LGBTQ+

About one year from the start of my role as an Amgueddfa Cymru Producer (ACP). I’m now at the end of my time with the museum, and I’ve been asked to reflect on the experience.

My work with the museum started in June 2025 with a workshop before pride (there’s a whole blog post about that too, which you can find here). After that first workshop was delivered, I wanted to try and construct a workshop of my own. One that allowed people to see more of the Queer Welsh history that the museum has to share. My early research into the Amgueddfa Cymru’s online collections catalogue revealed a whole host of things that can’t all be displayed all of the time. I was exceedingly lucky that when I asked if I would be able to plan, and just maybe deliver this workshop, that Amgueddfa Cymru said yes. 

The first step was to decide what I wanted to be able to offer people. After visiting St Fagans National Museum of History with a friend a few months earlier I realised that I wanted to make people feel at home. This idea came about through the Rhyd-y-car Terrace Houses. Quite often I find it’s easy to feel detached from these spaces, as though they only reflect other people. Typically, I notice a focus on the family home in museums, but the married heterosexual 2.4 kids and a dog kind of life has never reflected my own situation. It’s important to remember also that this nuclear family structure is a fairly modern invention, and one that has always been aspirational. People wanted it exactly because it’s not the life that they were actually living.

With the idea of home in mind, I set about researching. I drew a lot of inspiration from Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology as well as Mike Parker’s On the Red Hill: a very different — and much easier to read — book about two gay couples living in Wales. Reg Mickisch and George Walton moved to Wales after meeting in London and living in Brighton together. They ran a couple of BnBs, and at their deaths they left their home Rhiw Goch to Parker and his partner. The book engages with these ideas of finding and making a home, and the return to nature after living in the city. Photos of Reg and George on their various cycling holidays, and at their wedding, can be accessed through the Amgueddfa Cymru’s online collection.

Both books led me to be guided by the idea of orientation, as it relates to locating yourself and things, but also sexual orientation. What is it that we are drawn towards? Who are we drawn towards? Where do we find ourselves attracted towards? This gave the workshop its semi-guided structure. At each stop on the tour, I allowed people to wander off and come back having found their own way around. This meant that everyone had a different experience of the site and latched on to different objects and stories. In an ideal world we would have had longer to allow people to discuss because it was fascinating to compare and see what each person related to their own experience. I was surprised by the fact that multiple people felt drawn towards the clock recovered from the Aberfan disaster in the Wales Is gallery, an object that I personally hadn’t given much thought to.

I was lucky that previous ACPs had made a self-guided queer tour booklet that I was then able to adapt into the route that we took on the day. Using most of the buildings and objects that they had picked out I did some research on the history and relevance of each stop. From here I came up with two lots of questions, one for artefacts inside the gallery spaces, and one for the buildings outside. My goal was to allow people to pick something without much conscious thought and then to examine that thing, and why they had been attracted towards it. 
 

For objects I wanted people to examine if they had made any assumptions about who might have owned or used that thing, and what those assumptions might be based on. Then there was a more personal side of questioning, are there in museums that you recognise from your own life or your family? Are there things that you would want in your home, or clothes that you would want to wear? Does it speak to the life that you lead now, or the life that you want to lead?
 

The questions for buildings were more inspired by Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology and thought about where we imagine queer history happening. For me the idea of the public toilet and the toll house were particularly interesting because of their use as transitional spaces. Neither of them are places to rest in, to take time and get in touch with yourself. They are defined by their function before leaving becomes necessary. They suggest a brief respite, but they can never be permanent stops. I wonder if the instability of these spaces has left an effect on the queer mind?

While we had to navigate the temporary closure of the Gweithdy and the inaccessibility of the workmen’s institute I tried to touch on these in a presentation before we went exploring. It was a blend of information from the museum and the sources that had informed my planning and way of thinking for the day, however the key takeaway was this: People often make heterosexual assumptions. Perhaps deliberately, but often it is the only option that they know how to consider. However just because the heterosexual (or indeed cisgender, or male, or white) assumption might be the standard or most likely, it isn’t always verifiable or true. In cases where we do not know with certainty, where we might never know the truth, a queer interpretation might be no less astute than a normative one. The point is not to change or rewrite history, but to consider the rich inner lives of people that are now lost to us.

Overall, I am hugely grateful to Hywel and Amgueddfa Cymru for allowing me to bring this workshop from an idea I had on a wooden bench in front of a fireplace, to an actual workshop attended by friends and strangers (and newborn lambs) on a beautiful spring day. I also have to thank everyone that attended for taking a chance on my queer little workshop and bringing their experiences and thoughts to the group. Even when people didn’t speak, having people willing to show up and get involved was a pleasure and a privilege that I won’t forget.

Wales REACH is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It is a partnership between thirteen organisations and is led by The Open University and Amgueddfa Cymru. It is funded with a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The current phase started in autumn 2024 and is scheduled to run until autumn 2026.

In recent years, Gwen John has been reclaimed as a queer Welsh icon. While her sexuality was never hidden (her brother Augustus references her attraction to both men and women in the foreword to her Memorial Exhibition catalogue in 1946 and it has since been discussed in all three of her biographies), this renewed interest encourages us to think about how John’s queerness might influence how she saw the world and made art. How do gender and sexuality affect out reading of an artist’s choice of subject or how they depict people and places?

John had sexual relationships and romantic friendships with both men and women throughout her life. According to Augustus’s autobiography, she had ‘an unhappy crossing in love’ with ‘a certain girl student’ at the Slade School of Art in London which ‘led to a drama’ in which John jealously demanded the girl end an affair with a married man. John’s first biographer, Susan Chitty, suggested that this love interest may have been Grace Westray, a fellow Slade student who shared a flat for a time with Gwen and Augustus. She may be the young woman depicted sitting in the foreground of John’s Portrait Group, one of John’s only surviving student works. Outside the window, we see two figures, possibly Gwen and fellow artist Ambrose McEvoy, another love interest. This group scene represents the tangled web of love, friendship, and family that defined Gwen’s student days. It depicts the shared student flat at 21 Fitzroy Street which served as a hub of creativity that fostered her artistic development, as well as a safe space in which to explore her emerging sexuality.

Gwen John, Group Portrait, 1897. UCL Art Collection – currently on display in Gwen John: Strange Beauties

John’s subsequent relationships followed a similar pattern: passionate attachment and deep affection spilling over into overwhelming devotion on John’s part. When she met the sculptor Auguste Rodin after moving to Paris in 1904 she became a favourite model and soon began a romantic relationship with him. This is documented in the hundreds of letters she sent him, now in the archives of the Musée Rodin. While many of them are love letters and some speak frankly about sex and desire, including with other women, others describe her day-to-day modelling for other artists. Among these were many queer women, such as Ottilie Roederstein, Ida Gerhardi, Anna Wood Brown, and Hilda Flodin all of whom were long term clients and friends. While it’s not clear if John ever attended any of the cafés or salons associated with the Parisian sapphic artistic circles to which these women belonged, she would undoubtedly have been aware of them.

Like many of the women John worked with and for, having her own lodgings was essential for both her professional and personal life. Her garret apartment, as depicted in Corner of the Artist’s Room, was both her home and her studio. As art historian Alicia Foster has pointed out, having a ‘room of one’s own’ was essential for her art practice, but as an unmarried woman it was also a space to which she could invite friends and lovers. At a time when even walking city streets unchaperoned could illicit unwanted attention, the ability to rent a small, private space meant freedom, sexual and otherwise. Is it any surprise then that John’s rooms appear so frequently as the subject of her art in its own right? For a single, queer woman and artist, this space represented both sanctuary and livelihood.

Gwen John, Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris, 1907-9, NMW A 3397

In late 1926, John met the famous Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, who lived nearby in Meudon with his wife, Raissa, and his sister-in-law, Véra Oumançoff. John quickly became deeply attached to Oumançoff, who became her confidante and spiritual advisor. The two women would often speak after mass at their local church and go for walks in the woods together. John’s affection for Oumançoff developed into romantic feelings, which appear to have been unrequited. Many passionate draft letters addressed to Oumançoff can be found in the Gwen John Papers in the National Library of Wales. In them, John mixes religious thought with romantic devotion, asking God to ‘show her how to love Véra’ and asking Oumanoff to let her ‘kiss her hands’. Oumançoff became overwhelmed by the attention, and asked John to limit her letters and visits to once per week. John duly obeyed, but began bringing not just letters to these rare visits but also drawings, which she called ‘dessins de lundi’ (Monday drawings). Each week for nearly two years, John presented Oumançoff with a drawing or watercolour, some new and others apparently versions of older motifs. The subjects, styles, and mediums are widely varied. Some were presented attached to backing sheets of coloured paper with the title and date given inscribed on the back. The titles of many of John’s works on paper (such as Mademoiselle Pouvereau and Souvenir du Dimanche des rameaux) are known thanks to these inscriptions.

Gwen John, Mademoiselle Pouvereau, NMW A 3607

Oumançoff kept these drawings long after the relationship ended, in spite of moving the United States as an exile during the Second World War. Over one hundred of the dessins de lundi were discovered again in the 1960s in the Maritain archive. Several works now in the studio collection at Amgueddfa Cymru are versions of compositions John gave as dessins de lundi. Reading these works through the lens of John’s sexuality, we can see them not just as formal studies of composition or tone, but as tokens of love and affection intended to convey a shared experience of faith and prayer. Furthermore, because John’s ability to communicate with Oumançoff was restricted to just once a week, these drawings became an additional means through which she could communicate to her beloved. They stood in for conversations and letters.

One of the images that John gave to Oumançoff as a dessin de lundi was a drawing of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897). This modern French saint, a close contemporary of John, died young and was canonised very quickly. She was one of the first saints to ever be photographed, a fact that her convent used to help create an iconography for her and advance the cause of her canonisation. The convent in Lisieux published books, prayer cards, and memorabilia with Thérèse’s image on it. As a Catholic convert and an artist, John was fascinated by these photographs which for the first time showed the real face of a saint, rather than an anonymous stylised icon made hundreds of years after their death. She became particularly attached to an image of Thérèse and her older sister, Céline, as children, drawing and painting this composition hundreds of times. These images have tended to be underrepresented in studies about Gwen John’s art, and are often dismissed as obsessive or absent-minded doodles. But this diminishes the importance that the ‘true face’ of a saint just three years older than her would have had for John. Furthermore, by the 1920s when John began drawing her, Thérèse had become a bit of a queer icon herself. Jean Cocteau, Henri Ghéon, Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Vita Sackville-West, and Radclyffe Hall were all devotees of the saint. Her theology of the ‘Little Way’, which suggested that small, imperfect lives could be made holy through everyday sacrifices appealed to converts, avant-gardists, and other outsiders. John, who would write in her late notebooks about her desire to become a saint, was likewise drawn to Thérèse’s ‘Little Way’. Perhaps as an outsider herself, whose life and sexuality didn’t conform to heteronormative standards, she took particular comfort in Thérèse’s image and doctrine.

Gwen John, Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux and her sister, NMW A 15561

Gwen John, Sainte Thérèse of Lisieux and her sister, NMW A 15534

Reading John’s art through the lens of her sexual fluidity opens up possibilities for new interpretations of her art. While this article has touched on a few examples, there is still more work to be done. In acknowledging John’s queerness and considering how it might influence her way of seeing the world around her, we add depth and nuance to our understanding. To read more about John as a queer artist, see Norena Shopland’s book Forbidden Lives (2017), Tabitha Deadman’s Art UK article ‘Bi visibility: Gwen John and multiple gender attraction’, and Mair Jones’s Art UK article ‘Queer Welsh women in art’.

In June 2025, as part of the Wales REACH project, Amgueddfa Cymru invited applications for two Amgueddfa Cymru Producers to design and deliver a workshop about Pride. Here’s what James, one of our ACPs, had to say about the experience:

For pride month, Amgueddfa Cymru invited myself and Kleo to organise a workshop alongside Innovate Trust: a charity dedicated to helping adults with learning disabilities. We provided the materials, inspiration, and a brief history lesson so that people could create signs to carry at the Cardiff pride parade held on the 21st of June.

Part of my role was scouring the museum’s collection for some inspiration and the catalogue did not disappoint. I was surprised by the array of material available; from protest materials of the 1980s, to works by proudly queer artists, works loved by queer people, and private family photographs. Protest materials included t-shirts, banners, and badges, many of which were aimed against Section 28 in particular. This was part of the law put in place by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government that saw any mention of homosexuality in schools as an attempt to ‘promote’ the lifestyle. This meant that for over twenty years children in schools had no way to access accurate and unbiased information regarding sexuality or safe sex. Amgueddfa Cymru has a t-shirt with the exact wording of Section 28 printed on it. For me, part of pride has to be about looking back to all of the work done in the past so that we have the strength to look to the future. For museums to include objects like these is so important to me, and a huge step forwards for our communities and cultural institutions. 

My first time at pride was moderately unsuccessful. In either 2018 or 2019 myself and a friend travelled to London hoping to find the kind of community that was out of reach for kids in a relatively small secondary school. On the journey there we overheard a group of people warning each other that pride was on. That they had to be careful because we would all be having sex in the streets. I can safely say that hearing this made me feel infinitely more uncomfortable than anything I experienced at pride. But it still felt isolating. The two of us wandered around London and largely kept to ourselves and it didn’t feel like pride was the sort of thing I’d want to go to again.

On the morning of Cardiff pride this year I was exhausted and found myself sorry to miss the parade. But by the afternoon I was alive enough to walk into the city centre and within minutes it became easy to recognise many of the people that were there for pride or the big queer picnic. The number of families with children really warmed my heart. And I didn’t hear a single bad word about queer people. No warnings that we didn’t know how to control ourselves. No fearmongering about trans people in public spaces. I sat in the sunshine with some friends. I saw dogs dressed up in colourful outfits and silly hats. And it finally felt like a pride event that had done what it set out to achieve, it gave me an overwhelming sense of joy and family. I felt relaxed.

It was an absolute pleasure to work with Amgueddfa Cymru for pride month. Someone once described queer history to me as “cruising” through archives; seeing what or who catches your eye. I would encourage everyone to do the same and to seek out queer joy, whatever the month.

Wales REACH is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It is a partnership between thirteen organisations and is led by The Open University and Amgueddfa Cymru. It is funded with a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The current phase started in autumn 2024 and is scheduled to run until autumn 2026.

As part of the Wales REACH (Residents Engaging in Arts, Culture and Heritage) project, we’ve had the absolute pleasure of working with groups from Innovate Trust and First Choice- two organisations supporting people with learning disabilities in Rhondda Cynon Taf and the Vale of Glamorgan. Over the past few months, we’ve come together for a series of creative workshops to connect with our local history and heritage through art and creativity.

Since starting REACH, we have held six museum-focussed workshops. We started off with a mindfulness walk around St Fagans National Museum of History. It gave us all a chance to slow down, notice our surroundings, and chat in a relaxed setting. It set a gentle and open tone, one that has carried through all the sessions since. 

One of the standout moments was a visit from our Principal Curator of Collection Development: LGBTQ+, Mark Etheridge. Mark shared powerful LGBTQ+ stories from the museum’s collections, which led to some thoughtful conversations. It gave the group space to reflect, ask questions and connect those stories to their own experiences. Rhys, one of the participants, said “The LGBTQ+ activity at St Fagans was important to me, after that I started to talk to people and be more open with the group about being gay”. Zac also added “this is for me, I’m gay so this is for me, look it’s cool”.

Inspired by objects from the museum, the group began creating their own artwork. Some people sketched out images and messages, while others designed T-shirts. What really stood out was the thoughtfulness behind each piece. Every design had meaning and reflected something real to the person who made it. According to Rhys, “Two of my favourite activities were the art lesson with Marion and designing a t-shirt about what being Welsh meant to me. I liked them because I liked sitting down with friends and support workers, just having fun and getting creative”.

Some of our more recent workshops focused Pride. Two of our Amgueddfa Cymru Producers led an engaging session about the history and significance of Pride, which sparked lots of curiosity and discussion. The group were tasked with creating bold, bright banners that could be carried in the parade. These sessions were full of enthusiasm, plenty of colours and a real sense of celebration. 

REACH is all about learning new skills and making new friendships. It is about telling unheard stories and strengthening and highlighting pride. It is about using the talents of local people to challenge the stigmas that their communities face. Hear what Eve, Health and Wellbeing Coordinator for First Choice, has to say: 

"Being part of the Wales REACH Project, I've loved seeing a core group form of people who are passionate about learning, sharing and creating. Wales REACH has provided the group with opportunities to try new things and form new friendships; some of these people may have never otherwise crossed paths despite their common interests. Their energy and enthusiasm has been infectious and it's been wonderful to join in with some of the sessions, hosted by kind and knowledgeable facilitators".

Keep an eye out for others upcoming blogs, showcasing the amazing work that’s been happening across all our participating communities. 

Wales REACH is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It is a partnership between thirteen organisations and is led by The Open University and Amgueddfa Cymru. It is funded with a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The current phase started in autumn 2024 and is scheduled to run until autumn 2026.

To celebrate Pride Month this year, some of our amazing ACPs will be hosting Pride themed workshops across some of our museums this June. As part of that celebration, we asked them to reflect on the themes and inspiration behind their workshop and what Pride means to them. 

Pride means solidarity and intersectionality - always has and always will! 

“You have worn our badge ‘Coal Not Dole’ and you know what harassment means, as we do. Now we will support you. It won’t change overnight, but now a hundred and forty thousand miners know … about black [communities] and gays and nuclear disarmament and we will never be the same.”

David Donovan speaking on behalf of the Dulais miners to a crowd 1,500 at the Pits and Perverts Ball, Camden Town, 10th December 1984. 

I was inspired to run several queer, intersectional badge-making workshops for Bloedd because of the legacy of LGSM. Lesbians and Gay men Support the Miners were a group who raised money for, and stood with, the 1984-1985 Miners Strike. They built connections with mining communities in South Wales, including Neath, Dulais and Swansea, as well as raising money for women’s support groups. A pin badge from this group is immortalised in the Amgueddfa Cymru collection. The badge was designed by LGSM member and activist Jonathan Blake.

LGSM is an incredible example of intersectional activism and queer solidarity. As the quote from David Donovan demonstrates, this movement was about groups supporting each other and uniting against systems of oppression and alienation. LGSM were passionate about class solidarity, and drew parallels between how the miners and LGBT+ communities were treated by the media (e.g. the vilification of the National Union of Mineworkers and the disinformation spread about the HIV/AIDS pandemic). Both groups also experienced police violence and political scapegoating. 

LGSM was also an important community for people diagnosed with HIV AIDS, like Jonathan Blake who was one of the first people diagnosed with HIV in the UK. HIV was widely misunderstood and stigmatised at the time, so LGSM providing a safe space for members with HIV would have been both radical and life-changing.

LGSM raised thousands of pounds to support the striking miners, putting on theatre performances and their famous ‘Pits and Perverts’ ball to raise funds for miners and their families. In turn, many miners came to march at Pride, and later in the year the NUM pushed for LGBT rights to be included in both TUC (Trades Union Congress) and Labour Party policies. This is such a perfect example of the important role that intersectional activism and class solidarity can play in society.

This is a message that we need now more than ever. This year alone we have witnessed the rolling-back of LGBT+ rights, the demonisation and scapegoating of trans communities, and the rise of right wing parties. We have seen global genocides, political atrocities, and the violation of human rights. We have also seen political tactics and media narratives that are meant to overwhelm and divide us. And we, as communities, have been hurt by these narratives and hurt by the systems that are taking away our rights, our benefits, our welfare. 

And so this Pride Month we need to unite and stand together. We need to embody the spirit of LGSM and come together to support each other. We are living in hard times -- we are living in a cost of living crisis -- and instead of being divided, we should be helping each other out with food drives and potlucks and fundraising events and protests and action. Community and love and solidarity. This is what Pride is about. 

These are the themes I hope to embody in my workshop. As a queer and disabled activist, I am a strong believer in intersectional activism. I think badges are brilliant ways to implement micro-activism and micro-resistance. Badges have been used in DIY and punk movements for years, and have long been used as a creative way to express queer identity and pride. For me, the LGSM badge in the museum’s collection is more than just an accessory. It symbolises a movement of hope and solidarity. By creating our own badges we get the chance to express ourselves and the causes we care for. 

Kaja Brown @kaja_amy_brown on Instagram 

Amgueddfa Cymru Producers [ACPs] are a group of young people aged 16 – 25 living in or from Wales who collaborate with the Museum through participatory and paid opportunities.

This is a space to deepen knowledge and to ensure that cultural and heritage spaces are more representational of the young people and their many cultures that make up Wales today. We are here to make heritage relevant!

We explore art, heritage and identity, environmentalism, natural science, social history and archaeology through our collections and by co-producing events, workshops, exhibitions, digital media, publications, development groups and more! Our ACPs work closely with departments across the Museum to help us deepen representation within our collections and programming, that reflects all communities in Wales. This includes expanding our LGBTQ+ collection, decolonising our collections and gathering working-class history through oral histories. ACPs can also bring their own ideas or topics they wish to explore through our collections!

You can sign up to our mailing list here to keep up to date with news and new opportunities.

If you have any queries you can email us on bloedd.ac@museumwales.ac.uk. Follow us on Instagram to keep updated on all things Bloedd!