Browse Exhibits (31 total)
Not A Place On The Map: Desh Pardesh, 1988-2001
Toronto’s Desh Pardesh festival (1988–2001) was a multidisciplinary arts festival that showcased underrepresented and marginalized voices within the South Asian diaspora. The South Asian Visual Arts Centre created these oral history interviews with artists and organizers involved in the festival in 2016.
Credits: Created by students Amal Khurram and Alisha Krishna for the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory. The Collaboratory is directed by Dr. Elspeth Brown and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Gendertrash: Transsexual Zine, 1993-1995
gendertrash is a zine/periodical “devoted to the issues & concerns of transsexuals.” Its four issues were published by Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay in Toronto from 1993-1995.
Created in collaboration with the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory. The Collaboratory is directed by Dr. Elspeth Brown and funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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).
Rupert Raj and Trans Activism, 1971-1988
Rupert Raj is a Eurasian (East Indian and Polish) pansexual trans man who came out in 1971 in the queer community of Ottawa.
He founded several trans organizations, including the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Transsexuals (FACT), Metamorphosis Medical Research Foundation and Gender Worker (later Gender Consultants).
The collection of Rupert Raj, an important trans activist, includes material related to the three trans-related publications Raj founded and edited in the 1980s; correspondence with other trans people, medical professionals, and activists, research on phalloplasty and other trans issues, personal scrapbooks and photographs, books, and AV materials.
LGBTQ2+ Oral Histories
Oral histories have been a popular way to preserve the lives and testimonies of marginalized subjects who have often been denied access to the historical record. This exhibit showcases a small selection of oral histories and audiovisual materials relating to LGBTQ2+ lives in Canada from The ArQuives' collection.
Some of the cassette tapes have been digitized by the LGBTQ+ Oral History Digital Collaboratory in order to preserve them and make them available online. Several of the other oral history interviews have been conducted by The ArQuives as outreach projects and in order to continue collecting important histories from our community.
LGBTQ+ Buttons
Though small, buttons and pins communicated pivotal concerns of the LGBTQ2+ community to the world. With the earliest item dating to 1977, the buttons in this collection speak to issues in human rights, health, and politics up to the 2010s.
Wearing History: A Collection of LGBTQ2+ T-Shirts
T-shirts are an important medium of expression for the LGBTQ2+ community; allowing subcultures to demonstrate what they stood for and expand their membership, and giving organizations the chance to raise awareness for issues like AIDS and homophobia. T-shirts and dresses also provided a simple but effective way for LGBTQ2+ to showcase their pride in themselves and their nonconformity.
LGBTQ+ Tabloid Newspapers
A collection of newspaper clippings on LGBTQ2+ people as represented in the media of the 1950s and 1960s, including articles and columns discussing the way this community was viewed and the way it was persecuted, ultimately tracking changes in the discourse on sexual diversity.
National Portrait Collection
The National Portrait Collection was established in 1998 with 25 original portraits and coincided with our 25th anniversary. Since then, the collection has grown to 79 portraits in various mediums, including photography, oil, and watercolour. We are committed to the continuous expansion of the NPC, thereby actively engaging in creating our own historical record.
Nominations for the NPC are held on a semi-regular basis. For more information, please contact The ArQuives directly.
The Collection is regularly exhibited in our home in Toronto and at other venues across Canada, in celebration of all LGBTQ2+ communities. The Collection is also available to organizations and museums on loan.
Lesbians Making History: Oral History Project
The Lesbians Making History (LMH) collective came together in the mid-1980s and was inspired by oral history projects of gay lives coming out of Buffalo, Boston and San Francisco. The collective interviewed 9 women about their experiences as ‘out’ lesbians in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
Collective members included: Rachel Epstein, Maureen FitzGerald, Amy Gottlieb, Didi Khayatt, Mary Louise Noble, and Lorie Rotenberg
In 2014 the original audio tapes were given to The ArQuives via the LGBTQ Digital Oral History Collaboratory, a multi-institutional research project led by University of Toronto professor Elspeth Brown and funded by a 5-year SSHRC Insight grant.