"Our gay communes and collectives must not be mere convenient living arrangements or worse, just extensions of the gay ghetto. They must be a focus of consciousness-raising life, raising or increasing our awareness of our real oppression and of gay liberation activity, a new focal point for members of the gay community." - Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, London 1971.
The street, the bar, the park and the kitchen; the history of homosexuality is tied up with the significance of place.
For the first Companion walk Huw Lemmey discussed 50 years of changing relationships between gay men and the places lives have formed in East London, looking at how housing, law and politics have changed the way we see ourselves. The group travelled from Highbury and Islington to Dalston stopping at different sites, such as the 1980’s gay commune Wild Lavender, Abney Park Cemetery, Dalston Junction and finishing at The Glory.
Huw Lemmey is a writer and author from London. He has written for Architectural Review, Icon, Art Monthly and L'Uomo Vogue, amongst others.
