Climbing up on Sunset Hill - Why art matters in LGBT+ history
A view from ‘Sunset Hill’
FEBRUARY is LGBT+ History Month. We’ve asked our trustees to share a reflection. Here our trustee Neil Rees reflects on the theme of this year’s festival, Politics In Art.
Just a few miles up the road from where I live is a special place that my daughter and I know as ‘Sunset Hill’. Looking out over the Mersey estuary and the Irish Sea, it is the place to go on those occasional evenings that promise a really decent display.
Sky laced with fire that blur and merge, fade and glow, a constantly evolving spectacle of light painted by the hand of God with an apparently infinite palette of colours. We would spend a good hour just sitting, watching, until the cold night air finally sent us home, a sliver of orange still lining the distant horizon.
I never tire of sunsets. But why? After all, a sunset’s nothing more than the passing of lightwaves through suspended airborne dust and their fading refraction in the gasses of the earth’s atmosphere, projected onto our retina and converted into neural impulses that reach our brain. Yet somehow it is perceived as a thing of beauty.
Beauty. We are hard-wired to appreciate beauty. Made in the image of God, we are head and heart. Our brain is not only capable of reciting facts, calculating trajectories or recognising faces; it also captures emotion and intensity, despair and elation, and beauty. Human life is so much more than a collection of cold, hard facts and it is art in its many expressions that connects us with this, our other self. Neither science nor art have a monopoly on truth; only together do they forge human knowledge and understanding of reality.
So, the book of God’s words and the canvas of God’s works must be viewed together. As the psalmist says, ‘How clearly the sky reveals God's glory! How plainly it shows what he has done!’ (Psalm 19:1). We will never understand God without learning to appreciate beauty and allowing him to speak not only in words, but in language that runs much deeper.
History too - whether by this we mean the events as they unfold that form our story or the way it is recorded after the event - must speak to the heart, not just to the head. Political and social change is wrought by appeals to both reason and passion, and LGBT+ history is no different. The legal battles for the full equality of LGBT+ people in the UK are not fought only in the corridors of Parliament or magistrates’ courts but in the hearts and minds of people right across the country and in this, artistic work of all types is key. Just think of the impact of the films Brokeback Mountain (2005) or Moonlight (2017), or the recent Channel 4 production It’s a Sin; they both reflect changing attitudes and contribute to ongoing and future change.
We are only where we are today because people have used their God-given talents to express truth in ways that strike deep chords, moulding thoughts, feelings and ultimately, actions. Whether visual arts, performing arts, or literary expression, to name just a few, the experiences, challenge, insights, passion or protest conveyed through the arts contribute to the reimagining of our societies and creation of a different world, a better world. Tomorrow’s LGBT+ history will bear the mark of the artists of today, not just the activists and advocates.
And by ‘artist’, we’re not talking only about the Rembrandts, Bigelows or Steinbecks of this world; art is not just for the ‘professionals’, it’s for you and me. So, all you budding poets, artists, musicians, song-writers, sculptors, cooks, writers, photographers, videographers, actors, graphic designers, potters, dancers, crafters, sew-ers and knitters (apologies if I’ve missed anyone, but all are more than welcome!)