A Collective Archive was born out of a desire to resist erasure. As a curator, artist, and organiser working within queer and intersectional spaces, I’ve often found myself surrounded by urgent, brilliant, and fragile work—ephemeral moments of resistance, creativity, and care that slip too easily through the cracks of dominant cultural memory. This project is a response to that fragility: a space to pause, witness, document, and celebrate.
Rather than a static repository, A Collective Archive unfolds as a living, breathing process. It brings together artists, activists, performers, writers, and community members who understand that archiving is not just about the past—it’s about survival, about building futures. This is not an archive in the traditional sense. It is embodied, messy,collaborative. It welcomes contradiction. It thrives in the interstices between personal and political, digital and physical, celebration and mourning.
The inspiration came from many places—oral histories shared over kitchen tables, the pulse of DIY spaces filled with noise and sweat, the joy of flipping through zines made by hand. It came from the urgency to hold on to what we make, especially when we come from communities that are often excluded from institutional memory. The archive, for us, is not a place of dust and silence. It is a site of resistance, a tool for visibility, and a record of joy.
Visitors can expect more than an exhibition. A Collective Archive is an experience, a gathering. Expect moving-image works, performances, installations, and contributions that stretch the idea of what an archive can be. There are workshops that invite participation and open tables where audiences can add their own artefacts or stories to the space. You might encounter a handwritten letter, a projected shadow, a scream turned into sculpture, or a playlist that tells you everything about someone’s coming of age.
The project also experiments with hybrid formats. Some of the archive lives online—shifting, clickable, glitchy. Some of it is only visible when you step into the space. Some may only be heard if you pause long enough to listen. We want to offer multiple entry points: sensory, emotional, intellectual. Accessibility, both in format and in intention, is central to the design.
My ambition with this work is long-term. I hope A Collective Archive can continue to evolve—growing as a methodology, not just a one-off event. I want it to seed new practices of collective care and memory-making within the communities we work with. I want it to spark dialogues across generations, across mediums, across geographies. Eventually, I hope it can become a model—something others can take, adapt, remix.
Collective Archive is on 12-15 June 2025, at Ugly Duck, 49 Tanner St, London SE1 3PL, United Kingdom.
Full programme:
Thursday 12 June (6–10 pm)
Join us for the opening soirée with an exhibition featuring 15+ multidisciplinary artists, immersive installations, and live performances by Biogal and Helga Alarcón.
Friday 13 June
Exhibition open: 1–6 pm
Performance Night (6–10 pm)
Martin O’Brien presents Fading Out of Dead Air (3-hour durational performance)
Saturday 14 June
A Collective Collage Workshop (2–5 pm) with Bold Mellon Collective
(All works donated to Bishopsgate Institute)
Gushing with Gabby (5–6 pm)
A Montez Press Radio broadcast hosted by Gabriela Cala-Lesina with Deen Atger, Biogal and Oduenyi Nwike.
Bold Mellon Collective Commissions (6–7 pm)
Performances by Helin Karabil, Hḗrā Santos, Emilia Nurmulhamet & Dear Annie
Tribe Incorporated: Sound and Poetry (7–8 pm)
The Last Dance (8:30 pm–midnight)
Music: Josh Quinton & friends
Performance: Sophie Brain
(Join us for a final celebration in this incredible building as we turn the garage into a dancefloor!)
Sunday 15 June
Exhibition open: 1–6 pm
Closing Performances (3–6 pm)
Chloé Filani, Puer Deorum & Joy Kincaid
