Archives and amazons: A quilters guide to the lesbian archive.

Abstract

This article offers a critical reflection on my creative engagement with the figure of the Amazon in the quilted artworks for my exhibition Archives and Amazons: quilting the lesbian archive which took place at HOME, Manchester in 2021. This exhibition was created in response to archival research at the only accredited museum in the UK dedicated to women, Glasgow Women's Library (GWL), which holds the remnants of the now disbanded Lesbian Archive and Information Centre (LAIC) (1984-1995). I engage specifically with two representations of Amazons, from two very disparate and politically opposed lesbian publications: firstly the illustrated cover of the LAIC newsletter, and a photographic series by the artist Tessa Boffin (1960-1993). Through auto-ethnography I articulate some of the pleasures and complexities in encountering, and re-visioning the Amazons that ride within the remaining fragments of the LAIC collection. I propose the quilt as a reparative strategy for engaging with the Amazon, one that refuses to disassemble and disassociate from the difficulties of lesbian history, re-assembling the pieces through a contemporary lesbian lens.