Kent art exhibition marks 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality
By Will Stroude
Latent: A Hidden History
has been produced to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act that began the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
The project, which is currently on display at the Sidney Cooper Gallery in Canterbury, Kent, re-purposes pictures from the South East Archive of Seaside Photography taken during the period of time when homosexuality was illegal, and reframes them to fabricate forgotten stories.
These new images point toward lives that could not lived in the open; stories that can only be imagined, lost to history.
Each image in the series has been produced from cropping a small section, from a larger photograph, re-focusing the viewers’ attention onto part a scene that might be overlooked in its original context. These resulting pictures are not retouched or edited any further, but present real events and situations not necessarily meant to be documented.
Obscured and beyond focus, these re-imagined photographs serve as a “memorial and tribute to the many lives and loves lived in secret, behind closed doors”.
Latent: A Hidden History is on exhibition at the Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury from 1 March until 6 May. More information can be found here.
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