We’ve been exploring how to turn the OUT140 stories into 2d and 3d pieces of art since the very beginning of the project. The photo above is by Vince Laws who was a brilliant creative partner in the early days of the OUT140 Project. In July 2010, the Norwich Arts Centre held an OUT140 exhibition that included the stories printed as large piece of text. Here’s Marcus next to his story:

And here’s the exhibition in the background of a wedding reception!

Vince was invited by Norwich Arts Centre to turn one of the OUT140 stories into a piece of text art in the bar. Here’s the story he chose:

Grandma asked mum if I had a boyfriend.Mum said I was gay.Grandma said “has she got a girlfriend then?”

“I chose this OUT140 tweet to make large because I like the immediate acceptance of Grandma, and the fact that this tiny story covers three generations. I’m interested in the invisible threads that bind generations to each other, like umbilical cords, like family trees, and like greetings cards. Members of the local LGBT community donated greetings cards which I cut into letters for this installation.”

Vicky and Jo from Print-to-the-People printed tshirts for the launch of OUT140 at the Norwich Arts Centre. They created a lino-cut of the OUT140 logo that Vince created with children’s alphabet blocks and then turned this into a screen to make prints. They printed the tshirts with people in the garden during the launch party.

In October 2010, we took the OUT140 giant texts to Cromer for the COAST Arts Festival. In February 2012, Vince took OUT140 to Folkestone for his I AM A POEM exhibition and painted the stories in speech bubbles for the first time. The following year he took OUT140 to the  B.Right.On Festival in Brighton.

Photo by Sam Collins.