Pride Center of VT and VT Folklife Center's PRIDE 1983 Virtual Exhibit Opens at Castleton Bank Gallery

Castleton, VT (10/24/2022) — The Castleton University Bank Gallery is hosting a display of the Pride Center of Vermont and Vermont Folklife Center's newly organized virtual exhibition, PRIDE 1983 through Jan. 15, 2023. A reception for the exhibit will take place on Friday, Nov. 18, 2022 from 6-8 p.m.

Through interviews with organizers, photographs, and scanned images of historic documents Pride 1983 explores the origins and lasting legacies of Vermont's first Pride March on June 25, 1983, in Burlington. View the virtual exhibit here: http://vtfolklife.org/pride-1983.

Curated by Meg Tamulonis, of the Vermont Queer Archives - a program of the Pride Center of Vermont - Pride 1983 draws on archival materials from that collection as well as from UVM Special Collections, the Out in the Open Andrews Inn Oral History Project, and the personal collections of those featured in the exhibit.

In addition, Tamulonis worked with the Vermont Folklife Center to conduct interviews with 12 activists and organizers crucial to the establishment of Pride in Burlington.

The exhibit includes a series of portrait photographs of these early pride founders taken by renowned Brooklyn-based photographer and Bennington College alumnus M. Sharkey.

"It has been an honor to work in collaboration with this team to spotlight the efforts of these courageous Vermonters," said Pride Center Executive Director Mike Bensel. "These heroes need to be celebrated for galvanizing a path towards liberation and justice for LGBTQ+ people in our great little state. We gratefully stand on their shoulders while we continue this important work."