The second stage of the ‘Our Screen Heritage’ programme is underway.

Following on from an amazing series of LGBTQIA+ history clubs, which saw presentations exploring the lives and stories of older lesbians, the power of the everyday object in telling LGBTQIA+ histories and a reimaging of Margate’s queer history, the ‘Our Screen Heritage’ project has launched its Community Curator programme. The programme will provide volunteers with the opportunity to become part of a group of radical Community Curators, investigating and curating the queer screen heritage of Folkestone and Margate.

The Community Curator programme has kicked off with two trainings in Margate and Folkestone. These sessions introduced SASE (Screen Archive South East), it’s remit to collect, preserve, research and provide access to screen material related to the South East, discussed the aims of the ‘Our screen Heritage’ project and considered what goes into archiving and cataloguing collections.

In total four fortnightly training sessions will be run, covering topics such as community curation and digital preservation. As well as this, they will offer the chance to come together as a community to discuss the ways that local LGBTQIA+ screen heritage can be told, collected and preserved. The sessions will build towards the opportunity for Curators to work with a filmmaker to create film heritage packages and design a set of public events in Folkestone and Margate.

For more details about the project, and to be kept up to date with all the latest news subscribe to our newsletter, or follow our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We also have a handy list of upcoming events in both Margate and Folkestone!

Think you might have footage that would be of interest to our Community Curators? Or have footage of LGBTQIA+ life shot in Kent or the South East that could be preserved in SASE archive? Keep an eye out for our public film search that will be launching soon!