The ArQuives is grateful to work with many partners, including community groups, academic institutions, and heritage projects across Canada. You can read about our current and past partners here.
Current Partners
Digital Transgender Archive
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based at Northeastern University, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.
Inside Out Film Festival
For more than three decades, Inside Out has brought Toronto’s 2SLGBTQ+ community together in celebration of the best queer film from Canada and around the world. Through our annual Festivals in Toronto and Ottawa, our filmmaker initiatives, our youth engagement and our year-round events and screenings, Inside Out is engaged every day in challenging attitudes and changing lives.
Salaam Canada
Salaam Canada is a volunteer-run national organization dedicated to creating space for people who identify as both Muslim* and LGBTQ+. We acknowledge the diverse experiences of our community and support LGBTQ+ people who identify with Islam ritually, culturally, spiritually, or religiously. Salaam Canada advocates for social justice and addresses the intersecting issues around homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia/racism.
Newfoundland and Labrador Queer Research Initiative
The NLQRI was established to facilitate the preservation and commemoration of the 2SLGBTQ+ histories of Newfoundland and Labrador. Our mandate is to:
- empower our community to recover and share our history, and
- maintain a collection of 2SLGBTQ+ historical materials and research for the purposes of academic scholarship, policymaking, and for use by the broader community.
Visit the Newfoundland and Labrador Queer Research Initiative
Queers in Your Ears
Queers is Your Ears is a Toronto-based storytelling collective was founded in 1996.
National Film Board of Canada
The NFB is Canada’s public producer and distributor, with a vast and growing collection of works that include award-winning creative documentaries, auteur animation, interactive stories, and participatory experiences.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, people with print disabilities, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.
The Disability Collective
The Disability Collective (TDC) is the only fully disability-led performing arts organization in Toronto. Dedicated to celebrating and showcasing work created solely by disabled artists, TDC strives to de-stigmatize disability and challenge perceptions of disability by providing disabled artists with paid opportunities to share their work in a variety of forms, along with actively advocating for and improving accessibility and inclusion in the Canadian arts community by providing disability consultation services. We are committed to strengthening the disability community’s presence in the arts and creating a space where disabled artists can connect and grow their practices together. Visit The Disability Collective
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen’s Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King’s College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada.
Queer Songbook Orchestra
The QSO is a 14-piece professional chamber pop ensemble dedicated to utilizing story and song to express, honour and elevate 2SLGBTQ+ experience while providing opportunities for mentorship and other supports to queer, trans, questioning and allied youth. Founded in 2014 by Artistic Director Shaun Brodie, the QSO has toured extensively throughout Canada and worked with 200+ collaborators to bring 2SLGBTQ+ experience to centre stage.
The Intergenerational LGBT Artist Residency
The Intergenerational LGBT Artist Residency is the first intergenerational artist-in-residency program for LGBTQ2+ visual artists in Canada. The residency offers studio space, travel support and free room and board to juried applicants for the duration of the two-week residency. Residents also receive mentoring and studio visits from critically acclaimed artists and curators.
Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto
Since 1973, MCC Toronto has been helping shape Canadian values of inclusion, diversity, and equality. A place of worship and a place of action, MCC Toronto is a vibrant and progressive church rooted in the Christian tradition and the 2SLGBTQ+ community that is open and welcoming to everyone, and a Human Rights Centre that is fiercely committed to social justice.
Toronto Queer Film Festival
Since 2016, the Toronto Queer Film Festival has showcased the film and video art of queer and trans creators. We celebrate vigour, resistance, and defiance over nationalism and assimilation. We elevate Indigiqueer/Trans/2 Spirit filmmakers and filmmakers of colour where others erase or tokenize.
Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage
Archive/Counter-Archive is a project dedicated to activating and remediating audiovisual archives created by Indigenous Peoples (First Nations, Métis, Inuit), the Black community and People of Colour, women, LGBT2Q+ and immigrant communities. Political, resistant, and community-based, counter-archives disrupt conventional narratives and enrich our histories. This research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Visit the Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage
LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory
Founded in 2014, the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory is directed by Prof. Elspeth Brown and based at the University of Toronto. As the largest LGBTQ oral history project in North American history, the Collaboratory connects archives across Canada and the U.S. to produce a digital history hub for the research and study of gay, lesbian, queer, and trans oral histories. This research is supported by the Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Thinking Through the Museum
Thinking Through the Museum brings together international scholars, students, museum professionals, and community representatives from 20 museums, universities, and NGOs in Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, and the USA. The team works in and beyond museum settings to co-produce exhibitions and design tools, and to explore alternative forms of heritage mobilization where communities can set their own agendas. This research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
IN Magazine
IN Magazine is a national magazine celebrating Canada’s 2SLGBTQI+ communities that originally launched in May 2010. Their mission is to celebrate and elevate Canada’s 2SLGBTQI+ communities 365 days a year. IN Magazine is published by Elevate Media Group, a full-service 2SLGBTQI+ marketing agency.
Defining Moments Canada/ Moments Déterminants Canada
Defining Moments Canada/ Moments Déterminants Canada (DMC) is a digital heritage and education organization, leading innovative educational engagement and the commemoration of Canada’s history using twenty-first-century tools and storytelling skills. DMC is dedicated to exploring moments throughout our shared histories by engaging with the lesser-known, often-excluded, and dynamic stories that impart significance and influence.
Pride at Work Canada / Fierté au travail Canada
Through dialogue, education and thought leadership, Pride at Work Canada/Fierté au travail Canada empowers Canadian employers to build workplaces that celebrate all employees regardless of gender expression, gender identity and sexual orientation. We operate as a member services agency for employers, offering institutional education and guidance to organizations that make a commitment to support 2SLGBTQIA+ inclusion.
Past Partners
Historic Joy Kogawa House – QueerAsian Writing Workshops
The childhood home of Canadian author Joy Kogawa stands as a historical reminder of the internment experience of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, and by extension, to the experiences of diverse cultural and ethnic groups within Canadian society.
A literary landmark, today it goes on to be a unique live/work space and a site of healing and reconciliation, hosting author residencies, literary events, and offering year-round educational tours for school groups and general public.
Hush Harbour
Hush Harbour is dedicated to the imagining of Black feminism in the tradition of Octavia E. Butler. We create and envision Black futures through literary and sonic storytelling with an emphasis on the revival of short fiction.
Myseum of Toronto
Myseum is your Toronto museum. Our engaging programs and experiences showcase the history, spaces, culture(s), architecture, and the people, that represent Toronto’s unique place in the world.
Magenta Foundation
Magenta is committed to cultivating the next generation of artists in Canada by giving youth their first public presentation and publication opportunity.
The Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre (MNjcc)
The MNjcc strives to be an inclusive and welcoming hub for healthy and joyful community, anchored in Jewish values, where all downtown Toronto feel they belong.
Pride and Remembrance Foundation
The Foundation’s mandate is to provide financial support to registered charities that benefit the LGBTQ+ community. These benefits may include individual projects, services and/or activities that provide health, educational, legal, social athletic, cultural or other charitable benefits. Since 2010, the Foundation has supported the AIDS Committee of Toronto, the Triangle Program of the Toronto District School Board, the 519 Church Street Community Centre, the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, the LGBT Youthline, HALCO, and the Windsor Pride Committee.
Queerspawn
The Queerspawn Digital Storytelling Project was spearheaded by Sadie Epstein-Fine, creative and operational lead with community support from Makeda Zook in 2021. The goal of the project was to provide participants of all ages with one or more LGBTQ2+ parent(s) a way to explore aspects of the queerspawn experience through digital content creation. Over the course of 5 months, the Queerspawn project participants met virtually to share space and build community. They explored different ways to get into their stories and experiences. The project included 13 participants, who created video, art projects and installations, audio stories, podcasts and essays, exploring how their identities and life experiences have intersected with their queerspawn identity.
Royal Ontario Museum
The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada.
CaribbeanTales International Film Festival (CTFF)
CaribbeanTales International Film Festival (CTFF) is an annual event that celebrates the talents of established and emerging filmmakers of Caribbean and African heritage who practice their art across the Caribbean Diaspora worldwide. The event takes place each year in September and is now offering viewership online and in-person experiences.
Hot Doc Film Festival
Hot Docs is not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing and celebrating the art of documentary and creating production opportunities for documentary filmmakers. Hot Docs was founded in 1993 by the Documentary Organization of Canada (formerly the Canadian Independent Film Caucus), a national association of independent documentary filmmakers. In 1996, Hot Docs became a separately incorporated organization with a mandate to showcase and support the work of Canadian and international documentary filmmakers and to promote excellence in documentary production.
Family Camera Network
THE FAMILY CAMERA NETWORK (FamCam) is a collaborative project that explores the relationship between photography and the idea of family, whether of origin or of choice, as is the case with LGBTQ2+ communities. In Canada, approaches to family have expanded in response to cultural shifts including: same-sex marriage, transnational adoptions, dislocations to pursue economic opportunities or prompted by political instability, climate change, or war. Personal photographs document feelings about family, how family is defined, and connections to loved ones who may be separated due to dislocation.
From April 2016 to March 2019, The Family Camera Network established a public archive of family photographs and their stories at the Royal Ontario Museum and The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives. This archive focuses on migration in the near or distant past, and to and within Canada. By preserving family photos and their stories, this public archive provides an important resource for teachers, historians, and scholars to write new histories of photography, family, and Canada.
The Goethe-Institut Canada
The Goethe-Institut is the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institute, active worldwide. We promote the study of German abroad and encourage international cultural exchange.