Toronto, ON – The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives is launching its largest-ever digitization initiative focusing on hidden Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ histories. This project is supported by a $231,438 Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from the Mellon Foundation.
Through the digitization of two previously unseen collections, including moving images, audio recordings, photographs, and documents, the newly digitized material will highlight 2SLGBTQIA+ experiences from 1980 to 2010, making them available to their communities and new audiences.
The Anton Wagner and Edimburgo Cabrera fonds feature the work of two documentary filmmakers of Canadian and Canadian-Cuban heritage. The fonds contains audiovisual materials and document stories across Black, Indigenous, people of colour, transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, drag, disabled, and immigrant communities in Southern Ontario between 1990 and 2010.
The Melissa Levin fonds contains the work of the multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, documentarian, and educator, chronicling the urban lesbian lifestyle. The fonds capture the lives of lesbian communities in Ontario, British Columbia, San Francisco, and New York, documenting community organizing, artistic projects, and oral histories from the late 1990s onward.
This initiative marks a significant step in The ArQuives’ ongoing digital preservation work, ensuring that fragile audiovisual materials are safeguarded for future generations. It underscores the organization’s commitment to expanding public access to underrepresented queer and trans histories. Once digitized, these materials will be freely available through The ArQuives Online Collection Portal and Digital Exhibitions.
CLIR is an independent nonprofit organization that forges strategies to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institutions, and communities of higher learning. To learn more, visit clir.org and follow CLIR on Facebook and Twitter.
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Media Contact:
Raegan Swanson | Executive Director, The ArQuives
416-777-2755 | executivedirector@arquives.ca