Before The Rainbow... and After: a look at life for older gay men

A detail from the collage of David McCarthy by Silvio Severino, as part of the art project, Before The Rainbow…And After. 

Mark Storor has a wealth of experience facilitating and collaborating on artistic projects but his most recent endeavour had particularly personal resonances. Before The Rainbow…And After, produced in association with Cork Gay Project, explores the experiences of older gay men. The timing of the invitation to work on the project was particularly apt for the British artist.

“As a 60-year-old gay man myself, I couldn’t really say no to the idea that in my 60th year, my birthday year, I could work with a group of men like myself and find ways to share and tell our stories in ways that are meaningful,” he says.

Storer is based on the Welsh island of Anglesey but Cork holds a special place in his heart and he has worked in the city many times. There was another poignant echo for him in the Before The Rainbow project; he had planned a similar venture with the late gay rights campaigner Dave Roche which, sadly, never came to fruition.

“Dave and I had talked about creating a project with farmers who identified as gay and it was something we began in a very tentative, quiet way. Like many of these things, we weren’t able to pursue it, then Dave became ill and died. It is a very strange tapestry of things that to me are very personal, very meaningful — at the same time to have the opportunity to be the artist working with the men to create this work is a real privilege.” 

Mark Storor, artist on Before The Rainbow…And After. Picture: Brian Farrell

Storor worked with ten older GBTI+ men in workshops over two months, where they found different creative ways to tell their stories, culminating in a recently launched book of photography, collage and poetic text, as well as a film piece.

Many themes emerged from the process, including ongoing discrimination, societal homophobia and isolation but Storor is keen to stress that these issues, while hugely important, are also not the totality of the mens’ experience, and there were many moments of joy and playfulness in the process.

“In working in a practical, creative way, things would emerge which I could then reflect back. The next week we would go, 'well this moment, there was something quite important here, let’s explore it’. So the process is very playful, because play is very important. It is how we learn about life and practise life, we can take risks and be brave without having the consequences of disaster.” There were also reminders that health issues around living with HIV continue to have an impact.

“One [of the participants] is living with HIV. Men who are living with HIV, and were told that they wouldn’t even get to this age are now facing things like diabetes, or dementia or other things that they didn’t imagine they would face. Also, the whole HIV and AIDS crisis was only 40 years ago and yet there are younger gay men, men who sleep with men or GBTI+ people who know very little, if not nothing, about it. 

"On one level, that is fantastic but on another level, it is such a short time ago, and it is still prevalent now. There is medication and ways of living with HIV but there needs to be a sensible, proper conversation about it, to maybe put it into context. I worry about that.” 

The Lindley Walsh collage by Silvio Severino.

According to Storor, the veil of invisibility that descends as people get older can be especially difficult to deal with.

“Women particularly are speaking more about what it means to be older and to become invisible. What is interesting is that as a gay male, you could have been forced to be visible, whether you wanted to be or not. You get used to standing up for that visibility. But then suddenly by dint of your age, you become invisible. Not only do you become invisible but people make assumptions about who you are, and what you are and how you live your life.

 "That has another knock-on effect when people are going into care homes or residential homes. That can happen to anybody. Someone can be a phenomenal scientist or pioneer in some field in their life but that often doesn’t get recognised.”

 While Before The Rainbow is seen through the prism of the experience of older gay men, much of what it explores is universal, says Storor.

"This is a project about older gay men but we are all facing the same thing — it is about who we are as human beings, how we are thought of by society. It is coming from a particular prism but ultimately it is about what it is to be human and how do we want to live. Your story is my story is our story.”

• The art publication and visual poem, along with a song penned and put to music by two of the project participants, will be accessible online on Gay Project website and social media pages Facebook, Instagram, Twitter from August 30