REUNION 79:21 — Revisiting Black Queer London Clubland celebrates an extraordinary period of creativity, resilience, and community within Black Queer and Trans nightlife in the UK.
In the 1980s, underground parties offered Black Queer and Trans people sanctuaries from discrimination — spaces of self-expression, healing, and freedom. These gatherings transformed exclusion into belonging, where music and movement became acts of liberation.
This exhibition revisits the evolution of London’s Black Queer club scene from 1979 to 2021 — through newly commissioned interviews of the founding impresarios; a selection of memorabilia sourced from private and public archives, and will feature the photographs of Dave Swindell's, former Time Out Clubs Editor (1986–2009), whose archive captures the early formation of Black Queer visibility in London. His never before exhibited, intimate images of 1980s and 1990s nightlife, document a queer scene within a queer scene.
Held for 1 week only at the quaintly boutique Great Pulteney Street Gallery in Soho, this landmark exhibition will include a talk by a veteran activist and changemaker, Vernal Scott who will expand on themes of kinship and shared belonging, HIV and Early LGBTQ activism, and the fight for individual sovereignty at a critical time in the UK for black and queer intersectional Identity evolution . ,
The Full programme will feature an Open Late Event: REUNION NIGHT, and as we head into LGBTQ Month 2026, more events will be released.