PROUD is an audio visual exhibition celebrating Manchester’s LGBTQIA+ community which will take to the city’s shopping streets later this month to celebrate Manchester Pride.
Commissioned by Manchester Business Improvement District and curated by Heard Storytelling, visitors will be able to listen to the true spoken stories of 20 LGBTQIA+ people who live or work in the city, which will be accompanied by beautiful large-scale portraits of the storytellers, forming a trail of ‘Living Portraits’ through the city centre.
From the streets of Jamaica, stages of Manchester, dressing rooms of working men’s clubs and the nation’s TV screens, the audio recordings will take listeners on personal and candid journeys around the theme of ‘Proud’, with the importance of representation at their core.
Darren takes us on a journey through difficult beginnings as a child on Moss Side, moments of triumph towards self-acceptance and living authentically in the place where he calls home, while Vil who as a child threw open a dressing up box and took delight in dressing up in princess gowns, with complete freedom of expression finds as her body begins to change with puberty, her dressing up box is replaced with a box society wants to put her in.
These and 16 other true spoken stories will be accessed via scanning a QR code on listeners’ mobile phones located next to the storyteller’s portrait, as well as being hosted online atwww.visitmanchester.com/proud for those unable to visit the trail.
Proud runs from Saturday 20 August - 2 September and will be hosted in the windows of shops, restaurants and businesses across the city centre including Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Exchange Square at Manchester Arndale, Royal Exchange building on Exchange Street and Kala and Kuoni on King Street.
Jane Sharrocks, Chair of Manchester Business Improvement District which represents over 400 leading retail and hospitality brands in the city centre, said: “Manchester BID is delighted to be supporting Manchester Pride through this beautiful audio visual exhibition which will allow city centre visitors to hear first hand accounts from members of our LGBTQIA+ community. We, alongside our retailers and hospitality businesses, feel incredibly privileged to be able to provide a platform to share them.”
Colette Burroughs-Rose, Co-founder of Heard Storytelling said, "Heard Storytelling exists to make people feel heard. We wanted to collect and share these important voices to bring people together to listen to each other's lived experiences. We hope that the sharing of these stories will send a powerful message of solidarity, hope and pride to people who may need to hear it."
Images: Ahmandi Vidal
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