The LGBTQIA+ Cultural Barometer has been created by a coalition of LGBTQIA+ cultural organisations coming together led by Curious Arts (Hartlepool) in partnership with Marlborough Productions (Brighton) and Fatt Projects (Birmingham) with funding from Arts Council, England.
The project is being delivered on behalf of curious arts by project manager Adam Carver (Fatt Projects) working in collaboration with researcher Chloe Turner.
CURIOUS ARTS | www.curiousarts.org.uk
Curious Arts is a North East based arts, heritage and youth charity, focused on championing and developing LGBTQIA+ arts, artists and communities. We deliver a variety of creative projects and events, our work actively responds tot he needs of our communities.
Inviting everyone to be curious, celebrate and LGBTQIA+ culture and be part of a kinder fairer future. Our values are creativity, inclusivity and visibility. Our work is across three main programmes;
Arts & Development:
Artist Development, workshops, commissions and platforms, festivals, producer support and audience development projects with partner venues
Family & Youth:
National touring LGBTQAI+ Family touring projects including, Wildflower, Mini Pride and Turkey and The Caterpillar.
Curious Young Creatives across Hartlepool Middlesbrough, Newcastle & Sunderland.
Community & Heritage:
volunteering, community prides, Curious Histories and Queering North East History Project and network.
We coordinate Queer Arts North, a network of arts organisations strategically supporting LGBTQIA+ arts, artists, organisations, venues and festivals across the North of England. The network works to enable its partners to support, collaborate and share with each other methods of best practice through regular networking meetings and sector facing activity hosted across the North.
MARLBOROUGH PRODUCTIONS | www.marlboroughproductions.org.uk
Marlborough Productions is a catalyst for queer culture and community. As a leading UK producer of queer-led, intersectional performances, parties, heritage and radical community gatherings, it has commissioned and supported critically acclaimed theatre works from award winning artists Emma Frankland (No Apologies, Galatea), Harry Clayton-Wright (Sex Education, The Fortnight, Mr Blackpool), Ray Young (Nightclubbing, OUT), Krishna Istha (First Trimester), Lucy McCormick (Post Popular), Malik Nashad Sharpe ($elfies, He’s Dead), Gary Clarke (New Ways of Living), Travis Alabanza, Jamila Johnson-Small, Rosana Cade, Ivor MacAskill, Subira Joy and Ebony Rose Dark.
Marlborough Productions’ flagship projects include: New Queers on the Block, an artist and community development programme currently supporting a series of radical queer-led festivals in underserved queer capitals across England in Blackpool, Hastings, Bradford and Portsmouth; Producer Gathering, offering space for discussion, reflection, learning opportunities and free resources for independent producers in the cultural sector; Queer Heritage South, a multi-year project capturing, archiving and celebrating the unique LGBTQIA+ heritage in Brighton & Hove while empowering communities across the region to take ownership of their own local queer history; and Radical Rhizomes, a transformational community space and events programme centring QTIPoC individuals in Brighton and Hove.
The organisation is championed as “a refuge for cutting-edge performance” (The Guardian) and “The jewel in the crown of Brighton’s queer and non-binary scene” (Culture Tip).
FATT PROJECTS | www.fattprojects.org
Fatt Projects is a Birmingham based community centred non-profit that uses queer performance as a strategy to advance queer joy and create change for LGBTQ+ communities. We describe our work as full-fat, it celebrates queerness, community, care, empowerment, and change-making.
Our projects have included creating a pioneering development model supporting the creation of queer positive performance work for children and family audiences in PALAVER; touring interactive public space interventions to get communities dancing with Disco Tea Party, Big Fatt Dance Party & Big Gay Disco BIke; and MOBILISE a year-long project creating accessible, sober queer dance parties for communities in Birmingham, culminating in a large-scale participatory protest performance with almost 100 participants from the local LGBTQ+ community leading the 2022 Pride Parade. In 2025 we founded The Full Fatt Sound, a new queer choir for Birmingham.
We have created resources to support nightlife organisers to create accessible events, and delivered training and consultancy for arts & cultural organisations on mitigating and managing backlash, and building a strategy for care to support people experiencing this.