It’s Fred again. (@iffybiro & @fredashleighthornton)
The first same sex relationship I ever saw was a kiss between two characters in ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’. I must have been about six or seven years old. I was scandalized. My mum didn’t know any LGBTQ+ people at this time in our lives and it was the first time I encountered queerness. I was scared and outraged, and I had no idea why. Homophobia had already seeped into my baby brain somehow without ever having knowingly seen or been around LGBT+ people. Homophobes are always arguing that we are pushing the ‘queer agenda’ down their throats or in their faces whilst gendered ear plugs and ‘Love Island’ exist. I had to work out my own queerphobia and am still having to do that each day as an openly queer person. I grew out of the homophobia quickly, though my first reaction to queerness was negative. I wonder how much quicker it would have happened and if it would have happened at all had there been more positive representation.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
It’s Fred (@iffbiro & @fredashleighthornton)
My friend Genie has started calling me ‘Nanafred’. Mainly because I like knitting, birds and napping. We were talking about whether we wanted to have children one day and as someone with a butt tonne of younger siblings I feel I have spent enough time looking after kids, but I do still think kids are great. She then said I could be ‘Nanafred’ to her kids when she has them. Which works out great for me because we can bake and do crafts and stuff, but then I can give the kids back at the end of the day. I have known that I didn’t want kids since I was 13, but also have been kind of conflicted about it because I love kids and want a family. I found out a few years ago that I may not be able to ever conceive children of my own which made me confront those feelings again. I was already pretty resolved that if I were to have kids, I would adopt but learning about my biology forced me to think about what I actually wanted in a family. And being ‘Nanafred’ is exactly it. Kids are great but bloody exhausting; I have things I want to pass on to children and teach them but also, I like having my own space. After reading ‘Pleasure Activism by @adriennemareebrown I was also introduced to families that operate outside of the cis/het norm and are full of love and support for each other and made me realise that I can have that for myself too. It takes more than two parents to raise a child and I am more than happy to be ‘Nanafred’ to my friend’s kids.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
It’s Fred (@iffybiro & @fredashleighthornton)
I remember the first out queer person I knew, a friend of my nan’s called Verity. I thought she was great, and she always had the coolest trousers. My nan would later ditch Verity in a very cruel way and go on to talk badly about her for being a lesbian. (For context, my nan is the kind of person who has racist dolls on display in her living room and once handed me a Bible with a union jack on the front and the first page was a picture of the Queen because you know, the Queen wrote the Bible obviously.) I was sad when Verity was no longer around my nan’s house because she never spoke down to me and introduced me to lebkuchen, a German gingerbread type thing that I now love and eat loads of every Christmas time. And she also knew all about foraging and natural remedies for things. She was like a cool witch. Verity was very much herself and her interactions didn’t feel performative as I started to notice other interactions did with my more homophobic family. (Though they’d never accept being called homophobic because they love Queen and Elton John.)
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
ARTICLE 16 is exhibited in a non-traditional format outside the gallery walls, projected outside onto the pavement at night. Due to possible covid restrictions and the time the piece becomes visible, it maybe difficult for people to see the piece as much as they may like. So we will be having an online launch day, where people can view the artwork online for a limited time. Watch this space!
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
The artwork hopes to capture LGBTQI+ families using a format that has been traditionally associated with the typical ‘nuclear family’, to playfully insert queer people and families into a shared cultural memory, to challenge certain assumptions about what makes a family, to increase visibility, and to carve out space.
Hi everyone, It is Fred again. (@iffybiro & @fredashleighthornton)
As Pride month starts, I get excited to see all the colours in the street and see all the beautiful people celebrating who they are. But alas, as a physically disabled and mentally ill queer, I am not about all that marching and all that noise. Happy to watch it, never want it to go away, but let me sit down in a quiet corner. This is part of why I love ARTICLE 16 so much. Showing the quieter more everyday part of queer lives, best visible at night with the nostalgic feel of super 8mm film. It is comforting and reassuring to me with my own familial trauma to see domestic representation of the LGBTQ+ community existing peacefully in the loving families they have built for themselves.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece by Asten Holmes-Elliott exhibiting @johnhansardgallery, @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
ARTICLE 16 is a new video art piece exhibiting @johnhansardgallery , @aspacearts The Alfred Arcade, and The Spark Building @solentuniversity, until 19th June.
The artwork hopes to capture LGBTQI+ families using a format that has been traditionally associated with the typical ‘nuclear family’, to playfully insert queer people and families into a shared cultural memory, to challenge certain assumptions about what makes a family, to increase visibility, and to carve out space.
Thank you so much to @iamnowbenn and @xyzchar for participating in the project, and filming lil Silver here, and twin Angel somewhere climbing a highchair off frame, chasing bubbles.
