The work is primarily concerned with exploring aspects of gay and lesbian history, and the oppression and discrimination experienced by these groups within western society.
Although the work is politically charged in terms of content, it retains a sense of universal significance and contemplation by holding the viewer with an aesthetic which encourages enquiry and discovery rather than overt political activism. The work often incorporates an eclectic range of media and materials
which operate to form juxtapositions of meaning and references. This serves to heighten the visual aesthetic important to the work without marginalising its intention as art which challenges a
hegemonic cultural climate that is heterosexist and misogynist.
The work in progress in this exhibition focuses around the continued sourcing and (re)presentation of archive photographic material from Germany depicting homosexual men prior to the outbreak of World War Two and during the Nazi period. Scenes of decadence quickly give way to mug shots of
German homosexual men interned in Auschwitz on the grounds of their sexuality.
Email: n.hurlstone@mmu.ac.uk
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