has held roles such as Assistant Curator at Nottingham Contemporary and Co-Curator at Recent Activity, and has worked on projects at the 58th Venice Biennale, Birmingham Hippodrome, Block Universe, and Grand Union. His writing appears in Frieze and this is tomorrow, and he contributed a chapter to Queer Exhibition Histories (Valiz, 2023).
Publications
Kearney, Rían. (2023). ‘Museums, Galleries, and Archives of LGBTQ+ Displacement’, in Hendrix, Bas (ed.) Queer Exhibition Histories. Amsterdam: Valiz.
Kearney, Rían. (2023). ‘Queer Space Archive’, Art Licks, 28.
Kearney, Ryan. (2022). ‘British Art Uncannon’, British Art Network, January. Available at: https://britishartnetwork.org.uk/britishartuncanon/threatened-but-resili... (Accessed 26 Apr 2021).
Kearney, Ryan. (2020). ‘Can Film Assist in the Fight Against Gentrification?’, Frieze, 1 October. Available at: https://www.frieze.com/article/can-film-assist-fight-against-gentrification (Accessed: 26 April 2022).
Kearney, Ryan. (2020). ‘Love and Solidarity’, this is tomorrow, 20 April. Available at: http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/jamie-crewe-love-solidarity (Accessed: 26 April 2022).
Kearney, Ryan. (2019). A Map of Queer Brum. Birmingham: SHOUT Festival of Queer Arts and Culture.
Kearney, Ryan. (2019) Some Kinda Love. Glasgow: Celine Gallery.
Kearney, Ryan. (2019). ‘Ian Giles: Trojan Horse/Rainbow Flag’, this is tomorrow, 14 May. Available at: http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/ian-giles-trojan-horse-rainbow-flag (Accessed: 26 April 2022).
Kearney, Ryan. (2019). From.Between.To, Parafin, 2019. [Exhibition Text]. Available at: http://parafin.co.uk/exhibitions--2019--indre-serpytyte.html (Accessed: 26 April 2022)
Kearney, Ryan. (2018). ‘The ‘Gale Comes of Age’, In The Pink, (November), pp.8.
Kearney, Ryan. (2018). ‘The Oscar Wilde Temple’, this is tomorrow, 23 October. Available at: http://thisistomorrow.info/articles/the-oscar-wilde-temple (Accessed: 26 April 2022).
Funding
UCL, The Bartlett Promise PhD Scholarship, September 2021
School for Social Entrepreneurs, Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Start Up Programme Grant, August 2021
Tate/British Art Network, Emerging Curators Group Bursary, October 2020
a-n, Mentoring Bursary, October 2019
Arts Council England, National Lottery Project Grant, February 2019
New Art West Midlands, Engine Bursary, May 2018
Links
Image: Rían Kearney and Intervention Architecture, The Club’s Conception (or How the Egg Was Cracked). Installation shot at Recent Activity, 2019. Photo: John Fallon.