Queere Geschichte(n) zwischen Verfolgung, Widerstand und Sichtbarkeit in Kärnten und der Alpen-Adria-Region

21 May–29 June 2025, kärnten.museum, Klagenfurt am Wörthersee

To mark the 10th anniversary of Klagenfurt Pride, 5th anniversary of Pride Spittal an der Drau and the 25th anniversary of Ljubljana Pride, this historical exhibition traced stories of persecution, resistance and visibility in a region where LGBTQ+ life and activism have long been silenced or made invisible.

Through archival materials, visual histories, contemporary art, and interactive installations, the exhibition presented LGBTQI+ activism in all its complexity—vulnerable, defiant, fragmented, and proud. Linking past and present, the exhibition asked what it means to remember in the face of institutional erasure and cultural change.

Concept and curation: Daniel Hill

Partners: Community Queerinthia and Landesmuseum Kärnten

Contributing organizations, artists and historians: Community Queerinthia, Checkpoint Kärnten, Courage Kärnten, GemSe, Kulturraum Querformat, Pride Klagenfurt, Pride Spittal, Pride Ljubljana, Legebitra, schau.Räume, KD BARBA, Names Project, Pink Lake Festival, QWIEN; Natascha Bobrowsky, Andreas Brunner, Ina Friedmann, Rosalia Kopeinig, Peter Pirker; Lena Kolter, Kathrin Ackerl Konstantin, Mitch Noah Münzer, Mika Palmisano, Alina Zeichen.

The exhibition weaves together three interrelated themes: Pride & Visibility, Safer Spaces & Care, and Persecution & Remembrance.

Each focus offers a look on how queer people and organizations in the region have resisted marginalization and shaped their own communities—whether through protest, care networks, or simply by refusing to be forgotten.

As curator, I sought to create a space that acknowledges both presence and absence: community, resistance, and care; names, recognition, and justice. It doesn't claim to tell a complete history but brings forward fragments of celebrations, networks, testimonies, and losses. These fragments speak to the past and ongoing struggles for dignity and visibility today.

The curatorial process included archival research, oral histories, artistic contributions, and a commitment to centering local initiatives. The exhibition is staged within the Kärntner Landesbibliothek, itself a site of cultural memory. By inserting queer history into this institutional framework, the project performs a gentle but persistent reorientation—asking whose stories have been archived, whose have been neglected, and how we might begin to write them back in.

Funded by: Land Kärnten Kultur, Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich, Community Queerinthia and Landesmuseum Kärnten

Unsichtbar? Unaufhaltsam!

A Vessel. A Cage. A Machine. A Temple.