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Idea by

Ryan Kearney

http://ryankearney.co.uk

Nottingham, United Kingdom
Ryan Kearney is a curator, writer and researcher based in Nottingham, UK. His on-going research centres on queer night-time space, with a focus on gentrification, memory and cross-generational exchange. He studied at University of the Arts London, University of Birmingham and participated in Curatorial Curriculum, Grand Union’s alternative education programme. Ryan is a member of Tate and Paul Mellon Centre’s Emerging Curator Group, 2020-21.

Call for ideas 2021

The Club's Conception


Tracing Birmingham’s Unrecorded LGBTQI+ Spaces from Memory

The Club's Conception


Tracing Birmingham’s Unrecorded LGBTQI+ Spaces from Memory
'The Club's Conception' is an ongoing project exploring the role of cross-generational exchange in recording forgotten LGBTQI+ sites of significance.
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Type of project
  • Site-specific cases

There is a single box in the Library of Birmingham containing the city’s LGBTQI+ heritage. I came to this box to find out more on the city’s longest-running queer space, The Nightingale Club, only to discover a lack of records to inform the resemblance of its demolished venues. When describing the interior of the club’s first space on Camp Hill in 1969, founding member Bernard Shaw recalled instances of entire rooms ducking at the site of a camera. A historical reluctance to be associated with queerness leaves many LGBTQI+ sites undocumented and widens an endemic gap in the architectural record of queer space.
This project challenges this gap through interviews with those who attended Birmingham’s now-demolished LGBTQI+ venues; and working collaboratively with practitioners to translate memory to visual ephemera. This project facilitates discussions on the collection and visual interpretation of memory, and its capacity to complete gaps in the architectural record of LGBTQI+ space.

The Club's Conception


Tracing Birmingham’s Unrecorded LGBTQI+ Spaces from Memory

The Club's Conception


Tracing Birmingham’s Unrecorded LGBTQI+ Spaces from Memory
'The Club's Conception' is an ongoing project exploring the role of cross-generational exchange in recording forgotten LGBTQI+ sites of significance.
File under
Type of project
  • Site-specific cases

There is a single box in the Library of Birmingham containing the city’s LGBTQI+ heritage. I came to this box to find out more on the city’s longest-running queer space, The Nightingale Club, only to discover a lack of records to inform the resemblance of its demolished venues. When describing the interior of the club’s first space on Camp Hill in 1969, founding member Bernard Shaw recalled instances of entire rooms ducking at the site of a camera. A historical reluctance to be associated with queerness leaves many LGBTQI+ sites undocumented and widens an endemic gap in the architectural record of queer space.
This project challenges this gap through interviews with those who attended Birmingham’s now-demolished LGBTQI+ venues; and working collaboratively with practitioners to translate memory to visual ephemera. This project facilitates discussions on the collection and visual interpretation of memory, and its capacity to complete gaps in the architectural record of LGBTQI+ space.

Idea by

Ryan Kearney
Nottingham
United Kingdom
Ryan Kearney is a curator, writer and researcher based in Nottingham, UK. His on-going research centres on queer night-time space, with a focus on gentrification, memory and cross-generational exchange. He studied at University of the Arts London, University of Birmingham and participated in Curatorial Curriculum, Grand Union’s alternative education programme. Ryan is a member of Tate and Paul Mellon Centre’s Emerging Curator Group, 2020-21.
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