Black, indigenous, and queer of color pasts are often misrepresented or forgotten in historical documentation. In this archive workshop, we ask ourselves how our stories appear, who narrates them, and craft our own contributions to intervene in hegemonic narratives. By archiving these contributions, we create records of ourselves and our collective pasts.

In the first part of the workshop, we will tour the archive and discuss the Schwules Museum’s archival practices. In doing so, we will engage with queer theories of the archive and include reflections from scholars such as Saidiya Hartman, José Esteban Muñoz and Gayatri Gopinath.

In the second part, we will creatively engage the archive by making visual or written contributions, e.g. mini-zines, collages, letters, poems, short prose. These could develop freely or based on prompts.

Duration: 12 – 5:30 p.m. (with lunch break)

This creative, queer-theory workshop is aimed at queer BIPOC. It will be held in spoken English. Please register at fuehrungen@schwulesmuseum.de. Participation is limited to 8 persons. In order to create a safer space, please state your positionality as a BIPOC, and a few lines about your motivation to attend in your registration e-mail. The workshop is free of charge.

 Jessica Walter (she/her) is a literary and cultural studies scholar with a focus on diaspora, postcolonialism and queer theory. As a research trainee at the Schwules Museum, she is involved with the archive, exhibitions, and education/outreach. In the archive, she is interested in affects, tactility, and temporality, particularly related to South Asian diasporic subjects.

Visual: Jessica Walter