A landmark exhibition at Chichester’s Novium Museum – Out & Proud in Chichester, opening on Saturday, February 1 and running until the autumn – doesn’t just tell the story of Chichester Pride and the local LGBTQ+ community.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Always a
00:06huge pleasure to speak to Stuart Burrows. Now Stuart, something very significant happening
00:10in Chichester, it's Out and Proud, a new exhibition at the Novium, running through until the autumn.
00:17It really is a landmark moment, isn't it? We were saying you are Chairman of Chichester
00:22Pride, this matters, doesn't it?
00:25I am now Chair of Chichester Pride and it feels like a big moment for us as an organisation.
00:32It is part of our objective to raise the visibility of the LGBTQ plus community within Chichester
00:38and the surrounding areas. I think we have become more visible within the city, not only
00:44with our annual festival, Saturday 24th of May this year, but also of course last year
00:51we had our first Pride parade through the city, which was a huge success, and rainbow
00:56flags throughout the city, which was again a landmark moment for us. But this is an exhibition
01:02that is running for nearly eight months in Chichester's Novium Museum. They very kindly
01:10came to us and offered us a space in their community exhibition space and it is free
01:17to go and visit.
01:19It sounds like there's a very nice balancing act between telling the general story but
01:24also personalising it with the individual stories, and yours is a particularly interesting
01:29one. Would you ever have thought your coming out letter, 30 odd years ago, would become
01:35a museum piece?
01:36Yeah, that's a really, that's a great question. No, in short, to give that some context, I
01:45came out to my parents by letter 30 years ago, a time when there was a lot more prejudice
01:51within the UK about gay men and the LGBTQ plus community, probably coming out of the
01:58AIDS crisis, and it felt like that would always be a private letter between myself and my
02:03parents. My mum passed away about 18 months ago, and when I was going through her effects,
02:12she'd kept it very safe in its original envelope, kept it very closed.
02:18That says a lot.
02:19It does. I think it felt to her like a big moment in all of our lives as a family, and
02:25so I re-read that letter about 18 months ago, and I was very proud of how articulate it
02:31sounded. And then when the museum suggested that we include in the exhibition personal
02:38items from the community, which would talk a little bit about people's lives and people's
02:45experiences, my first thought was to offer this letter, so now people that visit can
02:52read that letter, along with probably about 12 other exhibits, personal exhibits, all
02:59of which have a label attached, about 50 words, describing how important that particular item
03:06is, and that's just one strand of an exhibition that looks both at the history of the country.
03:10And you were saying the loveliest thing about your letter, obviously 30 years ago, a very
03:13different world, things had changed so much, but you were saying you would not change a
03:17word of that letter. That's remarkable, isn't it?
03:21Yeah, I mean, I think you look at it as a moment in time, and it's very weird reading
03:27something that you wrote 30 years ago, at a very different age, probably about mid-20s,
03:34thinking, gosh, how was I? Because people don't write letters anymore, we've kind of
03:40come out of that habit. So when I donated it, I really wanted to reread it a couple
03:45of times to make sure, because it's going on public display, but I wouldn't change a
03:49word of it. It was as I was at the time, and it was as I felt at the time, and it's a very
03:55honest record of how I was feeling about the importance of coming out to my parents, and
04:02telling them who I was, and who I wanted to love in my life. And they fully accepted that,
04:09and were very happy with my decision.
04:13That's a lovely piece to be able to include in the exhibition. Stuart, really good to
04:17speak to you again. Congratulations on the exhibition.
04:20Yes, I hope everybody comes to see it.
04:23Thank you so much. All the best.
04:24My pleasure. Thanks as ever, Phil.