About

On the development of (Un)Defining Queer

After two years of researching the Whitworth art collection, two years of PhD theory, and 12 months of community work, Dominic was able to curate the exhibition (Un)Defining Queer. This is part of his own queer activism, emerging out of a lack of LGBTQIA+ exhibition making within cultural institutions.

The (Un)Defining Queer exhibition at the Whitworth opened on 26 January 2023 with over 900+ people attending the Private View, which blew everyone’s expectations away. It was the busiest private view since the gallery reopened after its 15 million pound extension in 2015. What was even more exceptional is that the budget for the exhibition did not include a contingency for advertising, and so the people that found out about the show did so through word of mouth and social media.

In 2018, Dominic developed a project called Queering the Whitworth, which primarily involved developing queer tours of the gallery’s collection, and by using the Whitworth’s social media platforms to highlight key LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex and asexual) celebrations and memorial days. 

In 2020, Dominic started to think through how he could use Queering the Whitworth to develop a PhD around LGBTQIA+ engagement. Through in-depth conversation, with his now Supervisors and with both the Curatorial and Civic Engagement and Education departments at the gallery, he developed (Un)Defining Queer.

As the project developed inter-departmentally, he was paired with a Curator, Imogen Holmes-Roe, who would help in researching the collection of artworks within the gallery. As the Curator of Historic Fine Art, Imogen was best placed to help him research the historic representation of same sex love and desire in art. The pairing with Dominic and Imogen was also a new way of working for the gallery, which stems from the thinking of the Whitworth’s then Director, Alistair Hudson.  

With an art collection of over 700+ works having been ‘queered’ – the action of looking and researching artworks through a queer lens, Dominic and Imogen then started to develop the engagement programme that would ‘activate’ this collection. Or, put another way, how could they put this queered collection to use. 

At the heart of this project is the ongoing exploration of ‘Queer’ language and as such they have used language as a tool for engagement and exploration. The reason for using language as a form of exploration is because if you were to search Whitworth’s collections search system using the words gay, lesbian, trans etc. it would fail to locate a single art work with those terms. Dominic is fully aware that labelling historic artists with contemporary notions of gender or sexuality is problematic because these concepts are nuanced, complex and individual. He is also aware that the gallery should not be the ‘one’ that assigns queer language to artworks, this needs to be done by the LGBTQIA+ community themselves, as they need to be the ones to define their own representation. 

It was with this awareness around diversity that Imogen and Dominic then decided to approach the LGBT Foundation, a national charity that delivers support, information and advice to a diverse  group of LGBTQIA+ community groups to send a call out for anyone who might like to join an emerging queer art group at the gallery. This was a successful action as they then had lots of responses to the call out and they were able to create an intersectional community group of between 15-20 people who identify as LGBTQIA+.

Over a 12 month period the group, including Dominic and Imogen as participants came together within two of the gallery spaces, the School of Creativity and the Collection Care Centre. Little did he know that these spaces would be a hugely important aspect for the development of (Un)Defining Queer being in the main exhibition spaces. It was in these spaces where they held many of our practice-led sessions with the queer group, and where they displayed the developing ‘Queer Glossary’, which was updated and changed with each group session. 

These two spaces also contained their comment cards where they invited visitors to leave comments along with their own words to add to the developing glossary. Whilst the majority of comments were fantastic and whilst Dominic refuses to give any space to Trans Exclusionary Radicals within his writing, it is important to state that they received comments that made them want to stand even prouder with the trans community. So, they painted the walls in the (Un)Defining Queer exhibition space on the Mezzanine in the Trans Flag colours. They also called one of the 5 themes of the exhibition a term that we were trolled online for using within their developing glossary, ‘Chosen Family’. They also employed a specialist trainer to help the staff recognise anti-trans sentiment and language. 

The (Un)Defining Queer exhibition is centred around 5 key themes that include Queer Gaze, Gender Acts, Chosen Family, Mythology and Activism. These themes emerged as the participant group delved into the stores and started to look at artworks themselves. Imogen and Dominic knew of two themes we wanted to use as our own form of activism, these themes were Activism and Chosen Family, with the other themes emerging through discussions with the group. The show displays artworks chosen by the participants, accompanied with interpretation that they wrote about their chosen works.

As part of the exhibition, visitors are also invited to contribute to the development of our ‘Queer Glossary’ as they explore how to define LGBTQIA+ representation and visibility within the Whitworth.

As part of the exhibition Dominic has also developed a year-long programme of events, which will include artist talks, queer theory sessions, films, book readings and performances that will all relate to (Un)Defining Queer and queer culture.