One
of the loveliest moments of my life happened this morning. I’ve just found out,
by fluke, that I inadvertently played a
part in the creation of a new exhibition I admire.
This
is what happened. I was googling for more information about the Queer at Sea exhibition that’s just
opened in Canada. I found a podcast by museologists
at the Maritime Museum British Columbia.
In
it MMBC Board member Jelena Putnik (pictured) said
that its Queer at Sea exhibition developed
when Jamie Webb, ‘our board chair, was
out east in Halifax [Nova Scotia] and came across the Hello Sailor! exhibit of queer lives in the trans-continental liner
community.’
2006-2011
Now,
it so happens that I (Jo) was co-curator of the original Hello Sailor! exhibition, in Liverpool in 2006. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax NS then hired it and expanded
it in 2011.
I’d
been delighted to go out and be part of the launching process in Halifax. See this pic of that
happy opening night (I'm in the foreground, in a dark top).
I hadn't known maritime museums could rock, till then!
Anyway,
a decade later Jelena recalled that Jamie (pictured) had been ‘really excited about the
exhibit, loved that it featured part of the history of the maritime community
that doesn’t often get seen or heard ... [He] came back really charged, with
ideas about how we can do something similar on the west coast [of Canada].’
MMBC Executive Director Curator Brittany Vis (pictured) added ‘Around the same time of that happening, museum staff here were also aware of that exhibit and ... starting to consider, “Oh, like maybe there’s something we could do on this coast as well.”
'It just finally became the right time... I was like, “... that was right on my list as well’” ...[there was] a melding of everyone’s minds all at once.'
2022
And the result? On May 17 this year the exhibition, curated by Heather Feeney (pictured looking up at boat) opened in Victoria, BC.
Did I get to celebrate there as I had in Halifax, NS?
No. But I’m hoping a fairy-godmother will help me go out to Canada and see this interesting off-shoot of a dream I had round about 1975.
I never imagined then, pre-internet, that the subject of homosexuality at sea would grow in all these interesting ways!
Learning more
# Hear/read the podcast about the evolution of the current Victoria Queer at Sea exhibition at Queer(y)ing Museums: Maritime Museum of BC: https://museum.bc.ca/brain/transcript-queerying-museums-maritime-museum-of-bc/
# Take a virtual tour of the Queer at Sea exhibition at https://mmbc.bc.ca/queer-at-sea
# Watch the Halifax curator Dan Conlin (pictured) and me speaking about the 2011 exhibition on TV:.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiC9I4dbO4o
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