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Writer's pictureART HISTORY

Seminar: Aiden Magro, Out of the Closet, into the Archives: Queer Photo Albums in Public Archives, 26 September 2024

Powerful Ideas: New Research in Art History at the University of Sydney is convened by Mary Roberts and presented by the discipline of Art History at the University of Sydney, with support from the Power Institute.


26 September 2024, 03:00PM - 04:30PM. Schaeffer Library Seminar Room 210, Mills Building (A26) Free. This research seminar series is also accessible via Zoom (click here to join).


John Jenner, Christmas 1989, David saying goodbye to his mother. Page from AIDS photo diary. Chromogenic print in album,1986-1990, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.


Rather than understanding the archive and the closet as juxtaposed concepts, this project is motivated by their uncanny resemblances. Straddling an art historical and archival studies approach, I argue that the overlaps between the archive and the closet are bound in the private photo albums of queer photographers working in the 1970s and 1980s in so called Australia now kept in public archival institutions. Private, queer photo albums take on new functions in public archives. Despite their original intention for a limited audience, in archives they become publicly accessible sources of information about queer life. To what extent were they compiled with this function in mind? And to what extent do they still register as private? In this paper, I focus on the albums of photojournalist John Jenner whose albums and photo collages documented queer life in Warrane (Sydney) and are now kept in the Mitchell Library Archives. His “End of the Eighties” Albums and his “AIDS Photo Diary” provide a fertile ground to consider the functions of private photo albums in public archival institutions.


Aiden Magro

Aiden Magro is a researcher, writer and casual academic living and working on unceded, stolen Gadigal land. He received his Bachelor of Arts (First Class Honours) in 2020 and was awarded the University Medal for his honours thesis “Exposing the State: Loo Zihan’s queer performance.” His current research interests include photography, queer art, and archives. Aiden is currently a PhD Candidate in Art History at University of Sydney.

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