OUR LATEST ISSUE
Gay Museum opens...to wide support!
Proud Heritage Online Gay Museum
The online Gay museum Proud Heritage, which charts British LGBT history, went active today
"Proud Heritage is an important step forward for the UK's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community"
The first LGBT museum opened its doors this morning…well sort of. Proud Heritage is an online museum that has been three years in the making, but has finally gone active to the public today. It has been welcomed by other Museum Professionals: Nick Poole the Director of the Collections Trust said that he “…applauded Proud Heritage on the work it has achieved already”
He went on to say "Proud Heritage is not only an important step forward for the UK's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. It is also leading the way in showing the cultural heritage sector how we can work more openly with all communities.”
The Collections Trust is responsible for setting the standards of all British museums; therefore it was great for the website to receive such warm support for their site.
It wasn’t just fellow museums that gave Proud Heritage their backing. The London Mayoral Candidates Boris Johnson and Ken Livingston have also pledged their support for the site. Current Mayor, Ken Livingston said that he would strongly consider backing a physical museum, but did go on to say that the project would have to be long term and would cost “tens of millions” of pounds. Livingston is attempting to gain a third office as London Mayor and has been targeting the Pink Vote which is thought to be essential for him to win the election early in May.
The site itself is in short, an interactive archive that allows the LGBT Community to collect and share personal experiences with others. It allows these memories to be registered on the site and it will also show and record key events that have affected and sculpted the community that we have in Britain.
At its launch at the Natural History Museum gay rights activist, Peter Tatchell said of Proud Heritage.
"I regard it as a visionary project of critical importance for the integration of queer history and heritage into British cultural life."
One of the defining features of Proud Heritage is its ‘Walking Proud in London’ project which has the world's first queer Googlemap for the capital.
