DOI: 10.25377/sussex.28436264
title: Re-imagining LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Communities Workshop Material

description: From 2023-2024 the UKRI funded 'Re-imagining LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Communities’ (Between LGBTQ+ Generations) project. Between LGBTQ+ Generations ran from September 2023 to June 2024 in Brighton, UK. It brought together people aged 18-35 and 55+ in a series of 8 workshops. Each workshop had a different theme and drew on a different creative method. The intervention was designed, developed and delivered using creative methods and community-centred frameworks that acknowledges community development as self-cultivating, with external resources acting as a catalyst for this work. Funded by the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge and University of Sussex, this project responds to a call to address public health inequalities, tackle market failures, and support healthy ageing. This project interprets healthy ageing as bidirectional, in which both older and younger LGBTQ+ groups hold expertise around healthy ageing.The files from each workshop are indicated by the workshop number in each filename.Workshop 1 (Oct 2023)These files come from a creative arts workshop that took place on October 2023 with the theme ‘introduction to collage’. Participants were asked to select a paper colour that represented them, and to use collage activity to introduce and connect with the group.The creative material from this workshop represents an important data point: many participants felt they did not know how to draw, or how to create art. The creative material represented here shows the early stages of participation in the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational project.Workshop 2 (Nov 2023)These files come from a creative arts workshop that took place on November 2023 with the theme ‘LGBTQ+ icons collage’. Participants were asked to select LGBTQ+ icons with the following questions in mind:1. If you could be any gay icon, who would it be? why?<br>2. What LGBTQ icons did you watch growing up?3. Can you remember the first gay person or character you ever saw in television or in film? How did they make you feel?<br>4. Did you know any gay adults when you were growing up?<br>In groups, participants collaged their icons, using the prompts provided.Workshop 3 (Dec 2023)These files come from s a creative arts workshop that took place on December 2023 with the theme ‘Wellbeing’. Participants were asked to draw, write, and compile a booklet that touches on LGBTQ+ culture, memory, wellbeing, and food.Workshop 4 (Jan 2024)These files come from a creative arts workshop that took place on January 2024 with the theme ‘Music & Memory’. Participants were asked to compile their favourite songs and prepare a description about how this song connected them to memory, community, or experience. In groups, we listened to the songs together and reflected on these themes using the following prompts:How does it physically make you feel?What makes it memorable?Does it make you reflect on your environment or self?What aspects of the song relate to your queerness or identity?Workshop 5 (Feb 2024)These files come from a creative arts workshop that took place on February 2024 with the theme ‘Queer Joy’. This activity asked participants to create a map of the local areas that they associate with joy, LGBTQ+ culture, and memory.Workshop 6 (Mar 2024)These files come from a creative arts workshop that took place on March 2024 with the theme ‘Story on a postcard’, which follows from the mapping exercise in the previous session, using the following prompts:<br><br>1. Familiarise yourself again with the maps and pick a point (either from the previous prompts or a new point) where you have story that you want to tell.<br>2. Get into pairs - one student and one community member, grab a cup of coffee, share your stories.3. Find a way on the postcard (or using a physical image if you want) to portray your partner’s story (or a moment in the story) visually. It Get people to share and then portray a story which links to the map. It can be abstract or literal, however you wish to do so. Each pair will end up with two postcards.<br>4. Lay your story postcard to the map ready to be pinned for the exhibition.<br>Workshop 7 (Apr 2024)These files come from a creative arts workshop that took place on April 2024 with the theme ‘Patchwork Portraits’, using the following prompts:In pairs, share the objects you have bought with your partners - explain why you brought them and what they signify to you. Then exchange them and assemble a portrait using those, your earlier drawings if you like, or other materials. Work collaboratively, checking in with your partner that they are happy with your creation.<br>