Ian Giles, Studio Four
4 - 6 October
Utilising social networks, Ian Giles enables queer histories and contemporary experiences to be shared, recorded and celebrated through film, performance and events.
Ian Giles’ recent exhibitions and screenings include: Trojan Horse / Rainbow Flag, presented by Gasworks at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, London; After BUTT, NY Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, New York (2018); Video Club: Sex Talks, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2018); After BUTT, Chelsea Space, London (2018) and Connected Works, Harvard University, Cambridge USA (2016). Ian was an inaugural winner of the Shannon Michael Cane Award in 2018 and was a LUX Associate Artist 2012/13. He completed his MFA at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL in 2012.
“…the 30p entrance on Saturdays includes a whacking great sandwich buffet…” Bangs Disco at Studio Four, as remembered in Gay News.
Ian Giles hosted a weekend-long programme of events related to LGBTQI+ Norwich as part of his New Geographies commission at OUTPOST Gallery.
The events happened in and around Outhouse, a mobile queer space traveling across East Anglia. The transparent cylindrical space features photographs and ephemera related to historic and contemporary LGBTQI+ culture from the East. The title Outhouse is a nod to Outhouse East a Colchester charity offering support and information to LGBTQI+ people.
For OUTPOST; Giles collaborated with Joanne Foster Murdoch, David Shenton, Alison Graham and Chris Francis to produce a public programme, including a 1970s club-night in honour of Studio Four, the long-lost Norwich gay club. Earlier this year, Ian Giles established Open Ramble East, an inclusive and versatile group of people who organised rambling walks for local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex people. These walks were about celebrating LGBTQI+ sites in Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Cambridge and Colchester. Within the exhibition images from these walks are mixed with material from the Gay Outdoors Club archive, a national rambling group founded in 1973. The installation offered glimpses of proto gay couples from 17th Century Cambridge, queer symbolism and a rereading of landscape through an LGBTQI+ lens. Pink Is The Strongest Colour; a film presented within the installation, is made from found footage of which only the pink ink has not degraded. The film nods at a lack of preservation of LGBTQI+ objects and narratives.
Outhouse was produced by Originalprojects; in partnership with Firstsite, Kettle’s Yard and OUTPOST as part of New Geographies.
Thursday 3 October | 6-9pm
Studio Four
DJ musicandlights played a selection of 1970s dance and disco music in memory of Bangs Disco at Studio Four, the long-lost Norwich gay club-night active until 1983. The club was called Studio Four because it was next door to the three studios at Anglia Television.
Friday 4 October | 2pm - 4pm
The Dicey Game of Cottaging
Members of the public had a go at being a Lilly; (police officer), entrapping someone or try to escape the prying eyes of the police with the boardgame devised and illustrated by cartoonist David Shenton. Jo Foster-Murdoch and David encouraged an open discussion about how homosexuality has been policed, both nationally and locally. Tea and refreshments provided, but individuals were invited to bring any baked goods to share.
Saturday 5 October | 3 - 4pm
Getting Away From Distant Things
Poet Alison Graham shared her poems inspired by walks in Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Cambridge and Colchester. These newly commissioned poems are fluid, performative and warm; full of tastes, sound and activity. Alison is a graduate of the Creative Writing Poetry MA at the University of East Anglia.
Photo credit: Ian Giles