Meet Sunderland's choice to be the face of Pride 2020 in city - Wearsider will feature on digital billboards as part of celebrations

One thousand digital billboards across the UK - donated by Clear Channel - have been taken over with photographic images created by and featuring members of the LGBTQ+ community celebrating Pride from their homes.

Every summer, towns and cities across the UK including Sunderland are filled with LGBTQ+ people celebrating Pride, but this year the usual parties and parades couldn’t take place because of coronavirus.

The initiative - the brainchild of writer, performer and drag star Ginger Johnson - is supported by Out of Home media and infrastructure company Clear Channel, which has donated 1,000 digital billboards the length of the country from Glasgow to Southampton, including iconic Storm sites on Lambeth Palace Road and Hammersmith Tower in London.

The campaign aims to represent the full spectrum of the diverse LGBTQ+ community, with more than 120 contributors and photographers.

In Sunderland, billboards feature city resident Katie Rennison. Katie was nominated to take part by photographer India Fleming, who captured her image for the project.

Katie said: “Pride is a celebration of acceptance for me. You can be whoever or whatever you want to be and it’s a reminder of how far we’ve come as a community.”

The images were installed on Monday, June 15 and will be place for two weeks, with a potential reach of around 10 million people.

Pride Inside hopes the campaign will inspire other people across the UK to carry on the Pride celebrations at home and create their own images, posting them online under the #PrideInsideUK hashtag.

This opportunity will also raise awareness of the work of grassroots LGBTQ+ charities, with Pride Inside partnering with LGBT+ Consortium to collect donations to be distributed to organisations across the UK who provide vital services for the community.

Organiser Ginger Johnson said: “Usually we take to the streets for Pride. We take to stages, demos and dancefloors. We climb onboard floats or walk shoulder to shoulder with our families and friends but this summer that just isn’t possible. So it’s crucial that LGBTQ+ people from all walks of life are visible and proud in our public spaces even if we can’t be there together in person.”

Ginger added: “Pride is also a chance for our community to reach out to the people who haven’t found pride in their lives yet, who don't feel safe, who are hidden. It’s our chance to say to them, ‘You are not alone, we are here and we are proud of you.’ Pride has always been an opportunity for us all to learn about each other - to honour our shared experiences, our differences and our collective resilience.

“It’s taken the combined efforts of a whole team of amazing queer people from all over the UK to get this project off the ground and we can’t wait to share it with everyone.”

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