AS part of the Pitt Rivers Museum's commitment to stand as an ally with LGBTQ communities, a new exhibition has opened just in time for Pride month.

Beyond the Binary puts LGBTQ stories at the heart of the museum – from its public galleries to its digital databases – in order to celebrate the strength of the communities and supports individuals and groups in challenging societal binaries around gender, sexuality and power dynamics.

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The exhibition, which opened for visitors on Tuesday, explores the lived experience of members of the LGBTQ communities, who co-curated the content, telling their own very personal stories.

Objects and images selected from the museum's collections are displayed alongside loaned and newly-collected contemporary artworks and protest pamphlets.

The museum regularly displays exhibitions on issues relevant to local communities and to wider audiences and has been working on the Beyond the Binary project with queer artists since 2016.

Co-produced with more than 40 community partners, the exhibition was created by making the Museum’s collections available to help uncover and narrate deeply personal stories, challenging the conventional silencing of queer voices.

The result is an exhibition that contests the notion that LGBTQ lives are a western invention, a new trend or that queer people do not have history.

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It asks visitors to consider the binary groupings that people are often categorised into – male/female, straight/gay, victor/victim – and how these rigid groups do not work, instead often oppress and exclude.

Dan Laurin, one of the community curators of the exhibition, spoke about his 'personal and professional' motives: "As a transgender Métis man, I was drawn to the project's endeavour to connect with researchers and artists to talk about decolonisation, gender and sexual identity.

"However, this was not just a momentous volunteer opportunity for me.

"Working as a curator for the project provided me another way to connect with my ancestors and nation even when I was very far from home, studying for a degree in an entirely different country."