#equalityquilt: Day 3

Day three!

The day started with this couple coming into the space: Bonnie Slade and Jane Cullingworth. The pair of them recently got married together in Toronto for World Pride which happened at the end of June. This was the first time I've heard of World Pride and they went to get hitched with a load of other people to celebrate same sex marriage!

They showed me a couple of pictures from the day...

 This is the castle they all got married in. You can find out more about the day here: http://www.worldpridetoronto.com/festival/events-calendar/2014/my-big-fab-gay-garden-wedding

 I think this image is beautiful, what a perfect day to celebrate together. I'm definitely incorporating this image into the quilt to represent these two wonderful Glaswegians women. 

 I was having a great talk with this woman from Bangor who was visiting on business and came into the museum out of curiosity - she was sharing interesting insights to how people are represented and treated in India.

 This contribution is from a visitor from Germany who wrote this message and tried to translate it for me.

 I managed to make some time to also get a couple of twitter based contributions generated! This one is from Chris Bye and is actually a quote by Liz Fieldman. There were also a group from Salford community group who have invited me to do a workshop with their centre in the future!

 This pair were very competitive with their contributions to create the perfect image they both did equally brilliantly :)

  These are three of my colleagues from work, I'm very thankful they turned up and I hope to see some more (yes any of you reading this from work, this is a hint I'm expecting you to come and participate :-D)

  

  I had my first debate with someone who was anti same-sex marriage, I had encouraged a woman and her daughter to take part in some art. They took a seat and once I started to explain about the project, she asked me to stop as she was against same-sex marriage. Luckily her daughter had already started making a contribution and the mother didn't want to interrupt her, so she let her continue and we were able to have a conversation about same sex marriage. We were able to share our beliefs with each other politely. I suggested she look what other people had contributed on the wall, how previously people had to protest to gain the right for same sex marriage. I expressed how I felt it was unfair that lgbt people were excluded from being able to get married. She didn't agree that it was necessary for us to get married and we should respect religious beliefs. I raised that my sister and her partner are getting married and that her partner is Christian and it was important to her that she was able to get married. Without the same sex marriage bill she would have been excluded and not given the opportunity to get married. As a part of her faith it is important to her to able to be married. I also explained that I personally have less interest in being married but I do feel it is important for those who do want a choice to get married should be able to like partners who are the opposite sex. She explained that Jesus didn't get married and therefore it didn't seem so bad to her that other people couldn't, she did acknowledge however that it's easier for her to say as some one who was married with a child and wasn't someone who was in a position of being in a same sex relationship and wanting to become married.  

 This was the aftermath of a group of six brilliant kids with a mum who was looking after them all. They were so much fun, they enjoyed dipping the pom-poms in paints, adding glitter and generally making very unique contributions! The mum had also taken them to an anti-fracking protest so it was great to see that they had decided to also add in a little contribution about that as well!

 This was a really exciting and fortuitous moment. I asked if these two wanted to take part and then realised one of them was Sue Sanders!!! She has recently been nominated for a life time achievement award. It was so awesome to talk to her, I had a chance to speak with her briefly at the schools out conference earlier in the year. She was basically a huge driving force behind LGBT history month. She was with Jeff Evans who had recently worked with People's History Museum to help design a tour explaining the links to the LGBT content within the collections. They're both keen to include the qulit project in the next LGBT history month next year, I've been emailing them updates with my project but now having these two in front of the project has help to get them on board! This wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for the platform provided by People's History Musuem so I'm hugely grateful to be able to be to present my evolving work as they wouldn't have been aware of the project without it! 

 These two were also a part of the protests which were taking place they were both ace and really good fun to natter with, I love their campaigns the're involved in!

 The two on the left are from Spain and the woman to the right is Catherine O'Donnell who the Play Your Part Engagement & Events Officer and basically made this opportunity happen! So many thanks to Catherine otherwise none of this would have been possible :)

 So at the end of day three this is how the studio space is looking. Nearly at the bottom of the wall, I know I've reached past the 100 stage.