Toil, toil, toil, toil,
Until parts of your body feel like stone,
Until warmth only comes from another,
Until all that that’s left of you is a whisper,
A ghost of what once was…
A bright spark that was borne from forged steel,
Yet playful like the flame.

Water still and deep,
In the skin you see a reflection of what we’ve had to become.
What has been made of us.

The rivers run dry,
The well, a desperate memory

Never wait for permission to reclaim what was taken,
To fill that cup,
Despite the cracks,
So you can smoulder once more.
- Guest Curator Rico Johnson-Sinclair

Happy New Year! We’re back to square one according to the Gregorian calendar, and as we begin to shake off the holidays, resolutions beckon from your conscience, borne from your debauchery.

Fear not, this OutMuseum exhibit is a simple spark to ignite your journey toward betterment. Amongst the films you can expect to find acts of defiance, self-realization and heart-wrenching (and filling) portraits of our community. Attempting to queer the notion that being resolute is just for a new cycle, Reflections and Reclamations instead chooses to depict a very real portrait of where we are now, juxtaposed against utopian dreams and actualised fantasies. Once you've viewed the two parallel short film collections - entitled Reflections and Reclamations - dive into a selection of episodes from the Fruitbowl podcast - the groundbreaking, sex-positive series devoted to exploring the beautiful spectrum of queer life and identity across our community. We also invite you to lose yourself in the work of artists Ryan Charles and Samiir Saunders, and ground yourself in a guided meditation from Queer Psychotherapist Remi Arnold.

This is fuel for your future.

Guest Curated by Rico Johnson-Sinclair

After working with Flatpack Festival in Birmingham in 2017, Rico Johnson-Sinclair went on to build CineQ, a queer film festival that prioritizes queer and trans, Black and Indigenous people and people of color which is now in its 6th year. Although his career has developed since then, his ethos has always centered audiences first, understanding that the screens industries have the power to shape hearts and minds

Not limited to film, Rico has led campaigns that focus on marginalized communities he was also Festival Manager of SHOUT Festival, Birmingham's queer arts and culture festival offering a mix of dance. music, theatre, live art, visual arts, and film, with a key focus on artist development, and has previously worked for organizations such as Coventry City of Culture and Film Hub Midlands.

He produced the BFI-backed film 'Sweet Mother' in 2019 written and directed by Zane Igbe, has worked as a consulting producer for many films in the regions and nations and is currently working on his first short film as Writer/Director named 'PREY' which was also funded by BFI.

Rico’s programming interests are specific to LGBTQIA+ & QTBIPOC stories that emotionally move and galvanize our communities after Tongues Untied (dir: Marlon Riggs) was instrumental in his own journey to self-acceptance. Using joy as resistance, Rico tries to focus on stories with levity to use as punctuation in heavier programs to offer relief for difficult realities and stories that are important to depict.