Cecilio’s Photo Box. Photograph captured during Cecilio Escobar’s oral history interview for the Family Camera Network. Photographer unknown, 2017.
Project Overview
Queering Family Photography is a physical and digital exhibition curated by Elspeth Brown and Thy Phu that examines how queer, trans, and Two-Spirit family photographs document, sustain, and reimagine kinship beyond the heteronormative nuclear family. Drawing on photographs and oral histories collected through The Family Camera Network (FamCam), the exhibition foregrounds photography as both an archival record and a site of affective, political, and relational meaning.
The exhibition was presented physically at Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto in 2018 as part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival and later re-mounted as a publicly accessible digital exhibition hosted by The ArQuives. The Collaboratory contributed to the project through the collection of oral histories with queer narrators and the co-curation of the exhibition.
Historical & Community Context
Family photographs are among the most widespread yet under-theorized visual records of everyday life. Within queer, trans, and Two-Spirit communities, such images have often existed outside institutional archives or been preserved without adequate context, despite their central role in documenting alternative kinship structures, migration histories, and strategies of survival.
Queering Family Photography responds to this gap by situating queer family photographs as critical historical sources that challenge normative definitions of family, intimacy, and belonging. The exhibition intervenes in dominant archival and national narratives by foregrounding cross-cultural, diasporic, and LGBTQ2+ experiences that unsettle linear and state-centered accounts of family and citizenship.
Project Goals & Methodology
The project aimed to make queer family photographs visible as historically and politically significant objects, while preserving the relational stories that give them meaning. The exhibition draws on oral histories and photographic materials gathered through The Family Camera Network (PI, Thy Phu), a SSHRC-funded partnership project dedicated to collecting and preserving family photographs and their narratives.
Rather than treating images as illustrative artifacts, the exhibition presents photographs alongside oral testimony to emphasize the interplay of image, memory, and storytelling. Curatorial methodology foregrounded consent, ethical handling of sensitive materials, and collaboration with narrators, positioning photography as a living archive shaped by affect, care, and community accountability.
Research Scope
Featuring over 100 photographs, the images on display captured fleeting moments of love and desire, as well as generational bonds, which are often fractured by a normalizing state and culture. materials were drawn from The Family Camera Network archive, The ArQuives, and the Two-Spirit Collection at the University of Winnipeg Archives.
The exhibition was organized into three thematic sections—Instant Intimacies, Domesticities, and Publics—alongside vitrines of family albums and a video installation featuring participant narratives.
Project Outputs
- A physical exhibition at Stephen Bulger Gallery (April–May 2018), featured in the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
- A publicly accessible digital exhibition hosted by The ArQuives
- Public programming and media engagement surrounding the exhibition launch
Impact & Significance
Queering Family Photography foregrounded queer, trans, and Two-Spirit family photographs as vital historical records, expanding public understandings of family, intimacy, and belonging in Canada. As both an archival activation and a public history intervention, the exhibition challenged normative visual cultures while modeling ethical, community-centered approaches to exhibiting intimate materials.
The project reached broad public audiences through its gallery presentation, digital exhibition, and extensive media coverage, and continues to serve as a touchstone for scholarship and curatorial practice at the intersection of photography, oral history, and LGBTQ2+ archival work.
Project Team
For the Collaboratory
For the Family Camera Network
The physical exhibition was co-curated by FamCam PI Thy Phu with support from Thanh Phu (Designer); Tori Abel (Collection Technician & Preparator); and Scott Poborsa (Installation).