It's A Love Thing provides an important visual history of London’s sexual health services and the key role collaboration between support organisations, artists and creatives has played in sustaining the sexual health landscape over the last thirty years.
This exhibition of posters from 1987 to 2015 includes photography by artists Sunil Gupta, Suzanne Roden, Parminder Sekhon and Photo Co-Op, amongst many others. Spectra CIC holds a collection of over 100 campaign posters that advocate for safer sexual health practices, active consent and pride in identity providing a glimpse into the history of their impactful work alongside partner organisations. Artists Jesse Glazzard and Pank Sethi have created two new campaign posters responding to the archive, in collaboration with Spectra CIC staff.
The exhibited posters invite visitors to “fuck safely, love safely”, “take pride in who you are”, “get set for safer sex” and “...care for our lovers, families, friends and ourselves”. They promote safer sex practices free from shame, spread awareness of vaccines and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, dispel harmful myths about HIV, tackle transphobic and homophobic hate crimes and amplify support services available for various community groups. Showing images of love across cultures, they are an important celebration of LGBTQIA+ relationships in their many forms.
Lamination, stapling, Velcro marks and creasing nod to the primary function of these healthcare posters which were taken to events, disseminated between partner organisations or, in some cases, still hang on the walls of Spectra CIC’s offices, where the organisation continues to offer sexual health, wellbeing and gender services.
The 1990s British LGBTQIA+ experience was defined, in part, by the emergence of campaigns and grassroots direct-action movements that were established to counter the inequality experienced by LGBTQIA+ Britons. Spectra CIC was founded in 1996 as the West London Gay Men’s Project to help prevent HIV transmission in local high-risk populations by delivering community services and contributing to evidence-based research. Spectra CIC, alongside Terrence Higgins Trust, METRO Charity, Big Up, Naz and North London Line Lesbian and Gay Youth Project, are amongst several LGBTQIA+ activist organisations and campaigners that advocate for the sexual, mental, physical and social well-being of LGBTQIA+ people living in London and across Britain.
It's A Love Thing is a small window into the sustained efforts of many trailblazing sexual health campaigners, activists and advocates over the last thirty years. The exhibition explores what it means to be in a community with one another and the vital conversations and knowledge sharing between LGBTQIA+ people living and loving across time.
Every effort has been made to contact and credit the relevant organisations and photographers behind the posters in this exhibition. If you were involved in any of the works on display, or have information you would like to share, please get in touch at [email protected].
This exhibition forms part of Tender Living, supported by Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
