Clippings, patches, snippets and reports: browsing through LGBT+ memories

In our projects, an issue turned into a persistent question: what makes a document recognized in a historical sense? The memories we seek to register are usually marginalized, censored, persecuted and with no recognition of their social, cultural and political value.

Concerns with the LGBT+ memory are no novelty. In april 1980, the 1st Brazilian Meeting of Homossexuals took place in São Paulo. In that event, a social activist of Grupo Auê (Rio de Janeiro), proposed that actions for the memory were considered in the political agenda.

Report to a "gay memory" leads to a problematic recognition of an unity amongst the memories of the different subjectivities which shape the "LGBT+ community". Thus, working with these memories means dealing with "fragmented memories". Listen to Yuri Fraccaroli about that idea.

Acervo Bajubá's first activities date back to 2010, when a group of interested researchers gathered to discuss the LGBT+ history and memories in Brazil. Listen to Remom Bortolozzi on the finding of a work-art in 2012 and its importance and meaning to the constitution of Bajubá.

Acervo Bajubá's collection is composed of items obtained in secondhand bookstores, auctions or donated by individuals or institutions. The acquisition of those items brings many challenges, such as how to work with found records with few information about its production.

We consider the historical value of our documents and their potential as "triggers" for cultural processes and memory production. Thus, the memories which compose Acervo Bajubá are produced by subjectivities from the past and those that access them in the present time.

Those documents usually reproduce violent speeches and prejudices, pointing to the different ways of living gender and sexuality as threats to be studied, cataloged, controlled and condemned. Listen to Ian Habib (MUTHA) on the ethical precautions when working with them.

Beyond the fictional literature, autobiographies were a recurrent practice among the dissident individuals throughout the 20th century. In those books, they draw on experiences, representations, feelings and affections to produce their own meanings about their lives and past.

Another ongoing project is the constitution of an archive focused on the spaces of the fight against Hiv/Aids. This project resulted in the collaboration with Grupo de Incentivo à Vida (GIV), an NGO that has been standing for the rights of people living with Hiv/Aids since 1990.

In that pathway, one of the activities undertaken was the organization of GIV's institutional archive. More than the records of political mobilization, we found other layers of affective memories, such as cassette tapes with the songs that thrilled many of GIV's activities.

In 2021, Acervo Bajubá collaborated to "Orgulho e Resistências",  an exhibition about the relations between the authoritarianism and the sex/gender diversity in the civil-military dictatorship (1964-85), with some of our collection items and the production of public testimonies.

The public testimonies practice also guided the "incomplete aids epidemic memorial". In that project, we collected short audio in honor of people who lived with hiv and aids and passed away. Every recorded memory carries a visual representation of their remembrances. 

LGBT+ memories deal with structural issues which reflect in questions like the absence of historical records of trans, travesti and black people. As a closing of this exhibition, listen to Florence Belladonna Travesti's reflections on those absences in Acervo Bajubá.