In the run-up to Pride in London on Saturday 1st July 2023 the talented and hardworking Art4Space team were busy planning, designing, and making the Pride banners for OUT@ NBC Universal. Last year we made the NBC Universal banners for the Pride in London 2022 parade, and proudly marched alongside NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. The year 2022 was a significant year for the Pride movement and the LGBTQ+ community since we commemorated 50 Years since the first Pride took place in the United Kingdom.
The route began in Hyde Park, where the first post-march picnic took place. We walked proudly through the streets of London, holding the handmade banners high up in the air on the route of the historic inaugural 1972 parade. Setting off again from Hyde Park Corner, heading down to Piccadilly Circus, and then turning south onto Haymarket and Trafalgar Square, before ending in Whitehall Place. Participation in the parade again this year gave us another opportunity for an expression of celebration and joy! It was also a chance to voice and rightly express the continued fight for those injustices and inequalities to inspire a stronger, fairer, more compassionate future.
The handmade banners from 2022 were so well received that we thought they should be developed further and carried proudly again in the Pride parade in 2023. We updated the banners and designed three new banners; with the graphics designed in collaboration with NBC Universal. One huge banner at the front of the NBC Universal Parade in the colours of the best-known transgender flag, proposed in 1999, a pride flag of five horizontal stripes of three colours—light blue, light pink, and white incorporating pop art elements. A perfect match to UNITY – a handmade five-part banner in the colours of the trans flag in support of and unity with the trans community!
John McNair joined our team in October 2021 as LGBTQ+ lead. He facilitated our first LGBTQ+ focussed course and project managed the Art4Space/NBC Universal Pride Banner project in 2022 and again in 2023. In July 2022, he also became our Green Policy and Sustainability Officer, helping Art4Space to work towards a more sustainable future. Here at Art4Space, we understand that it is an ongoing, ever-evolving journey towards a more inclusive future.