Browse Exhibits (10 total)
How Our Stories are Told: Introduction to Queer Disability Literature through the Archive
This digital exhibition is written to highlight the collection of literature in The ArQuives that navigates this intersection of queer disability through critical thought, artistic expression, histories, fiction, poetry, and expressions of community care. For those interested in understanding this intersection through different avenues, these 15 selected books will be broken down into three categories: Critical Thought, Expressions & Experience, and Disabled Sex. The literature is broken to fit different points of entry into the experience of queer disability. Critical Thought focuses on professional studies and higher ed. analysis, Expressions & Experience is suited towards a more artistic and personal interpretation, and lastly Disabled Sex focuses on the location of desire in the body - a focus that has a unique place in the discussion of queer disabled folks.
Queers in Your Ears
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!
Bisexual Activism in Toronto, 1980s-2000s
This exhibition highlights various manifestations of bisexual activism and community building in Toronto from the late 1980s to the 2000s. Through the formation of support groups that were established in the late 20th century, the materials in this exhibition will demonstrate how bisexual activists combatted invisibility within the larger queer community and created safe, affirming spaces in which bisexual people could come together.
Exhibition by Gabryelle Iaconetti, Concordia University
Anthony Mohamed Collection
Anthony Mohamed is a gay, South Asian, Caribbean, Canadian activist and equity worker in Toronto. He has been a pivotal figure in various advocacy groups and organizations spanning decades. The following collection, generously donated by Anthony himself, provides a glimpse into his life, activism, and work, highlighting many important moments of AIDS organizing in Toronto, and the experience of being a queer person of colour.
Digital exhibit compiled and created by Caitlin Monteiro
Salaam
Salaam Canada: An Account of LGBTQ+ Muslims Living & Communing in Canada
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This oral history and research project originated out of a partnership between Salaam Canada and The ArQuives to document and celebrate Salaam Canada for their 30th Anniversary year.
Written and researched by Khadijah Kanji with contributions by Farzana Doctor, Junaid Jahangir, El-Farouk Khaki, Lali Mohamed, Imtiaz Popat (also known as Moomtaz Khatoon) & Rahim Thawer.
Digital exhibit compiled and created by Lo Humeniuk.
The AIDS Walk Toronto Virtual Museum
In 1982, Canada had its first reported case of AIDS.
In March of the next year, following a call from the Red Cross to The Body Politic office, writer Ed Jackson called a meeting with 9 other community members, including doctors, social workers, professors and writers, a policy developer, and an archivist. That April, during a public forum on AIDS and Hepatitis B organized by Gays in Health Care and the Hassle Free Clinic at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute of Technology (attended by over 300 people), the group proposed a standing AIDS Committee. Following that event, a series of meetings were held at the 519 Church Street Community Centre, which led to the establishment of the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) and its five working groups: Medical Liaison, AIDSupport (which provided practical support as well as crisis intervention to people with AIDS and their loved ones), Media Relations, Fundraising & Special Events, and Community Education.
In addition to providing year-round support and educational services to the public, ACT organized larger events such as Fashion Cares, Dancers for Life, and AIDS Walk Toronto—the latter of which began in 1988 to raise both awareness of and funds for AIDS research. AIDS Walk Toronto followed in the footsteps of other AIDS Walks across Canada which began as early as 1986 in Vancouver and quickly grew to become Canada’s largest single-day fundraising event for HIV and AIDS.
AIDS Walk Toronto--which began as From All Walks of Life, a name it held until 1996--ran annually in downtown Toronto. Teams made up of community organizations, small businesses, schools, chosen families, and other small groups, collected pledges together leading up to the walk. The route—generally, approximately a 6-10km loop through the downtown core, with Queen’s Park or Nathan Philips Square serving as a start/end point--changed slightly over the years, buts its goals of education, fundraising, and community building remained the same. Within its first few years, the walk was already amassing crowds of over 10,000, and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to be put towards research on HIV and AIDS. By its tenth year, there were upwards of 500 volunteers involved, and by the early 2000s, AIDS Walk Toronto had cumulatively raised over seven million dollars.
AIDS Walk Toronto had its final walk in 2020, and this Virtual Museum serves to commemorate the history of this important fundraiser and annual community event.
This exhibit is also meant to be informed by community. To submit your own photos and ephemera, find the submission form and more details here.
Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project
The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity.
Pride and Remembrance Run: The Early Years
The Pride and Remembrance Run was founded in 1996 as an annual fundraising event dedicated to supporting the LGBTQ+ community, with a specific focus on the historical and ongoing impact of HIV/AIDS in the community. This exhibition contains archival photographs, videos, textual records, news articles, t-shirts, posters, and oral histories documenting the history of the Pride and Remembrance Run.
Nancy Nicol Collection
Nancy Nicol is a documentary filmmaker who has dedicated her career to tracing the history of the LGBTQ movements in Canada and around the world. She has worked as a professor in visual studies since 1989 at York University. Her career as a filmmaker started in the 1970s with experimental films, but by the 1980s, Nicol’s work focused on documentary films addressing political issues, including pro-choice struggles for access to abortion, unions, and the working struggles of women and migrants. By the 2000s, her films changed focus to lesbian and gay rights from the 1970s to the 2010s.
The exhibit showcases shorts and excerpts from the award-winning documentary series From Criminality to Equality which includes Stand Together (2002), The Queer Nineties(2009), Politics of the Heart(2005) and, The End of Second Class (2006).
LGBTQ2+ Histories at Toronto Metropolitan University
A collection of materials relating to the histories of LGBTQ2+ people, organizations, and issues at Toronto Metropolitan University, from the early days of gay organizations to the present. Featured issues include HIV/AIDS, homophobia on campus, the history of what was formerly called RyePRIDE, and the development of a trans organization.