‘Queer-ways: Re-tracing Queer Footprints’ is a queer cartography of various cities/towns that showcases queer stories and locations across Australia.
The project brings together voices from the past and present in an augmented reality map alongside social media videos that take you through the queer footprints of others in that town/city.
The project, supported by the Australian Queer Archives, will incorporate stories and locations from both the archives and community contributions.
It aims to ensure there is a voice for queer people living in Australia for future generations.
And now it’s coming to Shepparton.
Started by artists LUCIANO and George Keats, the project was inspired by the loss of identity associated with locations and communities during COVID-19 lockdowns.
“During lockdown, we looked around at queer people and saw people lost connection to where they could be themselves,” LUCIANO said.
“Those locations where you could gather and see other queer people were really important and significant.
“We wanted to create something that connected people back to community and locations, whether it was them adding their experience to a location or working with a group talking about what locations they wanted added that were important to their community group.”
After the pair had great success with their Queer-ways for Yarra, and won the 2022 Local History Project Award at the Victorian Community History Awards, they reached out to the rest of Melbourne and its surrounding regions.
“This project will provide both a trail of queer stories in Shepparton while also encouraging other queer people to visit or stay here, knowing there are safe spaces and a community here,” LUCIANO said.
Many stories: Contributions to the Shepparton Queer-ways map are already under way.
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Contributed
“It’s also a map for the wider community who aren’t aware of the significance of different locations in the queer community in their local area – they can see this map and approach their town with a fresh perspective.
“We’ve always been here and present – we just weren’t seen before.”
Shepparton was chosen as a Queer-ways location as there’s a huge LGBTIQA+ population here.
“Shepparton has a large transgender community and an active one, so it’s been so lovely to see how accepting and responsive the community have been to the local queer community,” LUCIANO said.
“And that’s not the case with all the areas we’ve looked at, so I think this is a strength of organisations like GV Pride and the result of their work over many years to establish that as a safe space.”
Currently in its community contribution stage, LUCIANO said they’re asking for people from Shepparton’s queer community to share their own stories to the map, but it’s important to remember they’re looking for all stories – none are too big or small.
“People think nothing significant has happened to me, my story isn’t important, and that’s false,” LUCIANO said.
“The other thing we found is when people feel like their stories are not that significant to history, they tend to focus more on times of celebration.
“If someone hasn’t come out or hasn’t been able to be themselves openly in the community, they don’t feel they should contribute, but that is still a queer experience everyone can relate to.”
In January, the duo will travel to Shepparton to record the augmented map audio with a local queer hero in the Goulburn Valley community and take a series of social media videos that highlight these locations’ significance.
Once the project is complete, it will be stored in the Australian Queer Archives at the Victorian Pride Centre and accessible online via their website www.queerways.au
Submissions for individual stories close on Sunday, November 17.
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