Paperback Book Brighton Trans*formed

Object/Artifact

-

Museum of Transology

Cover of the paperback book "Brighton Trans*formed." The background is a grid of black and white portraits - to the side there is someone on a ladder putting up one of the photos in the grid, and someone else to the left side of the ladder helping hold the photo up.

Cover of the paperback book "Brighton Trans*formed." The background is a grid of black and white portraits - to the side there is someone on a ladder putting up one of the photos in the grid, and someone else to the left side of the ladder helping hold the photo up.

Name/Title

Paperback Book "Brighton Trans*formed"

Entry/Object ID

MOT000136

Tags

Book

Description

Book & tag "Brighton Transformed". Paperback, corners slightly stubbed. Hanging black wire with metal washer.

Collection

Main Collection

Category

Publications

Dimensions

Height

23 cm

Width

23 cm

Maintenance

Maintenance History

Notes

Bishopsgate Institute, London

Provenance

Provenance Detail

Tag Transcription

Notes

In 2014, I was given the opportunity to curate an exhibition as part of our Brighton Trans*formed oral history project. There were no affordable venues available in town. So I decided to create a trail of installations in queer spaces instead. I sourced a cheap and broken (but rather gorgeous) second-hand art deco cabinet and put it on display in what was then the queer Marlborough Pub and Theatre. I filled it with fairy lights and objects I sourced from the people who gave us their oral histories for the book. I displayed the objects with brown tags telling their stories. The weekend of Brighton Trans Pride, the cabinet was getting so much attention with people crowded around it to look in, that you could barely get past everyone to order at the bar. I stood back and watched, and soon realised I was onto something. At the same time up the road on Brighton's gay St James' Street, I recreated a hospital scene with my surgery artefacts and chest tissue in the gay tattoo shop the Gilded Cage. When I was deinstalling the displays, the two ideas came together and the rest, as they say, is transcestry.