Duke Mound, Brighton’s Palace Pier, the Marina, Brighton Sauna, Black Rock place, Portslade Basin Road Local Wildlife site and its naturist beach, Brighton Pavilion, the Pride parade, your home during the lockdown and sometimes your body… all these are heterotopias – places that are outside the norm, that are strange or in other words queer.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, with the restrictions of meeting people at home we saw public spaces being used in much more diverse and creative ways and transformed beyond their original plan. The public space, with Black Lives Matter, for example, or with the now more politicized LGBTQ+ prides around the worlds, has become more and more heterotopian. ‘Queer Heterotopias’ exhibition seeks to both highlight and celebrate this.

The “Queer Heterotopias” exhibition, at The Ledward Centre [TLC], produced by SEAS Brighton in collaboration with the The LGBTQ+ Centre New York and the Preus Museum (Norway), celebrates these spaces and takes the visitors on a tour of past and present heterotopias.