Exhibition highlights untold LGBTQ+ stories in Staffordshire

Over the last two years, ALWAYS HERE has been collecting real untold stories from the LGBTQ+ community in North Staffordshire, capturing queer history in the creation of a new exhibition. Through photography, archive imagery, and oral histories, the project uncovers the LGBTQ+ stories that have shaped the region.

Produced by North Midlands LGBT+ Older Peoples Group in partnership with Grain Photography, the project conducted interviews and workshops to explore and record “memories and lives shaped by changing social attitudes, political reform, and local and national events.”

The project’s results are exhibited across North Staffordshire throughout Autumn:

• Spode Museum - 19 September - 30 November  

• The New Victoria Theatre - 15 September - 12 October 

• Hanley Library - 8 October - 30 November 

• Stoke Library - 10 October - 16 November

Following that, the project materials “will become a new LGBT+ public archive, the first in the city and wider region, that records these histories, a fitting legacy at the Stoke-on-Trent Archives Service.”

A collection of photographs currently displayed across the various venues are also available to view online. 

This project was supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England.