All posts tagged: canadian gay and lesbian archives

Foolscap Sheds Light on a History of Anti-LGBTQ Police Violence

June 6, 2018
by Elspeth Brown
Foolscap Project / Gay History

The Foolscap Oral History project is a rich collection of over 100 interviews recorded with gay men throughout the 1980s that tells the story of LGBTQ life in Toronto in the pre-Stonewall era. The interviewees of this project cover a wide array of topics in their narratives such as activism, relationships, and social life; together, these stories serve to set the scene for gay Toronto in a time when queer identities were much more marginalized […]

Digitizing Archival Cassette Tapes: A Brief How-To

May 22, 2018
by Elspeth Brown
Digitization

Between 1981 and 1986, The Foolscap Gay Oral History Project collected over 100 oral histories with Canadian gay men born in the first half of the 20th century. These interviews, conducted by John Grube and Lionel Collier, were informed by conditions contemporaneous to the project: Operation Soap (police harassment of gay men), HIV/ AIDS, and the proliferation of queer community spaces and groups in Toronto. These interviews were originally recorded on cassette tapes, which have […]

Outside the Collaboratory: Cait McKinney’s “Tape Condition: degraded”

July 8, 2016
by Elspeth Brown
Collaboratory News

This summer we’ve been lucky enough to have Cait McKinney back on the Toronto team of the Collaboratory. Alongside her work with the team, Cait has been busy with Tape Condition: degraded, her joint installation with Hazel Meyer. Tape Condition: degraded is housed in the gallery of the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives, and opened June 16th. A hole in the wall acts as the entrance to Tape Condition: degraded, representing the attempts that were made to protect the […]