More information about our new interns.
Reuben Rowlands:
⭐️ Reuben is a queer creative with experience in contemporary music and live performance events, as well as exhibitions, libraries, and archives. His passion for collaborative arts projects has seen him compose music alongside other disciplines including film, graphic design, and spoken word. Currently, he works as both an EFL tutor and a director of The Sunday Boys choir. With a vested interest in protest and LGBTQ+ storytelling, Reuben is excited to work with IAP:MCR on the delivery of their upcoming events.
Welcome to the team 💕
Marco Capicotto
⭐️ Italian-Romanian - and honorary Mancunian - arts and culture professional with an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies (2023) + Digital Media, Culture and Society (2025) from The University of Manchester. Also writer and activist of sorts. Passionate about curatorial practice, LGBTQIA+ representation, and inclusive storytelling, I have experience across visitor engagement, exhibition planning, and cultural events. My main academic interests include queerness, identity, AIDS/HIV representation in art galleries and museums. I have worked several front of house, customer-facing jobs and volunteered across cultural institutions. As a volunteer with the Whitworth’s (Un)Defining Queer project, I have contributed to research and digital engagement within a community-driven exhibition.
🎤 “Having volunteered for a previous IAP:MCR Project - (Legacy of ’67) being an intern for PROTEST! Is very special to me. Personally, protest is deeply embedded into my queer identity to an extent which is hard to separate the two.
This is a chance deepen my understanding of UK queer social history - which I was not as knowledgeable about before volunteering for the former project. It is also an amazing opportunity to hear stories as well as network with brilliant artists and professionals from across Manchester.”
Welcome to the team 💕
Good luck Rosheen.
Rosheen O’Hanlon has been working as our volunteer coordinator since the beginning of the project. Sadly, she will be moving on at the beginning of October. We’d like to thank her very much for her involvement in the project and the hard work that she has put in. We will miss her.
IAP:MCR - PAID INTERNSHIPS
We are pleased to announce that Reuban Rowlands and Marco Capicotto have joined our team as paid interns. They will support the next phase of our project, which includes an exhibition at People’s History Museum, artist commissions and the making of a new film. This is a great opportunity to be involved in the planning, delivery and evaluation of the exhibition and events programme working as part of a highly experienced team of artists, producers and facilitators, and we are looking forward to working with them both.
Using your stories
The oral history that we have gathered during this project and during our previous work: Legacy of ’67, Life’s a Drag, and Polari Mission we have recorded a wealth of popular history of LGBTQ+ communities in Greater Manchester. As well as finding a permanent home in the city archives, this testimony has been the source material for three plays and three exhibitions. The latest play Great Indecencies was the subject of a short film that can be found here, that shows how oral history directly informs the writing and presentation of these plays.
This time things are a little different...
During the last three projects we have commissioned, rehearsed and performed new plays based on the testimony that you have sent us. This time. rather than producing a play we will make a short film that will premiere in the summer of 2026. The content of the film will be determined by the stories that you have told us.
More interviews!
We’re still actively looking for more people to interview over the next nine months or so. If you have a story you’d like to tell, or know of anybody who would like to participate, then please contact us.
We are really sorry to hear of the death of Campbell Robertson.
Campbell (left) seen here with his friend Jack and with our Artistic Director Jez Dolan
Campbell has been a long-standing supported of IAP:MCR. Indeed, he is the first person that we ever interviewed. He was a major contributor to Polari Mission in 2012 and his voice is preserved in the public archives at Manchester Central Library. His testimony was incorporated into many of our shows. Our condolences go to his friends.
