We finish up with a studio day on the 12th May, when Tom will take photos of people who want to join the portfolio of fabulous LGBT people already featured in the project, and be part of the exhibition on it’s next outing. If you want to book a slot contact Tom @OutcomeLGBT tom_dingley@hotmail.co.uk.
It is the last day of LGBT History month, but if you think that means I’ll stop burbling on about Outcome, you are in for a disappointment.
Tom Dingley is off to the London Live studios to be interviewed for the evening news tomorrow, (1st March) you can catch him live on Sky channel 117, Freeview 8. Not clear of the time yet, but between 6 and 8.
And it will be podcast for at least a while after on their website.
Tom Dingley
Anyway, it got me thinking, about why LGBT History Month is February. I suppose, it is the month most associated with love, which is sweet, but it is also the SHORTEST! At least this year being a leaping one, there is an extra day to celebrate.
Which brings me back to Outcome. Celebrating the wonderful, diverse, ordinariness of LGBT people. There are a handful of people involved of whom you might have heard, Peter Tatchell for instance, but mostly we (yep, I’m in it) are known only to our friends and loved ones, and lovely though we all are, we are special only in that we are happy to be involved and have our faces plastered over walls all round London, and soon further afield, and, of course, to be in the book.
So, if you have been thinking,
oh, they won’t want me,
think again! Yes, we do want the bus driver, and the civil servant, and the council worker, and the nurse, and the vet, and the shop assistant and the teacher and the self-employed, and the craftsperson, and the tradesperson and the professional and the artist and the musician and ALL OF YOU, OK?
We won’t be stopping with the book, this is an ongoing project, and fun though it is, it has a serious side, providing role models for young LGBT people who are finding life a bit difficult, and essentially saying, look, we grew up, we came out, we’re here, we’re doing fine. Nothing to be scared of. So it’s about Celebration, not celebrity.
And if you can help in other ways, funding, studio space, exhibition space, please get in touch.
So, here’s what we are up to with Outcome, You can get involved by
having your picture taken, like Alix here
Offering us somewhere to have a pop-up studio
or somewhere to exhibit!
You will soon be able to contribute to a crowd fund, but the video of Tom this afternoon wasn’t up to scratch, a lot of background noise and he’s almost lost his voice, so we’ll have to have another go, before we can get the crowdfund up and live.
Photographer Tom Dingley is taking photos of LGBT people for the Outcome Project TODAY at Student Pride. Find him at University of Westminster, Area P3 in a room next to the main stage.
Come dressed for your work/ hobby / whatever.
If you can, bring a picture of yourself as a child, otherwise you can email it and we’ll photoshop it in afterwards.
A chance to be part of a travelling exhibition, a book and maybe a slideshow for schools and colleges.
Grow up, come out, be who you are, happy and successfully you.
I have a passion for Industrial Archaeology, fuelled by my love of photography. I have been known to trespass in derelict buildings in search of a good shot. (1978, O level photography exam, theme disintegration; me: Woolwich Maternity Hospital which had just been abandoned- yards and yards of doors stacked in an alleyway, broken frosted glass, I loved it – now an unattractive block of flats). I use my camera as a note-taker, as well as an art tool.
I discovered The Old Vinyl Factory in Hayes through MVMNT cafe in Greenwich, which is owned by the same development company, and after a site visit (with camera of course) and a huge amount of support from Site Manager Jacqui Tudor (networker extraordinaire), organised to run a workshop there, through Hillingdon ArtsWeek.
I wanted to pull in the history of the site (EMI HQ from 1900’s) but actually it was the space and its uses, and the contrast between the clean white spaces of the refurbished buildings and the distressed, broken windowed, rooflessness of the yet to be refurbished that shaped the workshop.
We explored the site and the archive exhibition, and trod carefully around dead pigeons, discarded fire extinguishers and broken glass, writing as we went and paying particular attention to space and movement, to play around with kinesthetic language. We barely scraped the surface of the potential of the place. if you get a chance to look around, take it!
If you would like to find out more about our writing workshops please take a look here, where you can also sign up to be alerted to workshops booked near you. Or you can always ask us to book something specially, if you can provide participants!