Mapping LGBT+ Bristol is a major project to create a permanent digital archive and online map of the LGBT+ history of Bristol and the surrounding areas: Bath, South Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.
The project is a collaboration between OutStories Bristol, the Know Your Bristol project at the University of Bristol, and Know Your Place, an interactive mapping website run by Bristol City Council. The project is being funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, a government-sponsored body that finances research and post-graduate projects.
Mapping LGBT+ Bristol will:
- Support OutStories volunteers in researching and mapping the LGBT+ history of the Bristol region.
- Add a dedicated LGBT+ community ‘layer’ to the Know Your Place website http://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp. Know Your Place provides a series of map bases from 1750 to the present that allows you to explore your neighbourhood through historic maps, images and linked information.
- Create a new user-friendly interface embedded in the OutStories Bristol website that will directly access the LGBT+ layer on Know Your Place and facilitate crowd-sourced contributions.
- Create a custom-made mobile app for smart phones and tablet PCs that will interface with the LGBT+ layer on Know Your Place. This will feature walking tours, push notifications and connections to social media.
- Produce a series of ‘story-maps’ – geo-coded digital stories – on different facets of LGBT+ history.
- Collaborate with Bristol’s LGBT+ youth group Freedom Youth in producing curriculum materials to be used in local schools to combat the stigmatization of gender diversity and homosexuality.
- Add new material to the LGBT+ archives at the Bristol Record Office and other museums and archives.
Copyright: Anna Henderson
Mapping LGBT+ Bristol will be a series of explorations of LGBT+ lives, both historic and present. The project will draw teams of people together to research and record histories of the diverse individuals and communities that make up the region’s LGBT+ life.
Places of significance may range from common places where people meet (now or in the past), the shifting map of the LGBT scene, sites of memory or life events significant to one individual or small groups, places of religious toleration, dissent and diversity, and sites relevant to public, political and civic oppression and acceptance.
The project will last for one year and will culminate with a public roll-out to coincide with the Bristol Pride festival in July 2016.
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Everyone is welcome to get involved. We seek people to do research, conduct oral history interviews, produce video/audio, and create digital material for uploading to Know Your Place and our own website. Get in touch via our contact form.
Mapping LGBT+ Bristol is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council