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TWO EXHIBITIONS OF PORTRAITS BY AWARD-WINNING PHOTOGRAPHER CHRIS JEPSON FOR LGBTQ+ HISTORY MONTH
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in 2019 to redress the unhealthy bias of the visual narrative in mainstream media that LGBTQ+ people look a certain way.
This project and its exhibitions are a superb way of raising awareness of the real diversity of LGBTQ+ communities across the city and wider UK, as well as supporting inclusion across the city. They also raise interesting questions around the media’s representations of LGBTQ+ communities, and how that can be challenged and changed using honest representation drawn from all intersecting groups that are experienced as part of LGBTQ+ lives.
The project was conceived in 2019 with the aim of redressing the visual narrative that LGBTQ+ people ‘look’ a certain way. Much of the imagery of the LGBTQ+ community played on stereotypes, clichés and, like much of mainstream media in general, body perfection.
After a successful Kickstarter fundraising campaign, and with the support of Ironworks Studios Brighton and the LGBTQ Workers’ Forum, award-winning photographer Chris Jepson has announced two exhibitions of The Identity Project for LGBTQ+ History Month.
The IDENTITY Project, which comes to Brighton’s Jubilee Library on Mon 6 – Sun 26 Feb and X Innovation Hub during late-Feb and March,is an exploration of what it means to identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community today.
After more than 20 years working for various LGBTQ+ media, the project was conceived
By exhibiting in public places, this collection of the diverse faces of the LGBTQ+ community aims to reduce stereotypes in the public perspective while giving young queer people and those from marginalised backgrounds role models to look up to.
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Many of the participants have intersectional identities and experiences of marginalisation, for example, LGBTQ+ people of colour or LGBTQ+ people with disabilities, and many of the 90 are activists, who have fought for the inclusion and rights of LGBTQ+ people over the past 5 decades.
For more info, visit: www.theidentityproject.co.uk