Liberating Love explored how queer histories are remembered, made visible and carried forward within a borough where many of the spaces once associated with queer life have disappeared.
At the centre of the exhibition was a dialogue between generations. The activism and archive of Ray Harvey-Amer were brought into conversation with Dare TruScott and contemporary queer experience in Croydon, tracing connections between past struggles, changing forms of visibility and the communities occupying the borough today.
The exhibition moved between archive and living experience. The Evidence Wall assembled photographs, documents and personal histories alongside significant moments in Pride history, while an open-call portrait project led by Croydon-based photographer Lukasz Izdebski brought together more than 40 local participants. The resulting portraits formed a contemporary record of Croydon’s queer community, placing present-day faces alongside histories that risk becoming less visible.
The project also moved beyond the exhibition space. A series of street banners carrying quotations from queer artists, writers and activists inserted queer voices directly into Croydon’s public landscape, while workshops, conversations and participatory activities invited local people to contribute their own experiences.
Rather than presenting queer history as a linear story of progress, Liberating Love approached it as something continually constructed through memory, visibility and collective participation. Across archive, portraiture and public space, the project asked what survives when physical spaces disappear, and how a community can continue to recognise itself across generations.
