LGBTQ Steering Committee

A collaboration between Catalyst Arts and Reimagine, Remake and Replay

The LGBTQ Steering Committee met over a period six months to discuss the LGBTQ voice in contemporary collections in Belfast. The group was made up of LGBTQ+ young people and Allies to lead self initiated projects. They included an oral history project; interviewing prominent members of the LGBTQ+ community and those connected to it. A visual exploration into Fashion and Music Icons and a series of original artworks and writing exploring personal identities and experiences.

The work was then featured as part of SAM’S EDEN in 2021

The Committee Included;

Natasha Manganaro (she/they), Charlie Beare (he/him), Exra Pinkerton (he/him), Ellie Makem (she/her), Georgia Crutchley, Hannah Sharp, Jacinta Hamley (she/her), Kit Rees (he/him), Mark Cousins (he/they), Maxwell Courtney - Lee (he/him), Michael McConway (he/him), Rachel Hasson, Serenah Zitouni (she/her), Holly Fusco, and Soso [Sorcha Ní Cheallaigh] (she/they), the project was facilitated by Clodagh Lavelle (she/her) at RRR and Thomas Wells (he/they) CA.

The group are continuing to be active and can be followed here

An Oral History Project

“As the LGBTQ Steering Panel began to discuss individual artistic and creative responses to Sam’s Eden, I suggested an oral history survey to record diverse voices from the queer community, collating personal histories from queer artists, musicians, activists and professionals who wished to offer their vices for posterity. It was decided early on that to reflect the make-up of our group, we would include queer and allied voices in order to develop inter-gender dialogues… we agreed that the project would grow with time.”

— Michael McConway

Contributors to the Oral History Project included; Problem Patterns an innovative queer punk band in Belfast, Shirley Ann McMillan a fiction writer and ally, Lee Cullen head of Youth Services at Cara-Friend (an LGBTQ+ charity in NI)

Icons of Fashion and Music

CA WEBSITE.jpg — Who makes an icon?

Contributors took inspiration from LGBTQ+ icons from music, art and history to explore customising garments and designing new outfits.
As LGBTQ people we give iconic status to those that give us visibility in ‘popular’ culture.
Some of the icons here included; Adam Lambert, Joan Jett, Gluck, Edythe Eyde and Frida Kahlo.
Who would be your icon?

Charlie Beare

Sorcha Ní Cheallaigh

“Roger Casement was a name I remembered in that same way that your mother can vaguely recall a second cousin once removed. He was one of a long list of Irish patriots we named in primary school at some point. My primary school taught Irish history from an Irish nationalist point of view. We learnt I think that Roger Casement died. He was on a centenary chocolate bar when I was working a zero-hours contract back in 2016. In the Londis on O’Connell street. I was so hungry. His face was the first thing to hand. His moustached face, so expensive. I ripped it off only to dig my teeth into powdery-substandard mulch and remembered when my father would say, ‘is it for this that Ned Daly died?’ de Valera never had a UTI and Roger Casement didn’t die in the Easter Rising. Yet his face I hold as I wipe the chocolate smeared around my mouth. A dirty protest. And people I know who use the word f*g love Casement Park and I don’t really understand why. I don’t really understand why someone so ubiquitous to the culture was so selectively picked and left behind; a man with a career in the British Foreign Office, wrote human rights reports against the torture in the Congo so a ‘true fuck-the-brits patriot because he’s sound on the national question but that guy over there fuck him he’s a n***** and fuck you you fucking f*****’.

Anti-imperialist/pro-bigotry. The seemingly inconceivable dialectic. Plucking hairs of ideology. and I don’t really understand why.”

— Sorcha Ní Chaeallaigh [Soso] from Roger Casement and I