Leather Archives & Museum: 25 Years (1991-2016) [digital]
The official catalog celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Leather Archives & Museum. The catalog features essays, collection photographs, and highlights over the LA&M's institutional life.
The official catalog celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Leather Archives & Museum. The catalog features essays, collection photographs, and highlights over the LA&M's institutional life.
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PREFACE<br />
O<br />
ur collective, personal, and institutional histories and memories are material,<br />
embodied, and linguistic. Objects, however, deteriorate over time. The body eventually<br />
expires. And language is often unstable. History and memory, then, are never static or<br />
definitive.<br />
The stories we tell ourselves often shift and change depending on their context -- when their<br />
told and under what circumstances. Our histories and collective memories are always dynamic<br />
and subject to critical commentary, re/vision, and retelling.<br />
The institutional memory of the <strong>Leather</strong> <strong>Archives</strong> & <strong>Museum</strong> is similarly complex and any<br />
attempt to encapsulate a quarter century of institutional life will always be partial, in both<br />
senses of the word. This catalog, <strong>Leather</strong> <strong>Archives</strong> & <strong>Museum</strong>: <strong>25</strong> <strong>Years</strong>, is not intended as a<br />
comprehensive account of the archival, programmatic, and exhibition history of the LA&M. The<br />
occasion of our <strong>25</strong> th Anniversary, however, affords us an opportunity to pause and reflect on<br />
this institution’s trajectory – where it’s been, where it is, and what it might become – as well as<br />
highlight a handful of stops along its unfolding narrative.<br />
In Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (2009), the late queer and<br />
performance theorist José Esteban Muñoz suggests that in order to imagine and envision a<br />
(queer) future, we must perform the simultaneous double-optics of looking back and gazing<br />
forward in the present moment. In this catalog we attempt to do that through its form and<br />
content. We also recognize the importance of multiple ‘gazings’ and include the critical<br />
reflections and meditations of various contributors.<br />
<strong>Leather</strong> <strong>Archives</strong> & <strong>Museum</strong>: <strong>25</strong> <strong>Years</strong> is organized into four sections. The “Introduction”<br />
includes statements by Founder and President, Chuck Renslow, and Executive Director, Rick<br />
Storer. “Looking Back” is a collection of essays by cultural anthropologist and founding board<br />
member, Dr. Gayle Rubin, Toronto-based community volunteer, Dwight Skeates, and Archivist<br />
and Collections Librarian, Jakob VanLammeren. This section also includes a photo essay by<br />
Patron Services Representative, José Santiago Pérez. “Looking Forward” attempts to lay the<br />
groundwork for envisioning the LA&M’s possible futures by surveying present or recent<br />
institutional milestones and achievements. In “Gratitude” we end this ‘partial telling’ by<br />
reflecting and acknowledging the fierce commitment, passion, dedication, and contributions of<br />
those that support the LA&M’s mission to collect, preserve, maintain, and exhibit our leather<br />
histories.<br />
The sections that comprise <strong>Leather</strong> <strong>Archives</strong> & <strong>Museum</strong>: <strong>25</strong> <strong>Years</strong> are a testament of how far<br />
we’ve come since the LA&M’s inception at the International Mr. <strong>Leather</strong> contest in 1992. What<br />
began as Chuck Renslow’s mission to preserve the legacy and memory of Dom Orejudos/<br />
Etienne and leather history amidst the AIDS crisis has now evolved into a respected and<br />
professional institution at the forefront of <strong>Leather</strong>/kink/BDSM/fetish scholarship, research, and<br />
collections. Currently these materials are comprised of artifacts, objects, letters, documents,<br />
artworks, published materials, leathers, ephemera, and stories. We can only dream what the<br />
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