Pride 2020 – A creative expression from the community

2020 will be remembered for many reasons, some of them great like the support communities gave to each other during the restrictions on socialising during the year, some of them not great at all like the isolation and anxiety caused by those restrictions, separating families and individuals from their support networks. One of the consequences of the social restrictions has been the cancelation of events that bring communities together.

Across the world events have been affected, one of the casualties has been LGBTQIA+ Pride. 2020 was the year Medway Pride had planned to hold a parade and festival, which had to be cancelled in favour of a virtual event #GMVPride2020. Pride is not just a chance to party with your friends, it is also a means to demonstrate human diversity and promote equality for all. It is also an opportunity for LGBTQIA+ organisations to raise funds to allow them to carry on providing the support to those who need help throughout the year.

Medway Gender & Sexual Diversity Centre, a Rochester based LGBTQIA+ support organisation, had an idea to create a public mural to record the Medway Pride 2020 event and effects that COVID 19 placed on the community.  

With the support of Ideas Test, a creative arts organisation working in Swale and Medway, who provided a small grant a Medway Pride Mural was created.

The mural was a collaboration, based on ideas formed during discussions with members of the MGSD Centre community and artist Renee Kathleen who designed and created the mural using acrylic on canvas as a half size artifact. This was then reproduced as the full-size mural utilising a local print shop onto an aluminium composite board and erected at the entrance to the MGSD Centre building 331 High Street Rochester.

This is not the end of the creative project though. MGSD Centre is working with Medway Pride & Nucleus Arts to host a gallery exhibition during LGBT History Month 4^th to 10 February 2021.

The Medway Pride Mural (Acrylic on Canvas) will form the centre piece of the exhibition which is based on the theme of Pride in Lockdown.

Call for Creative Exhibits

We are calling on creatives to produce artifact using their preferred medium to represent how they celebrated pride during the social restrictions during 2020. We are also looking for work that represents all aspects of the support or isolation that individuals encountered during the lockdown periods.

We are looking at all creative forms including but not limited to, Paintings, Craftwork, Photography, Videography, Written Word, Performance.

Written work can include comments, statements, poetry, essays which we will include in book form for the exhibition.

We are looking to use some of the written work to be included as part of the public mural.

If you wish to contribute to the Medway Pride History Month Exhibition please contact MGSD Centre by the end of December 2020 via in**@mg*********.org