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.