Panel talk with three speakers. What is at stake when we approach the archive from a queer perspective? How do we preserve our histories and shape our stories for the future?
If we approach the archive—a heteronormative institution—through a queer lens, what do we see?
In a world where queer history is actively being erased, it’s more crucial than ever to deconstruct and explore both the archive and the act of archiving. How can we ensure that queer stories are not lost? And how can we reimagine images of the past to create queer stories for the future?
We’ll discuss these questions with three creatives/visual artists, namely Anton Shebetko, Merel Raats, and Cees Martens. All three spreaker investigate and reclaim the archive in their work. Not only will we talk about their work and vision on queer storytelling, we’ll also take a look at the work they’ve created.
Anton Shebetko
Anton Shebetko (he/him) is a Ukrainian artist, photographer, curator, and writer from Kyiv who currently lives in Amsterdam. His works focus on the issues facing the LGBTQIA+ community in Ukraine, themes of memory, loss of identity, multiplicity of history, and the role that photography and archival materials can play in revealing these stories. Most of his research is devoted to the forgotten queer history of Ukraine. His work has been exhibited at the FOAM Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands; Schwules Museum and nGbK am Alex in Berlin, Germany; Q21 Exhibition Space in Vienna, Austria; Photo Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland; CENTQUATRE-PARIS in Paris, France; BWA Studio in Wroclaw, Poland; Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Germany; and PinchukArtCentre and Mystetskyi Arsenal in Kyiv, Ukraine. He participated in Kyiv Biennial in 2023 and was a nominee for PinchukArtPrize in 2025. He curated exhibitions and film programs for Schwules Museum, Melkweg Expo and WORM Rotterdam. He was a recipient of the RM Residency Award and the Where Love Is Illegal Fellowship. He gave talks and lectures at Maastricht University, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, and Between Bridges Gallery. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
Merel Raats
Merel Raats (they/them) is an artist and researcher in the field of visual anthropology and critical theory. They work with found footage, home videos, and anarchiving to imagine trans and queer stories on acts of resistance, care, and issues of disposability in everyday life. Their work is supported by various funds such as the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts and the Dutch Film Fund and screened at community events such as the DIY Queer Filmmaking program at OCCII.
Cees Martens
Cees Martens (he/him) is a project lead at Sound & Vision and is in charge of a wide range of creative reuse projects. He aims to bridge the gap between creatives and the archive of Sound & Vision, initiating artists in residencies, commissioned works and (international) collaborations.
An Archive To Dissapear
Merel Raats | The Netherlands | 2024 | 16 min | Documentary
An experimental DIY film made up of open heritage material and home videos of lesbians from the Netherlands in the 1990s. Disrupting the dominant heteronormative history that is constructed through archiving practices, it contemplates archiving as an act of erasure. Through anarchiving with a lesbian gaze, Raats’ film explores personal desires in images of the past.
Simeiz
Anton Shebetko | Ukraine | 2022 | 18 min | Documentary
Simeiz is a small village on the southern coast of Crimea which is temporarily occupied by Russia. In the Soviet era, an underground gay resort arose in the village. It started with a small nudist beach, later in the independent Ukraine, a popular bar and night club, Hedgehogs appeared. From the 1990s on, Simeiz became a significant meeting point for members of the LGBTQ+ community from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Every year, about 4,000 people visited the place before the temporary occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014. At the moment, Simeiz, as a gay resort, is threatened with disappearance due to the homophobic laws of the Russian Federation. If this happens, old photos and videos will be the only evidence of this existence and extinction gay-haven.
