UK’s largest collection of transgender art and artefacts exhibited in London

Fashion Space Gallery in London is staging an exhibition titled Museum of Transology showing the largest collection of trans artefacts and photographic portraiture ever to be displayed in the UK.

Opening tomorrow at the gallery, located at the London College of Fashion, the exhibition “portrays the many realities of modern trans life, while also posing a bigger questions about the omission of trans lives from larger national museum collections,” says the gallery.

Over 100 objects have been crowdsourced for the show “as a way of enabling trans people to tell their own stories”. Included in the display are zines, event ephemera such as badges, t-shirts and ribbons, artworks and personal items, from a My Little Pony to a box of hormones, real post-surgery parts, fake boobs and lipstick. Attached to each is a hand-written note telling the story behind the item and its impact on the person’s transition.

It also features garments by tailor Bindle & Keep, made for non-gender conforming clients, as well as pieces by Hanni Yang, Yves Saint Laurent and Vivienne Westwood, and campaign materials featuring Munroe Bergdof.

There are visuals by fine art photographer Bharat Sikka and Sharon Kilgannon; films by Fox Fisher and Buck Angel; and behind the scenes footage from the filming of Born Risky by Grayson Perry. The show is curated by E-J Scott and commissioned by Ligaya Salazar.

“The objects people have chosen to donate to the Museum of Transology are strikingly intimate,” says the curator, “and make a unique contribution to broader social debates surrounding body politics, gender inequality and the continuing attachment of biological sex to gender despite three waves of feminism.  Ultimately, the exhibition is about how every single one of us deserves the freedom to fashion who we want to be.”

Accompanying the exhibition will be a programme of tours, workshops, debates and a Trans Fashion symposium.

Museum of Transology opens 20 January – 22 April 2017 at Fashion Space Gallery, London.