VICTORIOUS VOICES x 92 DEGREES

92 Degrees, Manchester, 2024–25

On 3 November 2024, Victorious Voices opened its second exhibition at 92 Degrees in Manchester city centre. For three months, black-and-white portraits and survivor testimonies were displayed in a busy coffee shop, among the ordinary rhythms of people meeting, working and passing through.

The choice of space mattered. Victorious Voices was created to bring the experiences of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse into public and cultural life. At 92 Degrees, people did not need to visit a gallery or attend an event to encounter the work. They could come across a portrait, stop to read someone’s words, and leave with a fuller understanding of the person behind a subject too often met with silence or stigma.

Following the exhibition’s relocation at the University of Glasgow, the Manchester presentation offered another way to think about visibility. The work remained in a prominent, shared space throughout its three-month run. An estimated thousands of people encountered it, and the exhibition completed its run without a complaint.

That experience did not make the stories easier or less demanding. The portraits and testimonies still asked visitors to face the reality of childhood sexual abuse and to recognise survivors as people with lives, voices and identities beyond what happened to them. But it showed that these stories could be present in an everyday public space, given room to speak for themselves.

At 92 Degrees, survivors were visible in the life of the city. The exhibition invited people to pause, listen and carry that encounter with them.