Section 28 and its afterlives

This LGBTQ+ History Month, join us at the University of Greenwich on Wednesday 25 February for the launch of a public exhibition exploring what Section 28 meant for those who lived through it – and why understanding this history has never been more important or more urgent.

We are celebrating the launch of the ‘Section 28 and its afterlives’ exhibition with a number of related events: a collage workshop, reception, and performance by artist Alice Gale-Feeny. These will all, in different ways, reflect on the history and legacies of Section 28, a piece of homophobic legislation in force in England and Wales between 1998 and 2003 that sought to ban schools and other local authority bodies from ‘promoting homosexuality’. As well as looking back, these events will ask whether this history is truly past, reflecting on the troubling legacies and parallels we can see in attacks on hard-won LGBTQ+ rights today.

Agenda:

From 3-5pm, we’ll be engaging with this challenging period of recent LGBTQ+ history in a hands-on, empowering way, using collage to subvert and repurpose historical material about Section 28 with humour, anger and joy.

At 6pm, join us for a drinks reception in the Heritage Gallery, where you can browse the exhibition. There will also be some brief introductions and reflections from the ‘Section and its Afterlives’ team.

Finally, at 7pm Alice Gale-Feeny will be treating us to a performance of ‘Gen S28: Press Up/Fold In’, a piece she developed during a period in residence at the Women’s Art Gallery. Partly biographical, part citational, this performance amplifies art and writing protesting Section 28. The work is in part a response to living under the law without knowing it, and also an ongoing experiment being with books, paper and research differently.

N.B. The workshop will take place in QA210. Please meet in the Heritage Gallery at 3pm and we will take you up to QA210, which is a little fiddly to get to. If you are running late, please just head straight there.

About the Artist: Alice Gale-Feeny | Artist