Conclusion

There is never a single story, and there is never a single storyteller. As is evident from this exhibit, there are many ways to tell a story, many ways to a story, and many ways to remember a story. Oscar Wilde and Georgia O'Keefe each had their own story, he chose to express his through literature, and she hers through art. Both stories have to do with their own experience with gender and sexuality, but they are told in very different ways. However, stories are not only told by those who live them. Tombstones are not the story of the deceased as told by the deceased, rather they reflect how their family is choosing to remember their loved one's story. Likewise a film might not reflect your story, but it might reflect the story your government wants told.

History is a collection of stories, most of which are true from a certain point of view. By looking at how gender and sexuality were represented in a variety of media forms, by a variety of people, and in a variety of countries, it was our aim to gain a better understanding of how these stories fit together. How people choose to remember history, whether it's their own or not, is just as important as the history itself. To many, art is more accessible and so it is the history they see reflected in art that they will remember. They might not recall specific events in history, but they will likely remember Thomas Mann's depiction of homosexuality at the turn of the twentieth century, or how women were depicted in The Cranes Are Flying, and those representations of gender and sexuality in art will contribute to their understanding of how those two aspects have changed over time.