Presented by Politics and International Relations Senior Lecturer Dr Daniel Conway and artist Alex Green, the exhibition titled Pride Belongs to the People: Images of Soweto Pride, which opens at Newington Green Meeting House on 4 August, documents the struggles, circumstances and demands of Black LGBTQ+ activists in Soweto, South Africa.
The Pride Belongs to the People exhibition, which will open soon at the ‘birthplace of feminism’, includes pictures taken at Soweto Pride in 2018 and extracts from interviews with LGBTQ+ activists. The exhibition draws from research funded by the Leverhulme Trust and is supported by the School of Social Sciences Knowledge Exchange Fund.
Soweto Pride, organised by the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (FEW), a Black queer and feminist women’s non-governmental organisation, aims to raise issues faced by Black, LGBTQ+ South Africans, and in particular the widespread homophobic and gender-based violence faced by Black lesbians from so-called ‘corrective rape’ to murder.
Johannesburg hosted the African continent’s first Pride march in 1990, yet Pride in Johannesburg has been the focus of controversy and division for most of the post-apartheid period. These divisions mirror broader socio-economic, spatial and ethnic tensions in South African society, but also reflect divergent beliefs about who Pride should represent, and what issues it should engage with. Three separate Johannesburg Prides have emerged out of the fraught and complex history of LGBTQ+ communities. They also reflect the distinctive geographical, social and political contexts of the city.
‘We call for a Pride that is a microcosm of the society we wish to live in, and not a mirror of the divided one that we currently live in. We wish Pride to be a space that all can access, where all can be free, and where every voice is important.’ – Manifesto of the Johannesburg People’s Pride collective.
Dr Daniel Conway, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations and the co-presenter of the exhibition, said: "I'm delighted to present the Images of Soweto Pride exhibition at the Newington Green Meeting House, a venue that has such a long association with political dissent, feminist and revolutionary activism. Pride in South Africa, as in anywhere else, is a complex and vital subject to engage in dialogue about and we hope that that's exactly what these photographs and items encourage. The LGBTQ+ activists I met in Soweto are the most courageous and eloquent people I have encountered, and having lived, researched and worked in South Africa, I'm very happy to share and highlight their experiences and the important issues they raise here in the UK.”
Dr Daniel Conway’s broader work is situated at the intersection of Feminist International Relations, Political Sociology and Queer Theory, focusing on the politics of LGBTQ+ rights and activism. He is the author of Whose Lifestyle Matters at Johannesburg Pride? The Lifestylisation of LGBTQ+ Identities and the Gentrification of Activism, Sociology, (2022), vol. 56, no. 1: pp. 148-165.
Alex Green is a part-time artist and writer. By day he works at Citizens Advice, an organisation that provides advice and support to some of the most marginalised in UK society.
For free general admission tickets, please go the Newington Green Meeting House Events page.
Find out about support available for LGBTQ+ students at the University of Westminster, the Q+ staff network group, and the University’s Diversity and Inclusion research community.
