This Pride Month, Queer Love Collective are showcasing the works of more than 70 new and emerging queer artists at their Big Queer Show. Here, you’ll be able to see an array of mediums—from photography and paintings through to textiles and other wearables.
Co-curated by Queer Love Collective’s Ruby Vaggelas and Madi Sherburn, The Big Queer Show marks their fourth (and biggest) exhibition. Opening on the first day of Pride Month, it’s their way of showcasing the power of community among what has become a somewhat commercialised celebration.
“We just wanted to celebrate Pride Month in a way that reclaimed the pink and the rainbow washing associated with Pride Month. It’s our way of bringing it back to the community,” Vaggelas tells Not Safe For Queers.
More than that, however, the Big Queer Show is a way for QLC to help young LGBTQIA+ artists get their foot in the door of an industry which can be exclusive at best, and discriminatory at worst.
“It’s the first show (the first exhibition) for most queer artists,” says Vaggelas. “So, it’s kind of entry level. Like, we try to make it even across the board, we don’t have a hierarchy. You just submit some work, you get in, put your work on the wall, and it gets shared with everyone else.”
“I just really didn’t like the elitism. I found it really overwhelming,” she says.
What culminated is a big queer showcase, involving more than 70 artists with more than 100 pieces of art on display.
“The show is a real melting pot of materials, mediums and themes,” says Sherburn. “I know that there’s a lot of queer artists that feel like they have to pigeonhole themselves and their practices into only talking about their queerness and their queer identity. And we wanted to avoid that in this exhibition and in this curatorial process, because there’s so much more than just who you might be in love with, who you might sleep with, or your gender.”
“We didn’t tell people that they had to showcase their queerness. We just wanted them to show up, be who they are and present work that they thought best represented themselves,” she says. “That being said, though, there are artists that are being presented that are showing work talking about their transness or their bisexuality, and things like that.”
Since the curatorial callout was so unrestricted, so, too, are the works on display. At the Big Queer Show, you’ll see installation works, sculptures, wearables (including clothing and jewellery), photographs, paintings, and even crochet.
Plus, to bookend the exhibition, QLC have put on two events: the ‘Big Queer Party’ on 1 June, and the ‘Closing/Clothing Swap‘ on 15 June.
Opening the exhibition, the ‘Big Queer Party’ will be your chance to meet all of the artists involved in the Big Queer Show, while enjoying a DJ set, and live performances. Then, on their final day, QLC will be presenting a gender affirming clothing swap as a way to celebrate the closing (and clothing) of the exhibition.
The Big Queer Show runs from 1 – 15 June at Unassigned Gallery in Brunswick. The main exhibition is free, but tickets are available for their opening and closing night celebrations.