Talking Back!

The London Archives is a free public archive focusing on the history of London, from 1067 to the present day. We preserve and share millions of historical manuscripts, maps, photographs, books which tell the story of the city. You can find us in central London in Clerkenwell, close to Farringdon Station.It's free to visit and use the archives and many of our exhibitions and events are free to attend. The London Archives is funded and managed by the City of London Corporation. We reopened as The London Archives in August 2024 and were previously known as London Metropolitan Archives.Find us in leafy Clerkenwell, close to Farringdon and Angel tubes, where we look after a vast and unique collection of manuscripts, maps, photos, books and films that tell the story of London, right back to 1067. If you haven't visited an archive before, we're a bit like a library or museum, but with millions of unique historical documents waiting to be explored; you choose what we want to see and we put the history of London in your hands.  Not everyone has time to research though, so our exhibitions and events program delves into the archives and presents the fascinating history of the capital for you to enjoy. We're  open to everyone, whether you’re visiting an exhibition, joining a history talk or tracing your family history.  Browse our program and start discovering London's history today.

The London Archives

The fifteenth LGBTQ+ History and Archives conference hosted at London Metropolitan Archives is being programmed by the Oral History Society LGBTQ Special Interest Group. The day will explore powerful histories expressed through oral recordings, ways of collecting and sharing in heritage and community settings and how marginalised histories can be brought into sharp focus through effective oral history practice.D
Doors open at 9.30am
10am WELCOME AND OPENING COMMENTS by LMA and OHS SIG representatives
10.15 - 10.50am SESSION 1 Facilitated by Christine Wall
1967 And All That! Two presentations about projects this year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, will be followed by an Open Discussion about where do we go now? What are the challenges after a big anniversary? Come and let us know about any projects you may have planned.
Steven Dryden: Exhibiting a Gay UK: Love, Law and Legacy
On 2nd June 2017 the exhibition Gay UK: Love Law and Liberty opened in the free gallery space of the British Library’s main hall. It was the first time that the library has explored its collections relating to gay women and men, and welcomed over 85,000 visitors in three months. This talk will explore briefly the challenges of exploring large archives, like the British Library, for minority experience and the benefit of oral testimony.
Sammy Sturgess: It was a f**king drag: The lives of homosexual men in London from 1953-1967
This presentation attempts to represent life in London for homosexual men in the run up to the Sexual Offences Act 1967 using oral histories from various collections collated in the past 30 years. It will consider areas such as working life, sex and relationships, as well as address the threat of arrest and blackmail that men endured. Next it will turn to the treatment men faced at the hands of the law and the significance of the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 on the road to homosexual equality in Britain.
10.50 - 11.25am SESSION 2
Veronica McKenzie: Queer Across the Pond- Looking at UK and US BAME LGBT Communities working together
The presenter will each explore aspects of 20th century activism, by Black lesbian, gay and queer people in the cultural, literary and political spheres in England. Their perspectives will combine reflection on the political and social scenes variously influenced and inspired by developments in the US civil rights movements and LGBTQ communities. Very often this migration of ideas and individuals is assumed to be one-way: from the US to the UK. However, we'll look at materials to show the two-way nature of these influences and inspirations, and their potential impact on LGBTQ activism in ‘80s UK.
11.25 -11.40am BREAK
11.40am - 1pm SESSION 3 Chair: Emma Vickers
Alan Butler: Talking Tribes - How use of labels can both enable and restrict the handing down of LGBT stories within communities
Drawing upon stories and narratives from the Plymouth LGBT Archive, this talk will consider the transmission of LGBT heritage within a geographical community. For some, the adoption of a label such gay, lesbian, transgender etc serves only to limit both choice and potential representation in terms of identity but, in a heteronormative world, is the classification and signification of non-traditional sexual and gender identities necessary to challenge, and so potentially rewrite, the more traditional narratives?  Through examination of specific stories, and their transmission across generations, the ephemeral archive of LGBT heritage is explored, signified and shared across generations.
Amy Tooth Murphy: Am I talking to myself? Did I hear you correctly? Queer dialogue and LGBTQ oral histories 
Building on this year’s theme of ‘talking back’, this paper will consider who we are actually ‘talking back’ to when we record our LGBTQ oral histories. What happens in the queer dialogue between interviewer and interviewee? Are we talking to each other? Our present community? Our past selves? Future generations? In addition, I will propose that we need to think about how we learn to ‘listen back’,  focusing on the responsibilities of the interviewer and how we maintain best practice when there is often such personal investment in our work. How do we make sure we are actually listening to individuals instead of presupposing what we will hear?
Jane Traies: Liberating the voice: two old women ‘talk back’
Prompted by bell hooks’ idea of ‘talking back’ as ‘the expression of our movement from object to subject - the liberated voice,’ and drawing on her own oral history research with lesbians born before 1950, Jane will consider whether the oral history interview can become a site for ‘moving from silence into speech’ and therefore an agent in the process of liberation.
1 - 2pm LUNCH
Stalls / Exploring LMA Speak Out Mediatheque / LMA guided tours 
Also, on during lunch hour: Aids since the ‘80s - a short film on a loop. Presented by Adam and Paul, filmmakers, as part of the ‘100 Voices’ project.
Throughout the day there will be a ‘What I’m Doing Now’ area, where people with current or future projects can talk to others about them. There will be Post-It notes about projects and general contact information available there.
2 - 2.45pm SESSION 4
Molly Merriman presents a Methodology Workshop - Queering Out Loud: Utilizing Video and Oral History Techniques to Preserve Stories of LGBTQ Lives
This workshop is a short introduction on how to combine oral history and ethnographic methods with filmmaking in order to collect video interviews for the preservation of life stories. Particular attention will be given to the use of queer and feminist research methods. Resources will be provided and examples from the presenter’s films will be used to illustrate techniques, and there will be a brief discussion about the Kent State University Northeast Ohio LGBTQ Collection in the University archives.
2.45 - 3.25pm SESSION 5 Chair: Jane Traies
Clare Summerskill: The Importance of Being Gay: Perils and possibilities of LGBTI asylum seekers’ involvement in Rights of Passage
In order to claim asylum in the UK, lesbians and gay men are required to ‘prove’ their sexual orientation during a series of pressurised and often harrowing interview procedures. Playwrights who create theatre from interviews with LGBTI asylum seekers will also elicit personal testimony from contributors - work which poses ethical challenges to the interviewer, and inherent risks to contributors. In 2016, Clare Summerskill, with her theatre company Artemis, toured theatres around England with the play Rights of Passage, a verbatim piece created from interviews with lesbian and gay asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. This paper explores the possibility that the positionality of the interviewer can reconfigure the ethical terrain of verbatim theatre processes, and thereby mitigate concerns about re- traumatisation of contributors.
Sue George: Hard-to-reach? Interviewing bisexual people
Bi people are considered to be "hard to reach" when it comes to oral histories (or interviewing for other purposes), and this is something that bi people ourselves often find bemusing. This presentation will consider why bi people are so consistently absent from oral histories, and other projects looking at the history of sexuality/sexual politics, and what can be done to change this.
3.25pm -3.40pm BREAK
3.40pm - 4.20pm SESSION 6 Chair: Emma Vickers
George Severs: Towards the AIDS Cultures and Histories Festival 2018: the role of LGBTQ oral history
This stems from my work as the Curator of the 'personal testimony and memory' strand of the AIDS Cultures and Histories Festival taking place in London in 2018, outlining some examples and themes of the oral histories (interviews and collections) that my exhibition will display and reflecting on these themes. It will also seek to engage the audience in discussions about the best ways to display such oral histories, especially LGBTQ oral histories, in such settings.
Surat-Shaan Knan: Rainbow Pilgrims: LGBTQI Migrants in Britain
An oral history project supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund and hosted by Liberal Judaism. Shaan Knan presents some multi-media content building up to the pop-up touring exhibition launch for LGBT History Month 2018. The collection is going to be deposited at the London Metropolitan Archives
4.20 - 4.50pm ENTERTAINMENT
P. J. Samuels / London Gay Symphonic Wind Band
4.50 - 5pm CLOSING COMMENTS from LMA and SIG representatives

London Metropolitan Archives

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Talking Back!

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