Client News: Pin Button Project Brings PRIDE Past to Present
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 26, 2012
TORONTO, ON – While most PRIDE attendees will be spending their weekend parading Church and Wellesley St. – an underground movement will begin for The Pin Button Project, an interactive website and gallery exhibition launching this Friday June 29, 2012 at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA). The project is an online gallery exhibition that features pin buttons from the archives’ vast collection, and invites visitors to share their personal stories and interact with the hundreds of pin buttons collected over the CLGA’s history.
For decades, buttons have symbolized political statement pieces worn by the masses to spread awareness during specific campaigns worldwide. Since its original design patent in 1896, the simple communication abilities of a single button have survived the test of time. Specifically for the LGBT community, buttons have been used for a variety of reasons ranging through forms of protest, to conveying messages without use of the spoken word. Creator William Craddock comments, “The Pin Button Project is about sharing history through the display of photographs of pin buttons that represent a range of causes, events, organization, and identities from our various pasts. It’s about provoking memory and inviting individuals to share their memories with others. It’s a place for discussion about the past – and about the present. And it is, of course, a place to look at and enjoy all of the visual appeal that these buttons from the past have to offer.”
The CLGA has a history of providing ground-breaking innovative exhibits to the Toronto art scene: The Pin Button Project marks a new online initiative to spread awareness and content. Dennis Findlay, VP of the CLGA remarks: “I have two major hopes for the site. First, that its existence allows these archival objects and the discussion around them to extend the reach of the CLGA across Canada, and even beyond. Given the limitations of access to the CLGA by individuals outside of Toronto, it’s important that we work to extend channels of communication and engagement with our fellow Canadians. My second hope is that the project, by engaging visitors in telling their own stories and sharing their opinions, that we will collect a wealth of diverse histories and ideas that help us to better know and remember the past. Our history books and documentary films are often filled with colourful accounts by our communities’ prominent figures, but I hope this website opens up these accounts to the stories of everyone else, those who weren’t necessarily on the front-line on a rally, but who may remember carrying a placard in the back of the crowd.”
The Pin Button Project launches on Friday, June 29th, 2012 with a public reception at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (34 Isabella St., 3rd Floor) from 6:00 to 9:00pm. Complimenting the launch will be interactive button design stations and social media integration – providing a true multiplatform experience for all guests. For more information, visit http://www.pinbuttons.ca.
About The Pin Button Project:
The Pin Button Project is an online interactive exhibition and oral history project featuring pin buttons from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Viewers engage by asking questions, stating opinions, and sharing their own stories.
About Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives:
The Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives was established to aid in the recovery and preservation of LGBT histories. Its mission: to acquire, preserve, organize, and give public access to information and materials in any medium, by and about LGBT people, primarily produced in or concerning Canada. To support this function, the Archives also maintain significant non-archival collections, which include a research library, international subject files, and an international collection of queer periodicals. It is the CLGA’s mandate to make this information available to the public for education and research. Over the years, the CLGA has helped hundreds of people – students, artists, journalists, lawyers, filmmakers complete numerous projects inside and outside of the LGBT community.
Website: http://www.pinbuttons.ca (official site launch: June 29, 2012)
Twitter: @PinButtons
Facebook: http://facebook.com/ThePinButtonProject
For interview requests or high-res photography, please contact:
Cory Stewart
Embrace Disruption Promotions
647.638.1586
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