Meet Me In Leather

May 30 - July 28, 2024
Curated by Hannah Dickson for The ArQuives, in partnership with Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies

Meet Me In Leather looks at the diverse, intersectional, and multifaceted bodies and people that participate in leather culture, in conversation and contradiction with the hypermasculine, white bodies that are often seen as representative of the Queer leather community. These tough, top, leather daddies are what most people think of when they think of Queer leather (think Tom of Finland), but there is more to this community than just these muscular bodies.

Meet Me In Leather opens the archive, taking objects and stories and Queer memories out of their boxes and into the world to be seen and to converse with the now; with a new generation of Queer artists, activists, and community members. These objects, stories, and memories talk to each other and reflect on what has changed and has stayed the same. This exhibition combines pieces from The ArQuives and works from contemporary artists Dayna Danger and Raquel Britton. Each piece is thinking through ideas of Queerness through a lens of kink and leather, from very different perspectives.

Women, Trans people, and BIPOC people are noticeably absent from or underrepresented in Queer archives. This is not because marginalized people were not part of the historic Queer community or leather and kink scenes. They have always been there, building the foundations of Queer culture. When the Gay community began to preserve Queer culture in archives and libraries, many preserved what was easiest and most accessible to them. They collected what they knew, and what was comfortable to them, resulting in archives being overpopulated with items from people with power and privilege while under-representing marginalized communities. This has created gaps in the archive and Queer history. These memories and histories exist and we as academics, curators, archivists, and historians must prioritize reworking, disrupting, and decolonizing the systems of our institutions to protect and preserve all Queer histories.