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Subject
Queer Space Archive: Tracing Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ Venues from Memory, 1966-1987
First and second supervisors
- Dr Ben Campkin
- Dr Rebecca Jennings
Abstract
The endurance of LGBTQ+ venues demonstrates the continuing need for social space. UK-based LGBTQ+ historical studies, however, centre primarily on London. In response, this research collaborates with interviewees across Birmingham to define how local nuances impact sites differently. It employs interviews and participatory drawing to co-produce an archive of no longer existing venues including bars, clubs, and community centres from 1966 to 1987, a period bookended by gay liberation and the peak of the AIDS crisis. While this research draws from existing archival sources, it contributes new approaches to the eliciting potential of buildings – or, how drawings of space act as points of departure for describing not-yet-recorded experiences or memories. These drawings form diagrams from which interviewees can expand on personal experience and help to trace a multi-layered history of space and how it is used and remembered in shared but conflicting ways.
Biography
Rían Kearney is a curator and researcher based in the Midlands. He is founder of Queer Space Archive, a social and cultural initiative that looks to record past LGBTQ+ venues including bars, clubs, and community centres. Currently a PhD Candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL and supported by the Bartlett Promise PhD Scholarship, Rían previously worked as Assistant Curator at Nottingham Contemporary, Co-Curator at Recent Activity, and has delivered projects at the 58th Venice Biennale; Birmingham Hippodrome; and SHOUT Festival of Queer Arts and Culture. He studied at the University of the Arts London and the University of Birmingham, and is a member of Tate/British Art Centre’s Emerging Curator Group, 2020-21 and the School of Social Entrepreneurs’ Start-Up Programme, 2021-22.
Publications
Kearney, Ryan. (Forthcoming). ‘Museums, Galleries, and Archives of LGBTQ+ Displacement’, in Hendrix, Bas (ed.) Queer Exhibition Histories. Amsterdam: Valiz.
Kearney, Ryan. (Forthcoming). ‘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.