The Gathering: Stop the Clause @ Digital Window Gallery

In 1988, the Government introduced Section 28 of the Local Government Bill to reduce official support and aid to the LGBTQ+ community. The Law resulted in an era where LGBTQ+ people were absent from education, literature, and popular culture and created an environment where anti-queer bullying would go unchallenged.

Helen Constantinou has paired her photographs taken at the 1988 London “Stop the Clause” march with testimonials from protesters who attended protests in London and Manchester. The photographs capture a moment of collective resistance: anger, fear, determination, solidarity, exhilaration and, for some, the first experience of standing openly alongside thousands of others who refused to accept that their lives, relationships and identities could be legislated into silence.

Sadly, the past is not as distant as it might appear. So far this year 24 Reform led councils have implemented hostile anti-LGBTQ+ policies: Pride event funding removed, Pride flags banned and books withdrawn from libraries.

Nearly forty years on, 2026 is beginning to feel a lot like 1988.

The Gathering: Stop the Clause by Helen Constantinou was also part of Open Eye Gallery’s Next Up-2026 show.

In partnership with Homotopia.

About the artist

Helen Constantinou. Working with photography as both image and material, Helen Constantinou explores the cyclical nature of history and the ways the past resurfaces in the present. Drawing from a 40-year personal archive, they transform photographs through varied materials and processes, creating works that invite viewers to reconsider what photography is, what it remembers, and how it shapes our understanding of the world.