Chichester Pride stages its third Summer Late at Chichester’s Pallant House Gallery – a summer take-over packed with fun.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers and also
00:06Chairman of the Festival of Chichester. Now within the Festival in the last couple of
00:10years we have an event of growing importance and great fun. We have Chichester Pride taking
00:16over Pallant House Gallery on Thursday, June 27th at 7pm. Now really lovely to speak to
00:23Stuart Burrows from Chichester Pride and to Simon Martin, Director of Pallant House Gallery.
00:29Now Simon, why does this happen in the Gallery? How did it come about?
00:34So we have now been a partner with Chichester Pride, running the Chichester Pride late at
00:40Pallant House Gallery for the last three years. We did the first one in 2022 when it coincided
00:47with our Glyn Philpott exhibition, who was an important gay artist in Britain. And actually
00:52one of the things that we're really keen to do is to demonstrate to the local community
00:57and others beyond that the Gallery is an open and welcoming place and actually celebrating
01:03the queer history of British art. So many British artists in our collection and indeed
01:09our exhibitions have been gay, queer artists and that's not always been necessarily something
01:15that's been written about and it's important I think for people to see themselves in the
01:20art that we show. And so creating this safe space within the city that isn't just on the
01:27day of the Chichester Pride celebration but a month later during Pride month, it seems
01:32very important for us and it's been fantastic for us to work with the Chichester Pride Committee.
01:36For example, they've produced a number of short films about artworks in our collection,
01:42their favourite works, talking about those. We're doing, within the evening, we've got
01:47a number of events, starting with a talk by the art historian Gemma Rolls-Bentley who's
01:52written a new book featuring 200 queer artists. We go on to a whole evening's entertainment
01:58in the Courtyard Garden. There's also workshops and tours taking place in the Galleries as well.
02:04It sounds fantastic. And to bring in Stuart, is there a serious underlying message here
02:09or is it simply an evening of fun, do you think?
02:13I think primarily it's an evening of fun. I would stress it's free.
02:19Free? Do people need tickets or just turn up?
02:22People do need to book tickets, absolutely, just to manage numbers because we have sold out in the last two years.
02:27This is our third year. So there's tours, the temporary and permanent exhibitions are open,
02:35there are art activities and we provide, as Chichester Pride, we curate an evening of
02:41entertainment and musical performance in the gorgeous Courtyard and hopefully it'll be a
02:46beautiful evening. It has been the last two years, so fingers crossed. This year we have Chaos
02:52Musical Productions, our co-chair Dawn Gracie and the drag performer Snow White Trash who's coming
02:58over from Brighton. It is a fun evening but, as Simon has said before, it is important that
03:07Pride isn't just for one day. It's an opportunity for us to mark Pride Month and to demonstrate
03:14that, again, that Chichester and its cultural organisations are welcoming safe spaces for the
03:20local LGBTQ plus community. I should have said immediately, it's fantastic that this is actually
03:26part of the Festival of Chichester, as it should be. Brilliant. Well, have a fantastic evening,
03:33really lovely to speak to both of you and good luck with the event. Thank you so much.