FWP is delighted to announce the winning design in the competition to provide the National LGBT+ Armed Forces Community Memorial, at the National Memorial Arboretum, the nation’s year-round place of remembrance and reflection. The memorial was a recommendation in Lord Etherton’s LGBT Veterans Independent Review report accepted by the Government in December 2023 and is anticipated to be unveiled later in 2025.
On Friday 10 January 2025, the FWP Memorial team came together with a panel of judges onboard HMS WELLINGTON, to interview the 5 shortlisted design contenders, select a winning design and announce the result at a launch reception that followed. The occasion also marked the beginning of a weekend of events commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the lifting of ‘The Gay Ban’ in the UK Armed Forces.
The LGBT+ Armed Forces Community Memorial will celebrate lives lived and commemorate lives lost and follows extensive consultation with the LGBT+ Armed Forces community. The final selection was the culmination of a process of consultation with veterans and serving members resulting in a design brief which was widely advertised to the arts community and resulted in 38 high quality submissions, itself a huge achievement. The judges faced difficult decisions as the number of candidates was whittled down to the 5 shortlisted artists who were each given an opportunity to present their idea to the Judging Panel and say why their design was the one!
The designs were all unique, with incredible effort and thought put into them by their artists, but there could be only one winner. After much deliberation, that was determined to be “An Opened Letter” by an artist collective called The Abraxas Academy, and was announced by FWP’s Patron, Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Gregory KBE, CB, DL. The Abraxas Academy comprises Charlotte Howarth, Nina Bilbey, James Spedding and Sue Aperghis.
An Opened Letter, is a crumpled, 2.5m tall free-standing letter in forged bronze, on a 4m-diameter York Stone base, and uses a combination of words taken from evidence that was collected from former personnel who were impacted by the LGBT ban and currently serving personnel. The structure will be styled to create a contrast between life under the ban before it was lifted on 12 January 2000, with a dark inner surface, and a bright shiny exterior surface reflecting the inclusive service of today (from the dark days of the ban to the brighter days of today).
Abraxas Academy writes:
The written word and page are a symbol of the struggle and fight for the LGBTQ+ contribution to the Nation’s armed forces.
The letter is a combination of words taken from evidence collected from personnel who have experienced exclusion, discrimination and in some cases have died as a direct result of exposure of their true selves. Evidence responsible for ending many careers, and in some instances prosecution, written in the accused own words. Tragically, in some cases the words of endearment expressed by a loved one.
You can walk around the letter, be drawn to it from a distance and engage by being inside its darker surface, read the words both negative and positive, from inside, shadowed and hidden, or chose to come out of the page and reflect on the bright reflective surface of the future.
Nina Bilbey, lead artist at Abraxas Academy said:
“This is extremely personal for our members, some of whom have been affected by the armed forces exclusion of LGBTQ+ identities, and some simply affected by lived queer experience. All our members make a living in the arts by designing and delivering beautiful sculpture, made and inspired by the act of collaboration.”
“We hope this memorial will help ease some of the distrust and pain suffered by individuals, past and present, and be of inspiration to future generations who will witness this work and be reminded of the healing power of reconciliation and the public acknowledgement of historic discrimination.”
Ed Hall, Chair of Fighting With Pride, said:
“The trustees are delighted that we have such a strong winner for the LGBT+ armed forces community memorial. It’s been incredibly important to all of us at Fighting With Pride that we held a rigorous creative process to find the right design that will provide a place of peace and reflection for the LGBT+ armed forces family. I’d like to thank everyone who submitted designs, and the LGBT+ serving and veterans’ community who have helped shape the selection.
“It’s a mark of how far we’ve come as a society that the competition for this prestigious commission has been so fiercely contested by some amazing creative minds. We received 38 exceptionally high standard designs for the panel of judges to choose from and we now have an outstanding design as the worthy winner.”
