Beyond the Binary

The Pitt Rivers Museum is committed to standing as an ally with LGBTIAQ+ communities and creating space for self-representation. We celebrate the strength and agency of LGBTQIA+ communities and support individuals and groups in challenging societal binaries around gender, sexuality and power dynamics.

Beyond the Binary was a project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund which put LGBTIAQ+ stories told by LGBTIAQ+ people at the heart of the museum – from it’s public galleries, to its digital databases. This project continued work at the museum which contests any notion that LGBTIAQ+ lives are a ‘western’ invention, a ‘new trend’ or that queer people do not have history. It was developed through consultation with community partners, and built on work conducted in 2016-2018 as part of the Out in Oxford LGBTQ+ museums trail initiative. Beyond the Binary focussed specifically on making the museum’s collections available to communities with LGBTIAQ+ lived-experiences to help them uncover and narrate their own stories, challenging the erasure of queer voices. In so doing, the project reflected on material from across the globe and from many historical periods that were already part of the collection, as well as commissioning and collecting new material to add contemporary queer perspectives.