RÍAN KEARNEY

Thoughts On The Accessibility And Permanency Of Exhibitions And Archives Of Displacement

At the time of writing, I am working my way through the hours of interview recordings that I have been putting off transcribing for weeks. As part of my ongoing research on the history of Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ venues, I have been asking those who atended these spaces from the 1960s to the 1980s to draw them from memory. While sketching, interviewees describe just about anything that comes to mind: the colour and texture of the furniture, the pulsating vibrations of Hi-NRG, and the sex behind a thick, black curtain dividing the dancefloor. Few photographs of these venues exist, and many have long since been demolished due to redevelopment.

Birmingham’s Gay Village came into existence in the late 1980s thanks to the availability of large industrial premises and cheaper rents south of the city centre.3 In recent years, however, residential developments have been built on many of the now-derelict industrial sites and car parks that were once scatered across the Village. Since 2019, a quarter of Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ venues have closed or were forced to move.4 Now is as good a time as any to share histories of Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ venues and their ongoing fight for space, but I find myself oscillating between issues of exhibition efficacy and archival permanence.

Exhibitions are a format I have worked with previously. In 2019, I interviewed those who atended Birmingham’s longest-running LGBTQ+ venue, The Nightingale Club, and tasked them with drawing its previous venues from memory. These drawings were displayed alongside excerpts from the interviews and 3D renderings produced by Intervention Architecture in an exhibition titled The Club’s Conception (or, How the Egg Was Cracked) at Recent Activity, a project space in Digbeth in May 2019. A second iteration of the exhibition was presented at Birmingham Hippodrome in November 2019 on the site where the club previously stood.

3 Alan Collins, ‘Sexual Dissidence, Enterprise and Assimilation: Bedfellows in Urban Regeneration’, Urban Studies 41, no 9 (2004): 1719, htps://doi.org/10.1080/0042098042000243156.

4 Rían Kearney, ‘Museums, Galleries, and Archives of LGBTQ+ Displacement’, in Queer Exhibition Histories, ed. Bas Hendrikx (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2023), 67.

A couple of years have passed, and exhibitions seem to be becoming a difficult medium for information sharing, particularly in the Midlands where galleries have been faced with temporary closures and cuts to funding. The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has been shut since 2020 due to essential maintenance work and, in February 2024, the now-bankrupt Birmingham City Council announced a 100 per cent cut to arts funding by 2026.5 Though this funding gap has now been plugged by a government grant, these cuts told the people of Birmingham that its arts and culture were non-essential.6 Exhibition-making is in an increasingly precarious position.

Public archives are an alternative to exhibitions, but these are not without issues of accessibility. Unlike displays in galleries and museums, archives require visitors to register, pre-select the materials they would like to see and reserve and make an appointment. This is a process that many of us as researchers have grown accustomed to, but it is a barrier for many.

Web archives offer a means for accessing information from home, negating the bureaucracy of the archive. As data scholar Cassie Findlay puts it:

We need to shake off the vision of the impartial archivist safe in her fortress (and her cardigan) and look to the coder/recordkeeper making truly alternative systems of memory available to the marginalised, the vulnerable, and to the journalist/archivist releasing records with the power to shift the course of global affairs, and making sure they remain available and usable forever.7 website Heygate Was Home (www.heygatewashome.org), which shares interviews with displaced residents.8 Heygate Was Home is an online resource for those who lived on the estate or who are experiencing a similar form of displacement at the hands of local councils and developers.9 At the time of writing, however, this website is no longer accessible, nor are the interviews and resources it once held. This is not a criticism of Heygate Was Here, but it evidences the issues of permanency that digital resources face. There are costs associated with maintaining an online presence and a single missed payment or expiration of a domain name can render information inaccessible. This is not necessarily a concern for an organisation with means, but for a community-run ini�ative, it can be difficult to meet the burden of indefinite costs and administration.

The activist’s archive is digital, distanced from the traditional, often-times stuffy origins of record-keeping. Writing on the displacement and redevelopment of the Heygate Estate in Elephant and Castle, urban scholar Susan Pell refers to the 2016 Opposite: installation view, ‘If Memory Serves’, Birmingham Hippodrome, November 2019. Photo: John Fallon.

5 Cathy Wade, ‘What’s Next for Birmingham’s Cultural Institutions and Galleries?’ Frieze, 2023, htps://www.frieze.com/article/whats-next-birminghams-cultural-institutions-and-galleries; and Gareth Harris, ‘“Cease Funding for Cultural Projects”: Arts Institutions in Birmingham, UK, Face 100% Cuts’, The Art Newspaper, 21 February 2024, htps://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/02/21/cease-funding-for-cultural-projects-arts-institutionsin-the-uks-birmingham-face-100-cuts.

6 Simon Gilbert, ‘Arts Funding Boost for West Midlands after Council Cuts’, BBC News, 7 March 2024, section Birmingham & Black Country, htps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxeznd7pkl6o.

7 Cassie Findlay, ‘Archival Activism’, Archives and Manuscripts 44, no. 3 (2016): 158, htps://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2016.1263964 .

An understanding of the history and efforts of Birmingham’s LGBTQ+ people is essential for overcoming ongoing threats of redevelopment and venue closure. We deserve the opportunity to access history with ease and on our own terms. Whatever form this might take, I would like to ensure it is an accessible and permanent means.

Bibliography

Collins, Alan. ‘Sexual Dissidence, Enterprise and Assimila�on: Bedfellows in Urban Regenera�on’. Urban Studies 41, no. 9 (2004): 1789–1806. htps://doi.org/10.1080/0042098042000243156.

Findlay, Cassie. ‘Archival Ac�vism’. Archives and Manuscripts 44, no. 3 (2016): 155–59. htps://doi.org/10.1080/01576895.2016.1263964.

Gilbert, Simon. ‘Arts Funding Boost for West Midlands a�er Council Cuts’. BBC News, 7 March 2024, sec�on Birmingham & Black Country. htps://www.bbc.com/news/ar�cles/cxeznd7pkl6o.

Harris, Gareth. ‘“Cease Funding for Cultural Projects”: Arts Ins�tu�ons in Birmingham, UK, Face 100% Cuts’. The Art Newspaper, 21 February 2024.

8 Susan Pell, ‘Documenting the Fight for the City: The Impact of Activist Archives on Anti-Gentrification Campaigns’, in Archives, Recordkeeping, and Social Justice, ed. David A. Wallace, Wendy M Duff, Renée Saucier and Andrew Flinn (London: Routledge, 2020), 179.

9 Pell, ‘Documenting the Fight for the City’ , 179.

htps://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/02/21/cease-funding-for-culturalprojects-arts-ins�tu�ons-in-the-uks-birmingham-face-100-cuts .

Kearney, Rían. ‘Museums, Galleries, and Archives of LGBTQ+ Displacement’. In Queer Exhibition Histories, edited by Bas Hendrikx. Amsterdam: Valiz, 2023, 67–76.

Pell, Susan. ‘Documen�ng the Fight for the City: The Impact of Ac�vist Archives on An�-Gentrifica�on Campaigns’. In Archives, Recordkeeping, and Social Justice, edited by David A. Wallace, Wendy M. Duff, Renée Saucier and Andrew Finn. London: Routledge, 2020, 169–82

Wade, Cathy. ‘What’s Next for Birmingham’s Cultural Ins�tu�ons and Galleries?’ Frieze, 2023. htps://www.frieze.com/ar�cle/whats-next-birminghamscultural-ins�tu�ons-and-galleries.