Vital People: Touring the Maritime Museum’s Queer at Sea exhibit

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The Maritime Museum of B.C. has unveiled its new exhibit, Queer at Sea, this June in honour of Pride Month.

“These are really personal, intimate stories and I think that’s what makes it so powerful,” says Maritime Museum of B.C. collections and exhibits manager Heather Feeney.

Stories of struggle from the queer and trans community, stories of hiding one’s identity, and even stories of murder.

“The systemic oppression that has existed in many of our social structures, but particularly in some of the maritime ones, was really hard,” explains Jelena Putnik volunteer board member and diversity committee chair. “It was really suffocating, it was really oppressive, and it was sometimes dangerous.”

But there are also stories of love, and acceptance.

“There were a lot of really hard moments but for me, I really noticed as much as there was darkness, there was light,” says Feeney. “There was love. There was people finding home and community.”

And they’re all part of our rich maritime history here on the coast but until recently, stories like this haven’t been shared.

“These are stories that historically have not been told by museums,” Feeney explains. “They’ve been underground, people have had to hide who they are, and so we really wanted to bring those stories to light but it was really important that people be able to use their own words to tell their stories to allow marginalized people to be able to speak for themselves.”

For Putnik, who’s passionate about sailing and identifies as queer, seeing the exhibit come to life has been heartwarming.

“I’m really touched by the commitment to self that really shines in all the stories,” Putnik says. “Even through the adversity, individuals always knew who they were and always persevered in being their true and whole self and that is, that is beautiful.”

The Maritime Museum of B.C. hopes these inspiring stories will help showcase how diverse our maritime history is.

“I’m really hoping they take away how far we’ve come, how much further we still need to go, but that how brave these people were,” Feeney says.

The Queer at Sea exhibit runs until November.

Tess van Straaten

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