The museums come out of the closet. Coinciding with the celebration of International LGBTI Pride Day, which is on 28 June, seven cultural institutions have decided to transform their venues and programmes to celebrate sexual and gender diversity from their respective fields of work.
Temporary exhibitions, tours with commentary, special routes and talks are just some of the activities which, during the months of June and July, aim to offer a new perspective on works of art, collections, galleries and heritage buildings. The aim is to highlight realities that, up to now, were under represented or unheard in the usual museum narratives.
The project “LGBTI Museums”, which is supported by the LGBTI Centre, is an initiative promoted by the Joan Miró Foundation, the Catalan Museum of Archaeology, the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona, the Barcelona Design Museum, the Barcelona Maritime Museum, the National Museum of Art of Catalonia and the Museums of Sant Cugat del Vallès. These facilities want to show their commitment to sexual and gender diversity by designing proposals that analyse the diversity of bodies, re-read historical uses and customs, highlight the personal journeys of activists, discover the hidden facets of artists or take a queer approach to their work, among other matters.
A list of the scheduled activities is available on the website museuslgtbi.barcelona.
A drag workshop to introduce you to museum archetypes
The LGBTI Centre’s contribution to the programme is “Bestiari excitat”, a drag workshop in which the transvestites Norma Mor and Ken Pollet, together with the art historian Víctor Ramírez Tur, propose revisiting all the archetypes present in the museum. The activity will take place on 10 July.