Brisbane Pride To Donate Historic Gilbert Baker Pride Flag To Queensland Museum
Image: Images: Ange Bailey (left) and Funky Munky (Right & Middle)
The Queensland Museum are hosting a historic panel event this month exploring the LGBTQIA+ history of Brisbane Pride.
Featuring an intergenerational panel discussion the event will also include a handover of some important Brisbane Pride history.
Brisbane Pride to handover Gilbert Baker flag to Queensland Museum
The Queensland Museum event, Evolving Pride, will reflect on the 35 year legacy of the organisation and the vitally important role it has shared in shaping our community.
“Join this intergenerational panel of LGBTQ+ community members for a conversation focused on Pride in Queensland – its meaning and how we celebrate” says the official description of the event.
Evolving Pride will feature past and current board members of the organisation and community members as they share their stories in this intimate in conversation event.
Guests are invited to view the historic Make A Scene exhibition from 5pm before the event comments at 6pm.
“This collaboration with Brisbane Pride is a positive way for Queensland Museum to build a closer relationship with the LGBTQ+ community, and to create a space for the collective memories of our community to shared and celebrated” says Christopher Salter, Head of the Cultures and Histories program at the museum and proud member of the LGBTQ+ community.
“We hope that younger members of the community in particular, can feel a sense of empowerment by connecting with our queer histories, and our own queer culture through the discussion” he told The Star Observer.
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During the event representatives will handover a piece of LGBTQIA+ history that Brisbane Pride have been custodians of for over a decade, a section of the Gilbert Baker 25th Anniversary Pride Flag.
“We are grateful to Brisbane Pride for this historic donation” said Christopher Salter.
“The flag will contribute to the visibility of the LGBTQ+ community and create important representation of our lived experience here in Queensland, within the State Collection. It will be a part of our history preserved for perpetuity.”
“There is also something poetic in it being one part of Gilbert Baker’s larger flag that has been shared around the world – a reminder of our connectedness across space and time, and both a symbol and a physical object that reflects our continuing strength, resilience, and capacity for joy. Having this permanent reminder in the museum collection makes it a very special donation” he said.
Baker first created the original flag with a collective in 1978, in 1994 after moving to New York he created what was the largest pride flag at the time to commemorate 25 years since the Stonewall riots.
In 2003 to mark 25 years since the original creation of the flag in 1978 he made the 25th Anniversary Pride Flag which was even longer, at one and a quarter miles long it stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean in Key West. The flag was carried through the streets by thousands of members of the community and was even recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest flag at the time.
The flag was then cut up and sent to over 100 pride organisations around the world, allowing them to store and preserve their own piece of our history, one of the recipients of a piece was Brisbane Pride.
After years as custodians of this piece of history which has marched through the streets of Brisbane over countless years, it will now officially be handed over to the Queensland Museum to preserve for years to come.
“As we reflect on 35 years of Brisbane Pride, we are reminded that history is not static — it guides us forward” Brisbane Pride president James McCarthy told The Star Observer.
“By placing the 25th anniversary Gilbert Baker flag in the Queensland Museum, we honour our past and signal our determination to build a future where equality, dignity and joy are lived realities for every LGBTQIA+ person in Queensland.”
Evolving Pride takes place at the Queensland Museum on Thursday September 18 from 6pm.
Guests can register online for FREE tickets via the link here.
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