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Queer moves
03 Sept 2024 | Written by Anna Giertz
The meaning of movement and transnational dynamics of activism. Reflections after the second conference of NNAQH: Queering Nordic Borders.
(Anna Giertz from the Swedish queer sound archive Arkivet för Rosa Brus (The Archive of Pink Noises) . The aim of the archive is to collect, archive and publish queer culture production in sonic form and we view (queer) sound as a bearer of historiy. We do this in collaboration with other archives, artists, activists and scholars.)
By collecting, archiving, reading and and arranging public events in the shape of performances, installations, workshops and site-specific sound pieces, we explore together with the participants what pink noise and a queer sound archive can be.
I start my travel to the conference on the train from Stockholm to Bergen. Halfway, in Oslo, I got joined by Anna Linder from SAQMI. We update ourselves on what is happening in both work and personal life as the railway rolls on over high mountains and deep valleys, in the borderland between winter and spring.
We arrive in Bergen and join the pre conference gathering at Skeivt archive with a guided tour through the archive and its queer traces of Norway. Like sugar on top it turned out that the town's most popular gay bar was a stone's throw away and this friday with a karaoke night. In other words, a good start.
When the conference begins on Saturday there is a large number of participants from the Nordics and the Baltics that gather at the University of Bergen where the second conference of NNAQH: Queering Nordic Borders, is held.
As a clear thread through the day, inspiring presentations concerning queer transnational dynamics in the Nordic and Baltic regions run. The Icelandic researcher Iris Ellenberger's gives us an insight into queer desires in Danish-Icelandic transnational spaces in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rika Tavetti's tell us more about Finnish queer histories and shifting Nordic and Baltic borders. And the Danish researcher Peter Edelberg shows how Denmark, Sweden and Norway's queer liberation is woven together through transnational dynamics of activism in Förbundet af 1948 and it's collaboration with what would become the LLH in Norway and RFSL in Sweden.
The conference addresses the arbitrary nature of borders within the Nordic and Baltic region, and the consequences for marginalized people, e.g. queer people and indigenous people. In the session Queering Sámi history Sara Lindquist gives us a retrospective view on the project Queering Sapmi: indigenous stories beyond the norm. Elisabeth Stubberuds and Dávvet Bruun-Solbakks presentation: Queering the gákti: Weaving tradition and identity in new ways. Anna Linder from SAQMI shows parts from their ongoing project: Imagine Native - Queer Moving Images from Sápmi. And Torjer Olsen are with us on link in a talk about gender and queer perspectives in Sámi research.
How can queer archives, archivists and historians, question the Nordic colonial past in the North and learn from indigenous studies and perspectives? One of the issue that is highlighted is the fatigue that many Sámi experience from being treated as a research object. The subject are raised again in the end of the conference during an open conversation about how queer archives can work more inclusive and participant-based.
By the end of the weekend I travel home enriched by presentations and discussions from the conference. And not at least I feel inspired and uplifted by the meetings and conversations that arose in the spaces between. When it all comes down to it isn't it in the spaces between where it happens, the mobilisation? The greatness to meet in real life so that collaborations across borders have the opportunity to take root and move forward with viability. I would like to thank NNAQH for the generous travel grants that made it possible for us (The Archive of Pink Noises) to participate in the conference. To be part of the network and able to meet representatives of queer history archives and exchange experiences is of such great value for us.
One of the questions that remains with me after the conference originates from the discussion prompted by Runar Jordåen and Line Førre Grønstad's presentation of the Skeivt Archive and its journey to become what it is today. That fact that Skeivt Arkiv is the only queer archive within the Nordic and Baltic countries that is permanently funded by the government. This in turn sparked discussion of the possibilities of creating something similar in other countries.
In Sweden, with several small but committed grassroots archives, the conditions look different. Can there be a strength in the Swedish landscape of several smaller queer archives with various orientations? Could it indirectly constitute the opportunity to create something new based on various queer starting points, conditions and wild becomings? It makes me dream of a place that can make intersectional points visible and enable new collaborations and connections where archives, archiving, and narration of queer history can be explored critically and interdisciplinary challenging the archive's historical role and form. Could it be a place where methods for working with queer culture, history and archival activities can be explored and developed both in theory and practice? A center for queer historical archives where we can be larger together and still based on our different perspectives and special skills. Could it be a platform for queer historical research. A room in motion for queer history in collaboration with researchers, artists and other institutions?
However, the central question remains; how can we get the long-term financing we need to build and secure a lasting national platform of queer history? So this is also a holler to the Swedish queer archives and historical projects in the network to let us gather to talk further about this possibility. Maybe already in the spaces between during the upcoming conference in Gothenburg? Time moves in uncertain directions, together we become stronger.