¿Archivo queer? – Queer Archive? Activism and Institutionalism Clash in the Archival Arena

“…The documentary collection Queer Archive? (…) set out to map and document the struggles of gender activist communities in Madrid in the 1990s so as to prevent contagion and promote safe sex, especially given the dramatic lack of institutional policies tackling the health crisis. Researchers and activists Sejo Carrascosa, Lucas Platero, Andrés Senra and Fefa Vila obtained a residency grant from the Museo Reina Sofía Study Center to investigate these struggles, and their findings helped Guillermo Cobo, one of the museum’s librarians, locate all the various documents testifying to it, which, for the most part, had been preserved in the homes of former activists. Cobo accommodated the various expectations that their owners—“domestic archivists”—had regarding the arrangements…”