June 2022

01 Jun, 2022 An upcoming exhibit

This summer, the Archives gaies du Québec will participate in the celebrations organized by Fierté Montréal. To mark the 24th International AIDS Conference to be held in Montreal in July 2022, the Archives gaies du Quebec will be using its collections to curate an exhibit, tentatively titled Visibility and Activism: A History of the Fight against HIV/AIDS in Quebec.

This project is made possible thanks to the financial support of Fierté Montréal. This year, the activities of Fierté Montreal will be spread throughout the summer, from May 21 to August 7, to help dissipate the gloom of the last two years. In addition, Fierté Montréal will finance activities in other cities across the province such as Val-d’Or, Saint-Hyacinthe, Chicoutimi, Magog and Sherbrooke, in order to reach out to 2SLGBTQIA+ people who face different realities and challenges.

We thank Simon Gamache, Executive Director of Fierté Montréal, and his team, for selecting our project.

01 Jun, 2022 Have a good trip!

As part of a France-Quebec exchange, the Archives gaies du Québec will send three people to France for a fifteen-day stay next June.

Artist Stephen Schofield, archivist Simone Beaudry-Pilotte and researcher Jonathan Proulx-Guimond will first travel to Paris to make contact with LGBTQ+ organizations, then to the Médiathèque de Montpellier to meet the members of les Amis d’Yves Navarre and consult their archives. From these documents, they will develop a body of research which will then be used to curate an exhibit upon their return.

Yves Navarre, a writer and gay rights activist who lived in Montreal for over a year since the beginning of the 1990s, was the recipient of the Prix Goncourt (1980) and the Prix Amic of the Académie Française (1992). He died in 1994. It is thanks to the volunteer work of guest curator Claude Gosselin that this project could be carried out. We thank the Ministère des relations internationales et de la francophonie du Québec for its financial support and LOJIQ (Les offices jeunesses internationaux du Québec) for Simone’s and Jonathan’s plane tickets.

We wish them a successful trip and good weather!

01 Jun, 2022 A virtual rainbow just above us!

The Archives gaies du Quebec are pleased to be partnering with Polar Rainbow, an augmented reality sculpture from Latvian-British artist Kristaps Ancāns, in honor of Pride Month in the United States, from June 1- June 30, 2022. The project is curated by Corina L. Apostol (Tallinn Art Hall).

Ancāns’ project creates a virtual double rainbow stretching between the North and South poles along the 74W meridian line — the most populous meridian in the Americas, which happens to cut right through Times Square along 7th Avenue. Ancāns created Polar Rainbow in support of communities under duress, calling for visions of empathy, awareness and solidarity.

The sculpture will be accessible via the Polar Rainbow app developed by Ancāns in close collaboration with Platvorm a data visualization studio based in Tallinn, Estonia.

Visitors can download the app through the Time Square Arts website App users will be able to capture photos with the rainbow and send personalized “digital postcards” that will be featured online by using the hashtag #polarrainbow.

Polar Rainbow has invited partners from various international organizations and communities to reach out to people geographically located in NYC and all along the 74W meridian line where the rainbow will be visible. The Archives gaies du Québec counts among these partners.

We look forward to seeing your Polar Rainbow postcards on social media!