https://www.arizonaqueerarchives.com || https://www.azqueerarchives.org
azqueerarchives@gmail.com
The Arizona Queer Archives (AQA) is Arizona’s first Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex (LGBTQI) collecting archives.As a community-focused archives, the AQA uses and pullsqueer— as theory and practice — into the way we go about collecting, preserving, and making our collections accessible and to develop an archives that is for, by, and about us. We want an archives that is flexible and playful and one that is a living and breathing story of our lives.
Our Vision recognizes that our communities are complex and do not and cannot fit under an umbrella term. The AQA works in collaboration with the heterogeneous LGBTQI, gender non-conforming, and Two Spirit communities throughout Arizona to identify, preserve, and make available records, papers, and ephemera of enduring and endearing value that document the distinct histories of these communities. The AQA recognizes that LGBTQI communities are diverse and heterogeneous and hold complicated, contradictory, as well as complementary histories that can all come together here as valid everyday knowledges and truths. We work to engage with communities to creatively collect, preserve, and share these many histories and memories.
Our mission is two-fold:
- to collect and maintain individual stories, papers, photos, videos, oral histories, home movies, artwork, apparel, leathers, mapping/geographies, and other distinct multi-dimensional records that highlight lived insights and knowledges; and
- to collect and maintain records and geographies of enduring value from organizations, community groups, safe spaces, and identified organizational efforts to support LGBTQI lives throughout Arizona.
Collections include:
Wingspan LGBT Community Center; Fly Away Zine Mobile; Made For Flight Kite Collection; Southern Arizona Gender Alliance; P.Carl Transitional Eyewear Collection; Southwest Feminists Reunite’s material and oral history collection; LGBTQ Storytelling Project oral history collection; Adobeland; LGBTQ Veteran oral history project; Trans Oral Histories in the Desert Project; Queer Love Letters Collecting Project; and individual personal collections



