About

This website showcases projects from two sections of Queer Art and Archives, an Information Workshop at University of Toronto taught by Professor Rachel Corbman in Winter 2023. 

Here's the course description: 

As an artist in residence at the GLBT Historical Society, E.G. Crichton developed “Matchmaking in the Archive,” a project that paired contemporary artists with collections housed in the GLBT Historical Society’s archive. Resulting in two exhibitions and a soon to be published book, Crichton’s project asked each artist to create a new work based on their assigned collection. In this workshop, we will explore creative projects like “Matchmaking in the Archive” that utilize archival research to grapple with queer and trans histories. Specifically, this workshop looks at contemporary film, performance, and visual art by artists such as Jean Carlomusto, Leah DeVun, Cheryl Dunye, Xandra Ibarra, Chase Joynt, Theodore Kerr, Allyson Mitchell, Ulrike Müller, LJ Roberts, Tourmaline, and Chris Vargas. Though working in different mediums and focusing on different historical contexts across the 20th century, these artists similarly play with the possibilities and limits of the archival record of queer and trans lives and social movements. Through carefully attending to these projects, this workshop more generally introduces major trends in queer and trans historiography, while asking what art can teach us about archives and the histories they document. Alongside our study of how artists use archives, workshop participants will develop their own creative project based on archival research that will be included in a digital exhibit on “Queer Art + Archives.”

Here's the complete syllabus: