Recipient organisationCardiff UniversitySource-published name: Cardiff University
Funding£112K
PeriodSept 2025 — Sept 2029
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
A museum in Wales now holds the first significant personal collection documenting the domestic lives of a gay couple who met in 1949 and stayed together until their deaths in 2011. This project will co-create stories from the Reg and George archive to understand how gay rights, lifecycles, and intimate care arrangements changed over six decades, and to challenge how museums typically handle LGBTQ+ histories. The research matters because most museum collections and public narratives overlook the ordinary, long-term relationships of older LGBTQ+ people, leaving a gap in both historical record and intergenerational understanding. If successful, the work could reshape how museums across the UK and beyond display and interpret LGBTQ+ lives—not as isolated exhibits, but as part of everyday domestic and caring experiences. It may also inform how cultural institutions collaborate with communities to tell these stories. The project is fundamentally about representation and methodology, not immediate practical application, but its findings could influence future museum practices, public education, and how older LGBTQ+ people see their own histories reflected in national collections.
View original technical description
In 2022 Amgueddfa Cymru (AC) acquired a unique collection relating to Reg Mickisch and George Walton. The couple – whose story features in Mike Parker’s 2019 book On the Red Hill – met in 1949 and were together until their deaths in 2011. This is the first significant personal LGBTQ+ collection at AC and reflects the couple’s domestic lives, including their civil partnership in 2006, the first in Machynlleth. For the first time this project communicates stories from the archive and, in doing so, [1] co-creates a vision for the collection’s value in varied ways, [2] diversifies museum practices in relation to LGBTQ+ history in/beyond Wales, and [3] makes a significant original theoretical contribution. RQ1: How can the archive support further understanding of - and make visible - changes in gay rights, lifecycles and ageing (1949-2011)? What other stories might it tell? RQ2: What intergenerational learning may be gleaned about intimate care arrangements in later life for LGBTQ+ people in past decades? RQ3: How might varied forms of storytelling be harnessed – in collaborative and intergenerational contexts - to communicate the visual complexity/richness of the archive? RQ4: How do findings from the above enquiry challenge normative museological practices for amplifying LGBTQ+ histories/representations, and wider public understanding of these in Wales? The student will employ a multi-method and deeply co-creative approach to project design and delivery. The work will be interdisciplinary, making a significant evidence-based contribution to debates about representation within museums, varied forms of storytelling, and the value of collaborative methodologies.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know