GRAIN Projects are delighted to be working with the North Midlands LGBT Older Peoples Group (OLGBT) to announce the launch of a new photography project that is about LGBT+ identity, people and place in Stoke-on-Trent and the North Midlands, made during the city’s 100th year anniversary.

OLGBT have secured a Project Grant from Arts Council England to support the project which will take place throughout 2025/2026.

Working in collaboration with arts organisation GRAIN Projects, OLGBT will invite participants from the community to make collaborative portraits and pictures with artists that will be accompanied by their individual stories. Professional artists Ming de Nasty and Daniel Lyttleton will create new imagery that speaks of identity, lived experience and connection to the city. The outcomes of the project will include exhibitions and a publication.

OLGBT is 15 years old and has been an active charity in the city and region promoting social inclusion for the public benefit of older people who are socially excluded on the grounds of their gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation (in particular lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people). OLGBT provide a local network, opportunities for engagement and creativity, connections to service providers and an important unique network.

The idea behind the project is motivated by older LGBT+ people’s feelings and lived experiences. Through the project OLGBT aim to accommodate and celebrate historically silenced LGBT+ older voices through events, engagement activities, a celebratory exhibition programme and publication. The project will increase the visibility of LGBT+ people, addressing the balance and bias, in the city’s 100th year. Empowering individuals to have their creativity and contributions highlighted in this way, and considering identity and representation through art, during the city’s 100th year, will make a huge contribution to diversity, inclusion and equality. The LGBT+ community in Stoke-on-Trent and in Staffordshire has historically been less visible than LGBT+ communities in larger cities. Older LGBT+ people have spoken of a time when there was no gay scene and only a small number of discreet gay friendly venues. For the largest part of the 100 years since Stoke-on-Trent became a city the LGBT+ community has been invisible. In latter years it was oppressed and heavily policed and has only recently been accepted into mainstream community events in the last few decades.

OLGBT is 15 years old and 2025 will be a year of celebration. The Founder and Chair of OLGBT Maurice Greenham said: “The North Midlands LGBT Older Peoples Group, in its fifteenth anniversary year, is proud to be partnering with GRAIN Projects in this exciting new venture to visualise personal stories of the local LGBT+ community. Our aim is to create a project about LGBT+ identity, people and places in Stoke-on-Trent and the North Midlands, made during the city’s 100th year anniversary in 2025. We want to collaborate, with the wider local LGBT+ community to record memories that celebrate individual identities and lived experiences. We wish to throw light on unseen faces and make heard unheard voices of some of the most historically marginalised people in society.”

Events and activities will be open for older LGBT+ people to attend. Please email hello@grainphotographyhub.co.uk if you would like more information.

About OLGBT
OLGBT is a Stoke-on-Trent based charity which was set up to promote social inclusion for the public benefit of older people who are socially excluded on the grounds of their gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation (in particular lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people). The charity aims to meet the needs of such people and assist them to fully participate in society. Our key objectives are to provide a local network group that encourages and enables LGBT+ people to participate more effectively with the wider community and to increase and coordinate opportunities for LGBT+ people to engage with service providers. OLGBT is a friendly group of local older LGBT+ people who support each other through regular meetings and social activities. Most physical meetings take place in or around Stoke-on-Trent. Our social meetings and activities help reduce isolation and loneliness for older LGBT+ people. We provide opportunities to make new friends and to expand social networks, to seek advice and to gain health information. We are also interested in hosting workshops so that people can
develop new skills.
www,olgbtstoke.org.uk

About Ming de Nasty
Ming de Nasty is a contemporary artist and photographer who has developed her practice over the last 35 years in the Midlands. Her work is socially engaged with participation and collaboration at the foundation of her practice. In 2020 she worked with SHOUT! Festival, Birmingham. Working with queer identifying men she made a series of photographic portraits and audio monologues which were exhibited online as part of the festival. In 2018 she was commissioned by IKON Gallery Birmingham to do a summer residency on The Slow Boat. Working with asylum seeking women she created a photographic installation along the Birmingham Canal, Soho Loop of their portraits. In Wales from 2018– 2022 she made ‘Queer Country’, a photographic project looking at queer identifying individuals in Wales and what it means for them to be living in a rural environment. In 2022 – 2023 she made work with LGBT+ people in Shropshire in collaboration with LGBTSAND and GRAIN Projects. The work was exhibited at Shrewsbury Museum and The Hive Shropshire and featured in a publication. Queerness, identity and lived experiences are themes that run throughout her work.

About Daniel Lyttleton
Daniel Lyttleton is a contemporary socially engaged photographer. He is based in Stoke-on-Trent. He works on visual narratives that are community-led and about place and mapping. In Burslem and in Longton (two of the six towns that make up Stoke on Trent) he has co-created artwork which has led to photobooks and exhibitions. He has contributed four publications to the Stoke-on-Trent archives.