A history project at Imperial War Museum North created an opportunity for members of the LGBT community to be actively involved as contributors, visitors and resource users. Catherine Roberts tells the story.
‘Military Pride’, an oral history project with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBT), provided source material for a temporary display at Imperial War Museum North this summer. The project aimed to reflect lesbian and gay service people’s experience of conflict and war. Even the formidable archives of the Imperial War Museum (IWM) lacked unambiguous primary source material – not surprising, given the cultural and legal implications for potential donors over the twentieth century – so we set out to gather personal stories to form the keystone of our learning and interpretative processes.
Our call for stories was placed in a range of media, in the pink press and with armed services organisations. A partnership with Manchester Pride gave us an additional avenue. LGBT media were particularly enthusiastic about the project, meaning that we received an unprecedented level of PR. Our participants were supportive in this area, too, taking part in radio and press interviews with us so that Military Pride could reach a broad audience. This was an essential part of engaging with, in particular, gay and lesbian potential visitors – and of allowing our LGBT community to read, as well as write, about the heritage of that community within the context of the Armed Forces.
It was always intended that the gay men and women who volunteered their assistance in the project would feel, as far as possible, a sense of ownership of Military Pride. Their testimony was recorded for permanent archives, and transcribed verbatim for the display. This involved a very light touch, curatorially speaking. For example, we facilitated interviews loosely, depending on the extent to which interviewees wanted to engage. In some cases we interviewed for hours, on other occasions for just half an hour. From the recordings, we selected extracts we felt reflected the whole interview, and spoke with the voice we remembered throughout our conversations with participants. Every element of the project – including final copy, photography and design – was previewed by participants. Supplementary text was kept to an absolute minimum, ensuring that the personal testimonies formed the majority of written material. Rather than produce contextual copy, we used a timeline of key events and legislation covering the 60 years spanned by the display. This was produced with the support of our research and information experts, Stonewall, LGBT services support group proud2serve and the Ministry of Defence – a truly unique curatorial body!
The project continues to evolve. For example, local participants were involved in a film project, producing footage which was seen on a public screen throughout Manchester Pride, and installed permanently in our main exhibition space. Military Pride Night, an event which gave us an opportunity to showcase and discuss the project, brought together participants and their families/friends, media and the range of agencies who had contributed to the completion of the project. One participant remarked, “It made me very proud to be associated with the exhibition and very pleased that I had been able to contribute to what I think is a landmark event. I found the other testimonials informative and moving and thought provoking…”
For the future, we are already liaising with participants and other venues to travel the display. We are confident that, for LGBT Month and Manchester Pride 2009, and beyond, IWM North has created a foundation on which to build meaningful programmes informed by firsthand personal experiences and testimony.
Catherine Roberts is Visitor Programmes Manager for Imperial War Museum North. Military Pride runs until 19 October. http://north.iwm.org.uk