Over eight months, documentary photographer Ryley Morton immersed himself in the city’s Queer Hardcore shows, capturing the raw energy, joy, and solidarity that defines the movement. His work offers an intimate portrait of a community built from DIY ethics, political defiance, and the urgent need for spaces where queer people can be loud, visible, and unapologetically themselves.
This exhibition traces the connections between music, place, and identity, exploring how the Queercore scene has taken root in Birmingham’s cultural soil. Visitors will encounter powerful images that reflect the catharsis, belonging, and hope this scene offers to those often excluded from mainstream culture.
Alongside showcasing the live energy of gigs, the work also invites reflection on the political and social roots of queercore, punk, and hardcore: anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, and anti-establishment at their core. It asks audiences to consider whether the current heavy music scene still embodies those politics, or whether they have evolved into something new.
