Opening the Archival Closet: How Practices of Archiving and Collecting Queer Films Shape Public Memory

Conventional, rights-based approaches to archiving and collecting film do not acknowledge the audiovisual biases held by both filmmakers and archivists. Issues arise in the fact that these audiovisual biases are often in line with the capitalist and colonial hierarchies inherent within cinema, archival spaces, and in wider society. This article proposes that public memory is shaped in accordance with these biases, but also shapes the archive. It suggests that there is a cyclical, symbiotic relationship between processes of archiving and the shaping of public memory, rather than one of linear cause and effect.