Queer Bath Festival

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BSU, partners and local community celebrate pride and revolutionaries at Queer Bath Festival

Tuesday, 16 June, 2026

Throughout June, Bath Spa University, its cultural partners and other museums, historic buildings and venues across the city will be celebrating the lives, stories, and creativity of the LGBTQ+ community during the Queer Bath Festival. 

Emerging from the success of Holburne Pride 2024, Queer Bath is a collaborative movement, working with a coalition of museum partners to transform how the city’s cultural institutions engage with queer history – not just celebrating it, but investigating, uncovering, and amplifying it. 

Talking about the festival on its website, Director of Queer Bath and BSU Honorary Doctorate Nik Jovčić-Sas said:  

“Queer Bath is one of the most exciting and ambitious cultural projects I’ve ever seen in this city! It celebrates the gorgeous Georgian splendour we know and love while uncovering hidden histories and weaving in a fierce, fabulous queer twist – Bath as you’ve never seen it before.” 

Jasmine Barker, Co-Director of Bath Arts Collective said: 

“We’re thrilled to be coordinating and helping to produce and market Queer Bath. This initiative is about more than just events – it's about transforming how Bath’s museums and heritage spaces engage with LGBTQ+ arts, culture and history, opening their doors in a whole new way.” 

Celebrating gender revolutionaries 

This year’s theme for the festival is Gender Revolutionaries, exploring figures connected to Bath who challenged, reshaped, or transcended the gender norms of their time, and who continue to provoke vital questions about how we understand gender and sexuality in 2026. 

Several BSU partners are involved with or are hosting events at this year’s festival, including Bath Arts Collective, Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute (BRLSI) and the Holburne Museum.   

On 2 June BRLSI hosted a talk with Dr Tim Moore of the National Trust, exploring the lives of LGBTQ+ people in the eighteenth century. Events at the Holburne Museum included the Queer Bath Film Festival, featuring screenings and a panel discussion, as well as events focusing on gender and the art of dress and lesbian fashion and a special Up Late event to close out the festival on 26 June. 

Illustrating Disability and Queerness 

Rounding out the Queer Bath Festival schedule, on 26 June a team of BSU researchers will host a panel discussion and the launch of a specially commissioned comic, Disability, Queerness and me: An exploration of sexual experiences.

We Are The People (WATP) is a team of disabled academics and non-disabled allies engaged in disability research and activism. The aim of their research is to explore issues that matter to disabled people in the Southwest, with a belief that research should be led by disabled people.   

The event will share findings from a co-produced research project led by We Are The People, BSU and Queer Out Loud CIC, which explored experiences of sexual expression among queer disabled people living in the South West. The comic was created by artist, designer and community organiser Jua OK!  

Talking about their work on the project, Jua said: 

“It was an honour to work with such a thoughtful and dedicated research team on this project. I'm so proud of the comic we have produced, and I hope it will be a useful resource for queer disabled people. Additionally, I hope this project can highlight the value and strengths of comics as a format to accessibly disseminate research beyond the academic sphere. 

"It is so rare to see nuanced depictions of queer, disabled sexual experiences, and I was really excited to be able to create artwork that individuals from these communities would be able to resonate with. For many people, seeing themselves represented in research like this opens the door to more conversation, advocacy and support. I am a big proponent of the idea that comics are a fantastic medium to disseminate research in an accessible way and I feel the response we've had to the comic so far has definitely supported that." 

The event is free to attend, and no prior understanding of disability is required. More information and tickets are available online.  

Queer Bath Festival is on at various venues throughout June. You can also find out more about BSU’s We Are The People project on our website.