Pitch up at The Pitt Rivers Museum this Friday for the national launch of LGBT+ History Month 2020 and enjoy a pride-filled evening in the Museum with tours, talks, poetry, music, stalls, activities and much more.

The LGBT+ History Month launch event will take place with a series of talks from speakers including Dean Atta, poet and author of The Black Flamingo; Louise Wallwein, award-winning poet, playwright and performer; Mike Parker, author of On the Red Hill, Caroline Page & Commander Roly Woods, authors of And Fighting with Pride.

Lit up with rainbow lights and filled with music, the Pitt Rivers will be hosting stalls from a wide range of organisations such as Pink Times, Schools Out, CHE, Oxford Pride and many more, with Blackwell’s LGBT+ Bookstall on hand to sell selected titles.

You can sign up for activism tours, go behind the scenes with the Beyond the Binary project and add your story to the cape-making activity on the Museum Balcony.  .

Have your photo taken at My Normal’s Proud Portraits Studio, celebrating your individuality and tell us what makes you proud! Join the wonderful comic artist Jack as he captures the spirit of the evening in the form of a zine.

Talks curated by Oxford Queer Studies Network include A Queer History of the Dictionary, Moving and Moved: Reading Kewpie’s District Six, From Inter-racial Castration to Intra-Racial Intimacy: A Brief History of East Asian Men on the Anglo-American Screen and more!

Grab a space in the Old Library to enjoy a scintillating programme of poetry, music and drag curated by My Normal. Junk Whale will be providing fuzzy big-hearted Indie rock; there will be poetry with Keith Jarrett, a former UK Poetry Slam Champion, who writes lyrically rich poems charged with passion and humour and Aphra Taylor will perform, mixing the intimacy and melody of folk with ‘the slacker scuzz of grunge’.

A big highlight will be a performance by Drag Syndrome, the world’s first Drag troupe featuring highly addictive drag queens and kings with Down’s Syndrome.

Next door in the Museum of Natural History, there will be activities and stalls to celebrate the wealth of diversity in the natural world, themed to accompany the current First Animals exhibition and a pay bar, so that you can relax sipping drinks amongst the dinosaurs!

Outside on the lawn, Luxmuralis will be projecting a dazzling new Diversity themed light and sound show on the front of the Museums, a stunningly atmospheric start to your magical night at the museums!

Join from 7 -10pm to celebrate Diversity in all forms, truly something for everyone!

This event is part of the Oxford City Council Christmas Light Festival 2019.

go to prm.ox.ac.uk/event/museum-late-night-diversity for more details

Louise Hancock