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DOROTHY TOWERS

Sean Burns

Opening 8 February, 2025 

17H - 20H the film plays on a loop
20H Sean Burns & Élisabeth Lebovici in conversation (in English)

Screening dates 8, 9, 15, 16 February, 2025

Saturday & Saturdays 14h - 18h & by rdv: info@goswellroad.com

Goswell Road proudly presents the French premiere of Dorothy Towers (2022) by British artist Sean Burns. The 35-minute film will be on a loop in the space during the advertised times. On February 8, Burns will have an informal conversation with French art historian Élisabeth Lebovici at 20H.

Dorothy Towers is the story of the legendary Clydesdale and Cleveland Towers, two residential blocks in the centre of Birmingham, UK. Completed in 1971 as a social housing development and located adjacent to Birmingham’s Gay Village, the towers’ proximity to the community means they have long been a haven for LGBTQ+ people.

The 16mm film opens a space to reflect on the complex relationship between architecture, community and memory. It features testimonials from current and past residents and explores ideas of queer kinship and inheritance alongside experiences of HIV in the 1980s and ’90s. It frames the buildings in a continuum of history that extends back to the city’s post-war redevelopment via its nightclubs and modernist underpasses.

Owain Harrison’s accompanying text, A Cornucopia of Experience, merges the factual history of Dorothy Towers – the colloquial name bestowed on the buildings by local LGBTQ+ communities, owing to the number of queer people living there – with a fictional narrative based on first-hand testimonials.

Dorothy Towers first screened at Vivid Projects, Birmingham, in September 2022. It subsequently appeared at Auto Italia and the British Film Institute, London; Edinburgh Art Festival; TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway; and the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts, Sussex. Dorothy Towers Playlist was a documentary film series programmed by Burns for the Flatpack Film Festival, Birmingham.

Arts Council England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Paul Hamlyn Foundation supported Dorothy Towers.

Bio: Sean Burns (Birmingham, UK. 1991) is an artist, editor and writer. He is the director of the film Dorothy Towers and the co-founder of Queer Street Press, an independent publishing imprint. He writes extensively on art and culture and sits on an advisory council at Tate. He has also been a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, and Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. Tate Publishing recently released his book, Death, which explores the intertwined relationships between life, love and mortality in art. In 2024, he received a residency and development grant from Montez Press. He lives in London and is an associate editor of frieze.