Stuart Linden Rhodes: LINDEN ARCHIVES

LINDEN ARCHIVES is a strictly limited edition, selected archival work capturing the 1990s LGBTQ+ club, pub and Pride scene across the UK, from Brighton to Newcastle — with excursions to Berlin and Gran Canaria. Celebratory in tone, it is the second publication by photographer Stuart Linden Rhodes (following on from ‘Out & About with Linden: A Queer Archive of the North’, 2022/3).

A large-format photobook that seeks to encapsulate a peoples defiant in the face of the AIDS crises and discriminatory laws. Included in this work are many images that have fallen foul of Instagram's unjustly censorious algorithm — alongside uninhibited photographs of Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, Derek Jarman, Take That, Julian Clary, Peter Tatchell, Paul O'Grady, East 17 and many more. We're delighted that Russell Tovey has provided an introductory preface to the work.

'Linden' was the roving reporter for APN and the Gay Times during the early to mid 1990s, his columns for those magazines were entitled: Out & About with Linden. Stuart Linden Rhodes was also a lecturer at a local further education college, the pseudonym 'Linden' adopted due to concerns generated by draconian Clause 28 legislation sanctioned by Tory governments of the era. At home in North Yorkshire during the 'rona lockdowns of 2020-21, Stuart established the Linden Archives online as a way to preserve his work and look back fondly on the brash, thriving gay scene of the 1990s.

More recently, his photography has featured on BBC television & radio and in Mastermind Magazine, Crotch, The Guardian, You Otter Know and Photography – A Queer History. Imagery from the archives have been exhibited at the Grundy Art Gallery, Queer Britain, Moray Pride, Vane Gallery and the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum as part of the Museum of Youth Culture. In November 2024, three of Stuart's pieces were added to Manchester Art Gallery's permenant collection.