Summoning all sci-fi queerdos 📡 This pride month, Melbourne-based creative organisation, Queer Love Collective, are channelling their inner Russell T Davies for this year’s pride month exhibition. Titled The Q Files: The Queer is Out There, this salon-style gallery show will feature the work of more than 100 queer artists all based around one central theme: science fiction.
“Basically, after last year’s Big Queer Show, Ruby [Vaggelas] and I were discussion what to expect for this coming June. Should we pivot or do something bigger and queerer? Or did there need to be some sort of theme attached to the show?” Co-founder of Queer Love Collective, Madi Sherburn, tells Not Safe For Queers.
After much back-and-forth, and a realisation that the duo shared a love for Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in The X Files, this year’s theme became abundantly clear.
“Ruby had mentioned that she’d made a shirt for somebody that said ‘yeah, I love MILFs’ and it was just a photo of Gillian Anderson. And then we immediately got on to the topic of how much we both love The X Files, and sci-fi in general and it dawned on me that this was an idea we had to go with,” Sherburn begins.
“You know, we’re both queer, we both know that Gillian Anderson is very much a lesbian awakening (and that, arguably, David Duchovny is a gay awakening). So that’s how we came up with The Q Files.”
This artistic manifestation, however, is more than just a nostalgic itch that Vaggelas and Sherburn have been desperate to scratch. Historically, queers have used science fiction (and the genre of speculative fiction more broadly) as an avenue through which to escape their sometimes restrictive realities, looking externally to these whimsical worlds where anything is possible.
“That level of escapism is rooted so deeply in the feeling of disconnect. You know, being born into such a heteronormative society, queer people have been able to tap into these sci-fi universes and connect with these characters that’ve been labelled as the ‘other,’” they explain. “And that needs to be acknowledged and wholeheartedly celebrated in some way.”
With that being said, both Vaggelas and Sherburn understand that the show’s theme could be restrictive for some.
They explain, “while centring a salon show around a key word or idea helps ground all of the artworks within the space, the intention for Queer Love Collective and our annual Pride Month exhibition is to highlight the grassroots community.”
“I dont have a laser gun to anybody’s head to say that they need to make a sci-fi related artwork. People are very much free to submit whatever they want. We just really wanted it to be a really fun, dumb, loosely-sci-fi connected art exhibition—because, at the end of the day, it’s really just an opportunity for creative expression to be had, and for people to come together and celebrate during Pride Month.”
More than that, Queer Love Collective will be hosting various events throughout the exhibition’s run—including a lesbian arm wrestling event (wherein participants can join as either a ‘muscle mummy’ to a ‘twig twink’), an LGBTQIA+ sci-fi book club event, and more.
The Q Files: The Queer is Out There runs from 7 — 28 June at Unassigned Gallery in Brunswick. Entry to the main exhibition is free, but tickets are available for their opening night celebrations.