Welcome to the digital exhibition of the Queer Pleasure Archive! This is an art project and DIY archive by Sarah Li in collaboration with Emma Bentley-Fox, Edwin Li and members of the DGA Collective.
In this exhibition there are two virtual spaces: the upstairs balcony space and the downstairs large exhibition room. The upstairs space contains works co-created with the wonderful people who have been involved in creating pieces for the Queer Pleasure Archive alongside portraits of the co-authors by Emma Bentley-Fox. The downstairs space contains artwork responses by Sarah Li and Edwin Li. The digital exhibition starts in the downstairs space, so please do navigate upstairs by clicking on the arrows on the floor. When you reach the upwards pointing arrow you can go upstairs and vice versa for downstairs. You can click on the other icons to see close-ups and get more information about each artwork. All of the text in the exhibition is readable by clicking on these hotspots.
More information about the general exhibition:
This project started because Sarah had noticed from working on multiple projects which responded to LGBTQIA+ histories in archives, that there was a distinct lack of positive representation of LGBTQIA+ people. They imagined a lot of that positive representation might have been lost to the past due to pathologisation and criminalisation of LGBTQIA+ people.
Despite this many LGBTQIA+ people managed and continue to manage to carve out fulfilling,self-defining and pleasurable lives for themselves. So to begin the project, they asked members of their wild, wonderful and fun filled community, the DGA (Drag King, Genderchaos and Alternative Drag) collective, if they would be interested in contributing a queer pleasure to their DIY archive.
Throughout this exhibition you will see archival pieces created by members of the DGA collective who exist in a variety of ways (LGBTQIA+, Allies and Questioning). They were invited by Sarah to choose a pleasurable activity that they could do together and to decide how they would like to document that activity.
Sarah has then created artwork responses to each activity/ the conversations that they had with each of the members. Despite the diversity in activities and documentation, there were some common themes of water, trees and family/friends and there was a lot of seasonal and cyclical thinking that went into the project which really ties into a pleasure of Sarah’s.
There are also some beautiful portraits of some of the DGA members by artist and photographer Emma-Bentley Fox and who will also be documenting the performances at the preview which will also go into the Queer Pleasure Archive. Edwin Li has also made the boat you see in the exhibition.
There is a lot of text available within this exhibition. This is to provide more context for those that find it more enjoyable to have accompanying text. You are welcome to approach the text according to your preference, read it all, ignore it or dip in and out. It’s completely up to you!
If you would like to do some research in the Queer Pleasure Archive or view some of its contents, please get in touch via this email: [email protected]. Please bear in mind that it is a DIY archive and so the response time may not be as quick as other archives.
We hope you enjoy the exhibition!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to members of the DGA Collective for their generosity with their time, energy, beautiful ideas and patience throughout the project and their art/archival contributions. Thank you for being part of the loving community that has nourished the exhibition in every aspect.
Thank you to Emma Bentley-Fox and Edwin Li for their wonderful contributions as artists to the work in the exhibition and for the joyous collaborations.
Thank you to Edwin Li for technical support access support and general good energy without which the project wouldn’t have happened.
Thank you to the steering group who have been discussing the future of the archive and are the team behind the logistics of the Queer Pleasure Archive: James Davison, Cathy Flockton, Robert Girling, Edwin Li.
Thank you to mentors Sophie Seita and Lady Kitt for your guidance and support on the project.
Thank you to Art Matters Now for creating this digital exhibition!
Thank you to Helix Arts and the Newcastle Arts Team for partnering and funding the project.
Thank you to Arts Council England for funding the project.
Thank you to Helix Arts and the Ouseburn Trust for hosting the exhibitions.
Thank you to all family and friends for all the things all the time!
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