The Archive is Permanently Under Construction

Aurora Fantechi is a young creative currently studying cultural theory, criticism, and curatorial arts at Central Saint Martin’s (UAL). 

She is a Florence-London-based writer and has experience experimenting with visual arts including photography, film, fashion as well as movement art, and performance. 

She strives to push the boundaries of her practice to explore uncharted territories and trace the realms that are yet to come. 

LGBTQIA+ experiences and stories are integral to my work and, more broadly, to my life. For this reason, I was captivated by the project. Specifically, questioning and re-evaluating archival practice. How can it be employed as a navigational tool to trace the difference between history and heritage? How can materiality develop its own language and articulate its own responses? How, in other words, can objects be alive and matter?

In the entanglements between queer experiences and materiality, these questions can potentially find an answer and new perspectives can be advanced.  

Gabriele Uboldi (he/they) is a queer and migrant playwright, director, and multidisciplinary artist working across theatre and audio. He is the Artistic Director of the London-based company Undone Theatre, which focuses on the intersection between formal experimentation and expressing queer, marginalised voices.

He is the author of LONDON/LONDRA, an award-winning series of audio walks around London combining autobiography with archival material to explore queer history and migration as they are inscribed in London’s public spaces.

You can find out more about Gabriele here: www.gabrieleuboldi.com

Holly Stepp is an MA History student at UCL specialising in gender and social history of post-war Britain and has experience working with a range of community-driven digital archives.

"I was interested in working on this project as I wanted to build on my experience of working on queer archives and see how the practice of archiving queer experiences may differ in a larger institution. I also wanted to work within a team of young people who all specialise in different disciplines to improve my practice as an archivist and social historian, and to learn from my peers to produce a creative project that will positively impact the way that the experiences of marginalised are archived, curated and presented."

Jackson Deans is a designer whose work spans the fields of graphic design, architecture, and critical design research, with a specific focus on LGBTQ+ themes. As a graduate of the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow, spatial practice informs all of his creative works; his final year project was a hybrid typology for the queer community where the boundaries between bathing, dance, and sexual escapism are dismantled.

His most recent work, a research project completed whilst at a design residency with School SOS, explores historical trans+ exclusion from LGBTQ+ activism and the current climate of corporate late-stage Pride; a video piece from this project was exhibited at the South London Gallery last year. The prospect of engaging critically with archival material and the opportunity to collaborate with other queer creatives lead him to get involved with this project at the Barbican.

Min-Kyoo has a background in studying politics and film.

"I am interested in exploring the themes of (in)visibility and erasure in the archive — this is why I am motivated to be involved in this project, in order to collaboratively and critically interrogate and redress the representation of LGBTQ+ people. I’m also excited to be working with a diverse range of film, photographic and other visual material across the Barbican and Bishopsgate Institute; I hope this will animate discussions around how archives could become more accessible and inclusive in contemporary society."

Morisha Moodley is a London-based moving image artist and curator whose work traverses ideas of race, queerness, disability, and spirituality. They are interested in how the archive can be used as a tool for queer identity-making; the forgotten or lesser-known histories that the archive might show and the possibilities for imagining in its gaps. 

Zoe Sutherland-Rowe is an MA Classical art and Archaeology student at KCL who is interested in how each of us can feel a personal connection with the people of the past.

They have a particular focus on non-elite Roman and Romano-British material culture, and LGBTQ+ voices throughout history.

For a recent example of their work see - Queer Suffragettes: Censorship and Opposing the Law