Browse Exhibits (43 total)

The 1990s ushered in new understandings of femme gender and sexuality, and Toronto was an epicentre of the queer and trans femme dialogue, cultural production, and political organizing that activated this culture shift. On Our Own Terms explores this dynamic period through archival materials and nearly 50 oral history interviews with over 25 femme narrators. Drawing on this rich archive of ephemera and stories, the digital exhibition explores femme identity, friendship, sexuality, and world-building within the landscape of 1990s Toronto. 

‘Femme’ is a term that can mean many different things to many people and the narrators in this project had creative, complex, and sometimes ambivalent relationships to the idea of femme.  Historically, ‘femme’ is an identity marker that emerged from North American working-class lesbian bar culture of the 1940s and 1950s, and both femme and butch are terms that have circulated widely in queer culture. Notably, starting in the 1960s, femme was also a term used by trans women of colour in Harlem’s Black and Latinx-dominated drag and ballroom cultures. When we began this project, it was our sense that some combination of these diverse lineages and the marginalization of femmes (and others) in the lesbian-feminist communities of the 1970s and 1980s had catalyzed a renaissance of queer femme culture in the 1990s. Through this decade and into the early 2000s, there were numerous cultural projects, both individual and collective—art projects, books, performance scenes, nightlife events, community spaces and movements—that focused on reclaiming queer femininities and articulating femme “as a gender experience on its own terms” that was informed by but also exceeded lesbian histories. A significant number of these projects came out of Toronto.  

Femme-led cultural production offered spaces for connection, for play and sexual exploration, and for activism and queer world-building. Femmes have initiated a disproportionately large amount of community organizing but remain under-represented in community archives. Our project strives to begin filling this gap, and we are so thankful to each of the narrators who shared their stories to help us make this history visible.  

This project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 

Queers in Your Ears is a storytelling collective that has been active in Toronto since 1997.

This exhibition documents their history and showcases the different stories they have told over time. Focus is also on their performance venues, most of which have a deep connection to Toronto's queer communities.

Digital exhibition curated by Johanna Wrede (she/they; Ruhr University Bochum/University of Duisburg-Essen). Many thanks to Queers in Your Ears for their participation and support in the curation process!

This exhibit discusses the history of Maggie's Toronto Sex Worker Action Project, a local activist group and registered charity with a 40-year presence in Toronto.

Founded in 1985/86 by queer sex workers in response to the AIDS crisis, Maggie's has championed safe sex, harm reduction, and mutual aid from the beginning. Their projects have, time and time again, addressed underserved and underacknowledged realities of sex work in the city throughout history, fighting AIDS stigma, advocating for trans rights, pushing for policy reform, and more. They have collaborated closely with local and national groups alike to enact change, while prioritizing on-the-ground action.

Here at the ArQuives, we are the proud keepers of dozens of files pertaining to Maggie's' founding, planning, activism, events, and communications both public and private. This exhibit draws from these resources to guide you through the organization's long history and enduring legacy.

Content warning: This exhibition contains explicit imagery, language, and discussions of sex, sex work, the AIDS crisis, STIs and other diseases, violence against sex workers, violence against trans people, and systemic injustice. Some original imagery may contain advice that is no longer considered accurate, or phone lines and addresses that are no longer active. For current guidance, please refer to the Further Reading Section.

This exhibition showcases Sher Vancouver LGBTQ Friends Society's documentary Emergence: Out of the Shadows (2021) directed by Vinay Giridhar. The documentary follows the lives of three queer South Asian individuals and their families.

Copies of the documentary were donated to The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives and is available for on-site viewing. The collection can be accessed through F0266 Sher Vancouver LGBTQ Friends Society fonds.

For all screening, distribution, or related inquiries regarding the documentary, please contact founder Alex Sangha at info@shervancouver.com.

This exhibition is from The HISTORYTELLERS Project by Grade 10 students at the Garth Webb Secondary school, Halton District School Board. Students wrote stories reflecting on the photographs about Canada’s 2SLGBTQ+ history from The ArQuives' collection and edited by community members.

The stories are organized into the themes of:

• Building Our Community
• Protests for Our Rights
• Honouring Our Joy
• Expressing Our Queerness

The exhibit also features audio recordings of students reading the stories.