Queer Britain: UK’s First National LGBTQ+ Museum Comes to Life in London

“Diversity is in the very DNA of what we’re trying to do,” says Galliano, the man behind the idea of a museum celebrating queer community's history

Updated on: 6 June 2022 7:32 am

Birds Can Fly, a body of work by Paul Harfleet.

Queer Britain is an exquisite montage of the LGBTQ+ history, culture and pride set up for the world to relish. After being a work in progress for four years, it has finally opened in a refurbished 19th-century building behind King’s Cross railway station in London.

A smorgasbord of artworks, costumes and photographs, this exhibition aims to throw light on the queer community and their impact. It is a fiesta and a crash course of their contribution to history, all at the same time. Take a look at how far they’ve come from cross-dressing Victorians to some of the most recent pride marches. It projects the voices of the unheard. With the aim of disseminating this crucial and proud emotion and information, your visit to this museum is free.

Queer Britain is housed in a building owned by Art Fund, the British national arts charity Queer Britain

Co-founder and director of Queer Britain and the former editor of the UK’s Gay Times magazine, Joseph Galliano has been on the streets scouring the cultural landscape and the activist landscape to find the right point to plant this seed for the last five years, and he couldn’t be any prouder of the result. It was in 2017 that it hit Galliano that one could “create a blockbuster exhibition around queer subjects.” With the help of the LGBTQ+ organizations and other individuals in his network, Galliano brought together more than 500 donors to put up this dazzling display.

From Maureen Colquhoun getting deselected by her own party for having strong feminist notions in 1977 to same-sex marriageS becoming legal in Wales, Scotland and England in 2014, Queer Britain educates the spectators on queer history and is peek behind their curtain of struggles. Sadie Lee’s painting of the avant-garde artist David Hoyle is a major highlight of Queer Britain since it bagged the first position in the 2021 Queer Britain Madame F Award competition.

Sadie Lee’s painting of the avant-garde artist David Hoyle Queer Britain

Fully funded by private individuals via Queer Britain’s patron and membership programs, this museum is also supported directly by a few companies and other corporate partnerships. The museum will be fully accessible via lifts and ramps and will always be free to visit but welcomes donations to support its work. It will have four gallery spaces, a gift shop and office facilities, later to be followed by education and workshop spaces.