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PREVIEW: Charleston launches Queer House Tours on Queens birthday

Besi Besemar May 2, 2019

Charleston’s new Queer House Tours launch on Saturday, June 8, offering visitors the chance to discover Charleston’s groundbreaking queer history with an expert guide.

THE tours will form part of an LGBT+ day of celebration – visitors are encouraged to bring a picnic and enjoy a range of free activities, as well as to explore the garden, café, galleries and walks in the surrounding area.

Visitors will also be invited to participate in a chaired discussion about developing a Queer Bloomsbury programme at Charleston beginning with contributions from writers Kuchenga, Jane Traies, and performance artist Nando Messias, asking What do our communities need now in terms of engaging with radical queer art? How do we inspire radical young queers, the Bloomsbury group of tomorrow?

Other activities on the day include Bloomsbury group inspired dressing up with Gladrags, live music by Hannah Brackenbury, and Queer Tours of Charleston’s current exhibition In Colour – Sickert to Riley led by curator Dr Darren Clarke.

Charleston has an incredible LGBT+ history, having been home to the Bloomsbury group – a largely queer group of artists, writers and thinkers that included, among others, Virginia Woolf, Duncan Grant and John Maynard Keynes.

Together, the Bloomsbury group forged a new way of living at Charleston in the early 20th century, with the house acting as a space of freedom where love and friendship, pacifism, atheism, and other diverse ways of living were actively embraced.

Queer Tours will run every 15 minutes from 11.30am – 4.00pm on June 8.

After June 8, Queer Tours will be available to book as an extended House Tour.

Queer House Tours Ticket Price: ÂŁ10

To book online, click here:

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