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Professor Bob Mills is the recipient of a Provost's Public Engagement Award for organising Hide & Seek, a walking tour of Bloomsbury in London that showcases the people and places that have contributed to the area’s rich and diverse LGBTQ+ heritage.

Bob developed the Hide & Seek project, an innovative walking tour of Bloomsbury designed to throw light on the peoples and places that have contributed to the area’s rich and diverse LGBTQ+ heritage. Bob devised the itinerary, format, content and publicity materials. He also recruited, coordinated and trained a group of LGBTQ volunteer guides to recount stories and anecdotes connected with specific locations along the route. The format proved very popular and the walks were a 'sell out' success, being reprised three times in 2018.
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The walks started with a talk delivered by Bob where he reflected on Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø's own LGBTQ+ histories. Walkers were then issued with route maps, and set off on a ‘queer’ exploration of the neighbourhood. Walkers encountered a diversity of voices and perspectives on the tour and were encouraged to share their own stories. He is currently working with Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Urban Laboratory to turn Hide & Seek into an audio tour with additional content, potentially also collaborating with Ramble London based in Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Geography.
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This project grew from Bob’s significant and sustained public engagement in the field of LGBTQ histories and equalities. Highlights include organising Art + Activism: Queer and Feminist Visibilities, a conference featuring a line-up composed mainly of artists, performers, activists and curators; advising on a history display and trail at the British Museum; participating in the steering group for the ‘Pride of Place’ project on England's LGBTQ heritage, launched by Historic England; and giving numerous public talks at festivals and events programmes, several of which have been successful online (including the most watched Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²ÊÖÐÌØÍø Lunch Hour Lecture on YouTube, with more than 1.2 million views to date.)

You can read more about the Provost's Public Engagement Awards here, and you can also watch a brief video about the Hide & Seek tour via .Ìý