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Tēnā koutou katoa, I'm Alison Day and thank you for coming to my presentation today on Queering Art Archives, the GLAMU sector, which is galleries, libraries, archives, museums and universities, so I did everything in New Zealand, and queer collecting in Aotearoa, New Zealand. So, just from, um, quick presentation overview, so, just, uh, I'm going to talk about queer collecting, my PhD research, and some of my data findings so far, and some further suggestions around queering RGLAM use. And I'm also going to just [00:00:30] note I'm going to be using LGBTTFIQ plus for New Zealand, LGBTQ plus for international, and queer as umbrella terms in this talk. So, I'd just like to start with a quick story, just to give you a flavour of the research I'm doing and some of the themes and narratives I'm uncovering, particularly around queer collecting. Queer collecting can take many forms, be a variety of formats, and some of these can have hidden meanings. And the photo on the left, as many of you probably know, is Shannon Novak, an artist and activist who works in the queer space. And in the [00:01:00] middle is the new Plymouth Clock Tower, covered in a large scale public piece of art by Shannon. Now Shannon told me, and I've had permission to interview her, share this with you, that the official heteronormative narrative is that the art, um, represents local heritage. But Shannon had an underlying and much more personal narrative in mind when he undertook this work. He saw it firstly as a giant rainbow finger to the new, to New Plymouth for all the homophobic abuse he'd suffered, endured when growing up there. And secondly, as a beacon. of Rainbow Hope. [00:01:30] So this queer narrative, personal to Shannon, is not in the public space, although he has documented it on paper. So the point being is that there's all sorts of queer stories that are important to make visible, you know, these underlying hidden meanings, to discover and preserve, to include that queer perspective for all members, um, of the queer communities in our national, regional, and local narratives. So how come, how did I come to research this? So just some context, you're probably all familiar with this anyway. Um, so marginalised communities are [00:02:00] often hidden in history. And LGBTQ plus politically active, particularly from the 1960s, wanting law reform to stop them from being seen as criminals under the legislation of the time. A lot of stigma, a lot of discrimination. And as you know, homosexuality was illegal in New Zealand until 1986. So, to document that activism, community archives were set up, not just in New Zealand, but around the world. Um, ANZ LAG ANZ, um, as we've heard, which has now got a new name change, was the first independent archive in New [00:02:30] Zealand from the late 1970s, when it was had an original name, to archive their activist history. So there's a background, we've also got, we've got three in New Zealand, so we've got Pride NZ, by Gareth, and we've also got the Charlotte Museum up in Auckland. So are LGBTQ plus collected and represented now by mainstream institutions, and this of course is not just a New Zealand issue, but one that's worldwide. And this quote is from Jim Downs chapter in the book, Like People in History, on American LGBTQ and he [00:03:00] contends that the role of queer independent archives is still very important today for a range of reasons, including mistrust of mainstream organizations. So is it the same here in New Zealand? Well, a couple of recent articles in Stuff, which, from 2021, that one, and the spinoff from 2020, seem to indicate a similar situation, and I wanted to investigate this further, as being able to see yourself and your communities represented in history and the archives in the national narratives is important.[00:03:30] So this was my PhD, so basically my two research objectives is basically, so, how are the Glamus getting on? Um, with LGBT TFIQ Plus collecting and documenting, what are they actually doing. And then to look at the relationships, the kind of relationships that exist and the connections between LGBT TFIQ Plus donors, the communities and independent archives and also with the GLAMU institutions. And I'll just put the definition down there, but you can read that. So just to illustrate what I sort of [00:04:00] mean, this is an example, um, There's a picture here of the rainbow jacket that was worn by Louisa Wall, um, who was the instigator of the Marriage Equality Bill back in 2012. And she wore this in Parliament during the debates, and also when the bill was passed. And she gifted this jacket to the Auckland Museum for their Tamaki Herenga Waka Stories of Auckland collection, and it's online as well, and she has close connections with the museum, and she was happy to make this donation. So underpinning my research is queer theory and in the [00:04:30] glam you sector this seeks to challenge the dominance of the heteronormative constructs So the sort of the mainstream, um, looking really to advocate for fluidity and multiple expressions of gender and sexual identity So looking at better ways of description and identification this improves discovery Visibility and also means we can get rid of some of that inappropriate terminology, which We also need to change the lens. So we need to think about how we, um, switching the focus from the heteronormative to gender and [00:05:00] sexuality inclusive. Looking for the hidden. Thinking about how items are described. Looking for the queer in collections and items. And also, importantly, to develop relationships with New Zealand's queer community archives and their communities. So to find out what's happening in this group. In this space, for the GLAMUs, I used a qualitative survey which went on to some interviews. So just for the survey, I sent out, um, 38 emails with a link to the survey, and I got 33 responses [00:05:30] back. I got 8 from the universities, all the universities replied. And, um, 25 Glam Institution. This led on to 30 in depth interviews with Glam and University Information Professionals. I have done interviews with donors. I've also done interviews with donors who donated to Lagans and the Charlotte Museum. And I've also talked to donors. garrison several times and so that that is a separate part of my research. So what have I found so far from this? Well I discovered that I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know but [00:06:00] collection policy plus collecting approaches plus connections plus descriptions equals the under representation and under representation of the LGBT TFIQ communities in Aotear's Glamou sector. So, to break this down a bit further. So, collection policy. So, all institutions have collecting policies. They all have these, what they call, broad collecting strategies. Again, they're all seen as diverse and inclusive because they're really broad. The responses I've had from everyone [00:06:30] in, working in these sectors is they're all open to collecting from the queer community, so long as, the big thing with New Zealand is it has regional boundaries, so they won't accept stuff from, so if you're in the New Plymouth area, for example, it's got to be within the, sort of, like, Taranaki area. Um, but very few institutions have specific policies for marginalized communities and even less so with direct to LGBTQ plus. What this means is, is that the collections are predominantly Pakiha and [00:07:00] cis cisgender are the norm, shall we say. Um, If there are any queer collections in there, they often also reflect the dominant sections like cisgender gay men, but rarely if ever represent any of the other groups within queer communities. So, collecting approaches. So what happens here? Well, collections are shaped by the collecting approaches. And in New Zealand, the way, um, most glamues will collect by doing passive collection. passive collecting, which means [00:07:30] they receive donations from people rather than going out and actively collecting, which means that most of the donations are offered from the mainstream groups. It's the same people who keep donating because they're the ones who do it. Um, so rather than what they call active collecting, which means you're going out to connect with communities to create content, to develop relationships and collect things like those oral histories and also to get them to think about donating. So what are the, um, what are the constraints then to doing active collecting? Well, [00:08:00] basically backlogs. One of them is that most institutions have backlogs. One of them mentioned they had unaccessioned collections, which means the collections come in and no one's actually looked at them for the 1990s and they sort of think they should look at those first. And a lack of storage space. So this is actually a really big issue. Um, so several institutions have had what they call monitoriums on all physical donations, some lasting for over a year, because they just can't fit anything else in. And the usual lack of resources, which is lack of time, staff, and, um, money, [00:08:30] which might get worse, unfortunately, um, in the future. So, connections. So, if you want to do active collecting, you have got to develop connections with your communities. And curators and archivists are very aware of the lack of representation in their collections, and they'd really like to do something about it. So, firstly, one of the things you could do is to show that institutions are safe spaces, this idea of developing some trust. And I put there the Safe Space Alliance, which is a free um, free initiative, actually been settled by [00:09:00] Shannon Novak actually, and, um, you, basically you get an approval and you can display this prominently, so it shows basically that it's a safe space for people from queer communities to go, and secondly, that their collections are going to be preserved and protected, because that's another thing, is you don't want to put it in there and then find like it's, you know, been shoveled out, it's been deaccessioned about two years later. But, barriers to this, well, first of all, you can't, as you know, it takes time to develop relationships and the focus has to be on the [00:09:30] relationship. You can't just rock in there and say, hey, you know, we'd really like a donation and then you get a donation and then you just disappear again because that just makes things worse. So you've got to have the time, the staff, and the resources to sustain and keep a relationship going. And the other problem is that people have mentioned is this lack of contacts in the sort of LGBT, TFIQ plus communities. One person has mentioned they'd love to do some oral histories with the older queer community in their region. Um, she thought many were becoming frail, but they've got no time, [00:10:00] resources, or connections with the community. I was thinking, great, somebody could just go straight in there and start doing some stuff. Really good. very much. Another issue, um, which is one that's quite dear to my heart actually, if I can take a minute, is trying to find queer items. It's this idea of description and metadata. So if you've got, if you want to actually go online and search for something, then you've got to put in keywords. And if you don't have any keywords that represent anything to do with the queer communities, then it's really difficult to find them. So the first thing is, is the classification systems used were [00:10:30] designed in the US in the 19th century. century. So they're absolutely not neutral. And the terminology in them for gender identity and sexual orientation is outdated, limited, and often inappropriate and or harmful. And it's very hard to get this changed. The library, it's Library of Congress and trying to get it changed is very, very difficult. It takes ages. So there's trying to think about ways to work around. So it's also hard to find queer items. So in a New Zealand context, um, LGBTQ a terminology. Um, if [00:11:00] used, and you can often go and search and probably find nothing, um, isn't standardized. So there's lots of different umbrella terms, lots of different acronyms, as you're probably all aware. You might find people will use queer, there might be pride, but then that might bring up some photos from the 1930s of people looking happy and whatever, so um, there's little use beyond gay and lesbian. So it's actually, and also the other problem is, is it's in those, some of the collections in, that are already there, trying to, items are unidentified because nobody's actually looked at them with a queer [00:11:30] lens, or they're still in those unaccessioned ones. So, what can we do? How can we queer our GLAMUs? This is my big thing. What am I, what am I going to suggest? Well, first of all is um, firstly have to think about some suggestions. So using a queer lens, um, thinking about how to update existing collections and descriptions. Identify the gaps and update terminology. And the other thing is more flexible policies. And one of these things is actually to have more defined areas of priority, I think, so um, to get, [00:12:00] so they're defined in the priority, so LGBT, TFIQ plus are in there along with other marginalized groups. And one way also to help with all of this is to start building, sorry, that's my phone! Sorry about that. Okay, backwards one. Oh yeah, um, right, so building connections with queer communities and queer community archives. Because basically you need, um, like using queer advocates, so people who have contacts in both the GLAM sector, the GLAM [00:12:30] youth sector, because there's actually lots of people who, uh, and I identify who also work in libraries and archives and museums, um, people who are like important in the, you know, well known in the communities who could maybe sort of try and, you know, sort of build these connections here, particularly around projects as. And try and diversify those collecting approaches. Get some new stuff in. Get some, what we call contemporary collecting. So, this type of stuff. So, rather than just relying on donations. Because that's not working. So, there is some things going on. Before you all [00:13:00] think there's absolutely nothing happening. There's some actually really cool stuff going on. So, some of the examples, of course, obviously, we've looked on the Te Papa website. They've got a really big, um, they've got an online site. space there, put here up the trans past, trans present, uh, project. So Manawatu Heritage, um, they've published a couple of articles, it's called Back Issues in the Manawatu Standard on, uh, queer history. There was also one by one of their, one of their donors as well. And they are collaborating with MALGRA on an oral history project and once all those are sort of, um, there's help and advice and they've got a [00:13:30] database they're setting up for that. And just, this is one, uh, for the Dowse. This is, um, the Dowse owns an art museum. And, um, how they do it is they integrate queer in their various exhibitions. So it's, they're not, sometimes but not always, identifying or distinguishing artworks and, or artists. The art, the art world is quite interesting actually, I have to say. Anyway, so for example, um, Jacob Rawlinson, this is one on their website now. He's, um, got a Fairyland exhibition there. This is on their website, and he's offering, uh, some [00:14:00] alternative histories of queer culture and nature. Um, which basically takes you on a queer journey through the dark forests of fantasy literature and pop culture. So, there's, yeah, there's things definitely going on. And description, my thing. How can we improve description? Well, there are quite a lot of stuff going on, particularly coming out of the States, because of also the stuff around people of colour and that type of thing. So this has all been moved on as well by the Trans Metadata Collective, [00:14:30] who published the Metadata Best Practices for Trans and Gender Diverse Resources a few years ago. Um, basically to give, offer guidelines for those in the cultural heritage space to more appropriately describe trans items when trying to navigate through. Things like the classification systems, like the Library of Congress subject headings. 'cause I think there's categories, sexual minorities, which is Yeah. So I'm now part of the queer Metadata Collective and I'm on the description group and we are looking to try and produce a similar set of guidelines now [00:15:00] to describe for sort of queer items. So that whole thing about. What do you, what sort of keywords do you put in, how do you tag things, so that there's some consistency, which is of course a real tension, because the idea is that the communities are fluid, but then trying to find things, you have to have some consistency, because otherwise, how are you going to be representative and visible out there, so we are trying to work through all of those things, there's no real answer, it's just trying to find something that You know, meets needs and doesn't upset too many people. And the other thing is that we can work around with [00:15:30] the Library of Congress is to use Homosaurus. So this is, there's quite a few control vocabularies, but this is one that is now being used by the National Library of New Zealand. Um, Alexander Turnbull, and they've written a blog about it. I'll put it down there, you can have a look. And this means you can use some of these terminologies, um, in addition to, or get around the Library of Congress. So, University of Canterbury has been looking at that, so this is hopefully something I can suggest for more institutions to use over here. Um, and you can also add in New Zealand [00:16:00] terms to that as well, to make it more appropriate for, um, the New Zealand context. So, yeah. Those are my references. Um, any questions? And thank you very much for listening.
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