Queer Infiltrators

Join us for an intimate conversation with distinguished Professor Peter McNeil and Mel Flyte, as part of our Caroline Simpson Library series.

McNeil’s in conversation will focus on uncovering traces of Australian queer spaces before the gay liberation movement. During the first few decades of the 20th century, many creative individuals in Australia found the presence of stringent censorship and the absence of a substantial art world reason enough to force them to become expatriate.

McNeil argues that the interior and its decoration were especially important spaces for what he calls ‘queer infiltrators’. Camp is a semi-private code not visible to all. Australian Art Deco and genteel modernism were inseparable from fashion and fantasy and were frequently viewed as a female or effeminate style.

Audiences will be able to experience the Caroline Simpson Library collection firsthand and look through the books, manuscripts, objects and pictures, and to delve into the stories from the collection. The conversation will be hosted by Mel Flyte, Collection Discovery Assistant at the Caroline Simpson Library.