The Femme Story Archives team is currently conducting a project called “On our own terms: An oral history and archive of queer femme community and culture in Toronto, 1990-2000,” funded by a SSHRC Insight Development Grant and led by Principal Investigator Dr. Chloë Brushwood Rose and Co-Investigator Dr. Andi Schwartz, in collaboration with The ArQuives. “On our own terms” responds to a notable absence of material on the experiences of queer femmes in existing LGBTQ2+ theories, histories, and archives by exploring queer femme cultural production and community-building in Toronto during the 199 ..read more

Located in Toronto, Ontario, The ArQuives is one of the largest LGBTQ2+ archives in the world. Primarily a volunteer-run organization focusing on Canadian content, The ArQuives acquires, preserves, and provides public access to information and collections in various formats. Our organization offers a range of research, exhibition, educational, and community programming. The ArQuives seeks an Archives Assistant (16-week contract) commencing May 2024. Reporting to the Senior Archivists, the Archives Assistant position will expose the student to various archival situations designed to improve ski ..read more

Located in Toronto, Ontario, The ArQuives is one of the largest independent LGBTQ2+ archives in the world. Primarily a volunteer-run organization focusing on Canadian content, The ArQuives acquires, preserves, and provides public access to information and collections in various formats. Our organization offers a range of research, exhibition, educational, and community programming. The ArQuives seeks a full-time permanent Collections Manager commencing May 2024. There is an expected two-week training period with the current Collections Manager. Reporting to the Executive Director, the Collecti ..read more

We’re excited to announce that the Anton Wagner and Edimburgo Cabrera fonds is now available for research on-site at The ArQuives! Thanks to our amazing Assistant Archivist, Nicole for processing this remarkable collection. Anton and Eddie have been essential forces in documentary filmmaking in Toronto, Canada, Cuba, and elsewhere internationally for the last several decades. These records were primarily used in the research, production, and distribution of Wagner’s films on queer and trans communities (with a focus on drag and, often, on Black and Latino communities) in Toronto from the mid-t ..read more

The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives invites you to the 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Monday, May 13, 2024, at 6:00 PM EST via Zoom.   Any member of the public is invited to attend. Members will be eligible to participate fully in AGM business. Meeting link: The AGM is open to all and registration is required in advance for this meeting. Please register here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Members are those individuals who have contributed more than 15 hours of volunteer service to the organization ..read more

The ArQuives is one of the largest independent LGBTQ2+ archives in the world and the only archive in Canada with a mandate to collect at a national level. Located in Toronto, The ArQuives was founded out of The Body Politic newspaper collection in 1973 and has a mandate to safeguard the LGBTQ2+ history of Canada. The ArQuives invites nominations and applications from individuals across Canada to join our active board of directors. We seek individuals with the time, energy, and initiative to work on LGBTQ2+ cultural heritage and documentary stewardship for the LGBTQ2+ community nationwide. This ..read more

The ArQuives co-presented Queer Cinema for Palestine’s: Foggy screening this week. You can now the films online. How can family memories inform solidarity? How can avant-garde voices engaging the past contribute to activism today? How can private archives queer public histories? How do yesterday’s photographs become tomorrow’s pictures? Foggy is a screening of recent short films that stage hybrid acts of montage, juxtaposition, re-enactment and dialogue, exploring the theme of solidarity as we make our way together through the fog.  Foggy’s films and discussion are now available to stream ..read more

The Curatorial Committee at The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives is seeking exhibition proposals from contemporary artists and curators working with archival themes and materials for an exhibition in the Spring of 2024. This call for proposals is open to community members, artists, collectives, and researchers. Submission deadline: January 8th, 2024,11:59 pm EST Exhibition dates: April 4th, 2024 to May 10th, 2024  Call for Proposals The post Call for Exhibition Proposals first appeared on The ArQuives ..read more

My name is Lily Holland, and for 4 weeks this fall, I Interned at The ArQuives, and processed the Sue Wells fonds. As a PhD student based in Bristol, England, I was funded by the South West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership to undertake this internship in order to learn more about queer and trans archiving, and assist The ArQuives with their important work.  The fonds I arranged and described was that of Sue Wells, pictured.  Wells is someone who, prior to my arrival in Toronto, I had never heard of. If you don’t know who Sue is, she’s a queer activist and motorcyclist from To ..read more

Myseum of Toronto and The ArQuives hald a roundtable discussion about trans activism in Toronto between the 1960s and 1990s in April of 2023. Speakers Monica Forrester, Mirha-Soleil Ross, and Rupert Raj reflected on some of their foundational actions that helped create sustainability, kinship, and activist culture for the rights of trans people. This intergenerational roundtable explored the implications and impact of communities whose members self-determined their own definitions of sustainability and health, as their own advocates in the face of violence, oppression, and adversity. The panel ..read more