Between Oppression and Joy, Permanent and Ephemeral, History and Memory: Collecting Queer Past in the Czech Republic

prezentace, poster

angličtina

In 2014, the Society for Queer Memory has been established in Prague by a group of historians, museum and library professionals and activists. Over the years, a museum collection containing various objects, an archival fund containing documents and papers from individual and corporal authorities and a specialized library has been established within the Society. An important part of the museum collection is an oral history research, containing almost 30 testimonies. A physical place that works as a community center as well became reality. Apart from these achievements, various methodological issues have emerged and their discussion and conclusions can have more universal usage, not just for institutions oriented on marking queer past: What is the relation between grass-root organisations collecting history of a certain community and public institutions – is it even desirable to incorporate collections like this in mainstream museums and archives? How do we preserve the meta-stories that are essential for queering historical objects and documents? Under what term do we access the historical material that is inherently of private, sometimes intimate nature? Under what terms do we access it to researchers while we cannot (and shouldn’t) have control over their interpretation? In what way can we use the past stories for current queer activism and political agenda? How do we deal with the situation where most of the objects, documents and stories originally did, and sometimes still do predominantly concern cis, gay, male lives and experiences while there is a whole other spectrum of queer people? These questions will be addressed based on an experience from a queer museum and archive in Prague and compared to other similar institutions like Leslie Lohman Museum of Art in New York, GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco and ONE Archive in Los Angeles.

queer; queer history; museology; queer museum; LGBT+; minorities

JACKSON, L.

23. 8. 2022

26th ICOM General Conference 2022

Praha

11

https://prague2022.icom.museum/