LGBT Museums and Queer Exhibition Spaces in Europe
This list includes both physical and online spaces.
Museum of Impossible Forms, M{if} in Finland, is a cultural center located in Kontula, East Helsinki, and the coming together of communities of art and cultural workers working to build anti-colonial, anti-patriarchal, and non-fascist commitments and futures. It was opened in the spring of 2017 as an antiracist and queer-feminist project, and a laboratory for critical thought. The Museum of Impossible Forms is a multilingual library, an ongoing archive, and a queer space with a programme that has featured performance, music, spoken word, theory, visual arts, socially engaged and activism-based practices, and pedagogy.
Moomin Museum in Tampere, Finland. Artist and author Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomins, and her partner, the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä, donated a sizeable collection of art to Tampere Art Museum in 1986. The Museum features illustrations Tove Jansson, 40 miniatures, tableaux about Moomin events and a small (2.5 meters high) Moomin House. There are about 2,000 exhibits on display in the world’s one and only Moomin Museum.
Schwules Museum*, Berlin, Germany. The Schwules Museum* has, since its founding in 1985, grown into one of the world’s largest and most significant institutions for archiving, researching and communicating the history and culture of GLBTIQ communities. Changing exhibitions and events take diverse approaches to lesbian, gay, trans*, bisexual and queer biographies, themes and concepts in history, art and culture.
Queer Britain, UK’s first national LGBTQ+ museum, is a place as exciting as the people, stories and ideas it explores and celebrates. The Museum which opened in spring 2022 is situated in London.
QUEERCIRCLE, London UK, is a new LGBTQ+ led charity working at the intersection of art health and social action. Having opened our new home in June 2022, QUEERCIRCLE seeks to develop an ecology of artists, curators, writers, thinkers, community organisers, grassroots organisations and charities who collectively work together to reimagine the role cultural spaces play in society. Our exhibition commissions, archive exhibitions, participatory residencies, learning and workplace opportunities, and health and wellbeing programmes provide holistic support to LGBTQ+ and local communities.
The Homografiska Museet (Homographic Museum) in Sweden is a queer museum founded by Swedish queer feminist artist Funny Livsdotter. It is located in Fengersfors, Dalsland, Sweden. The Museum/ art project is a small trailer that houses a new exhibition each summer. The art project website features a digital collection of queer artworks.
The Unstraight Museum in Sweden. A group of people connected to museums either by working in, or by visiting, or just by loving museums and collections, decided in 2007 to do something about the fact that most museums neglect to tell the stories of Unstraight people, and started to form a new museum focused on collective collecting: The Unstraight Museum. The collection of the Unstraight Museum is an online collection of images and stories. This museum does not collect physical artifacts.