Research Seminar: Dr Kit Heyam
- Date: Wednesday 1 May 2024, 15:00 – 16:30
- Location: Baines Wing SR (2.14)
- Type: Seminars and lectures, Seminar series
- Cost: Free
Dr Kit Heyam presents a seminar entitled: 'Gendering the Royal Armouries: Collaboration and Queer Community Engagement'.
This seminar is part of the Women, Gender and Sexuality and Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums series in the School of History.
In 2023, the Leeds 2023 ‘Hidden Stories’ strand produced a set of community-led projects focusing on marginalised histories. At the Royal Armouries, a team of local LGBTQ+ volunteers produced ‘Forgotten Battles: Gender in the Armouries’, an object trail and creative exhibition uncovering hidden stories of gender in the museum's collection.
In this reflective workshop, Kit Heyam — who acted as Community Project Lead, and co-authored the ‘Gendering the Museum’ toolkit which inspired the project — will share insights from the project about what makes a successful collaboration between academics and museums and an effective community engagement project, and will facilitate attendees to reflect on their own opportunities for collaboration with heritage organisations.
About the Speaker
Dr Kit Heyam (they/he) is a writer, researcher, heritage practitioner and trans awareness trainer. They are the author of Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender (2022), which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Nonfiction; and the co-author, with James Daybell (University of Plymouth), of ‘Gendering the Museum: A Toolkit’. They are currently an associate lecturer in Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Surrey, and an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Impact Fellow at the Royal Armouries.
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Image copyright Kit Heyam. The exhibition and trail ‘Forgotten Battles: Gender in the Royal Armouries’ are open until November 2024.