Our Proud Past

Manchester has provided a dedicated community centre for LGBT+ people since 1978. After occupying several basement homes in the 1970s and 80s, the Centre was first built on Sidney Street in 1988, and re-built in the same location in 2022. This photography series documents the building and the community groups who met and meet there. The photos are shown in ‘before and after’ pairings. The ‘before’ photos were taken in 2019 ahead of the original Centre getting demolished. The ‘after’ photos were taken four years later and a year since the new Centre opened. It was important to capture the Centre at a very precise moment, just before demolition; to show just how full the building was at the end, with over 15 groups meeting there regularly, a lively vegetarian cafe feeding students and academics from the universities adjacent as well as accommodating around 30 - 40 staff working for The Proud Trust in shared offices. To depict this a photographic study was undertaken in the months leading up to demolition which documented the activities and groups that occupied the building. The resulting photographs visually emphasise the notion that a community-use building means so much more than the space available, more than the bricks and mortar it is made from. Even though the building was in need of repairs, it was much loved by those who occupied it and this became even more obvious as each user group had its photo taken, with stories and memories being recounted as members got into formation for the photograph.