The Pitt Rivers Museum is delighted to announce an ambitious eighteen-month programme exploring the global diversity of sexual and gender identities thanks to a new grant of £91,200 awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Beyond the Binary: Queering and Questioning Collections and Displays at the Pitt Rivers Museum will launch from December 2018. The project will stage a range of new events and exhibitions, build inclusive practice into the museum, and work with researchers, visitors and activists to build on existing engagement with the LGBTQ+ community.
Collecting new objects that highlight traditions of gender non-conformity LGBTQ+ heritage, from Britain and internationally, will be a key part of the project and these will be made permanently visible in the Pitt Rivers Museum.
The museum will also work to re-interpret existing collections, ‘queering’ them by challenging hetero-normative interpretations and identifying human histories that are unrepresented as a result of intolerance. Through questioning accepted historical interpretations and offering alternative understandings from people with different identities, the aim of the museum is to provide a richer, more diverse context to their histories and stories.
The ultimate aim of the exhibition is for all visitors to understand humanity better and, by providing a more diverse context to the objects on display, the project will ensure that no individuals or groups will feel excluded, no matter how they identify in terms of sexuality or gender.
In addition to this work, Beyond the Binary will present a series of public events, including cultural performances and a co-curated exhibition involving community training in conservation, display and interpretation.
Learnings from the project will inform the policies and practices not only of the Pitt Rivers Museum but also of its partnership museums locally and nationally.
Michelle Roffe, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund for South East England, says: ‘We are proud to support this important collaboration between the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford’s LGBT+ communities. Thanks to National Lottery players, the project will record and share historically underrepresented stories through new and existing collections, ensuring that the museum engages with and represents more of the diverse histories of Oxford, the UK and the wider world.’