Out of the Closet, Into the Archives: The Private and Public Lives of the John Jenner Albums

Rather than understanding the archive and the closet as juxtaposed concepts, this project is motivated by their uncanny resemblances. Straddling an art historical and archival studies approach, I argue that the overlaps between the archive and the closet are bound in the private photo albums of queer photographers working in the 1970s and 1980s in so called Australia now kept in public archival institutions. Private, queer photo albums take on new functions in public archives. Despite their original intention for a limited audience, in archives they become publicly accessible sources of information about queer life. To what extent were they compiled with this function in mind? And to what extent do they still register as private? In this paper, I focus on the albums of photojournalist John Jenner whose albums and photo collages documented queer life in Warrane (Sydney) and are now kept in the Mitchell Library Archives. His “End of the Eighties” Albums and his “AIDS Photo Diary” provide a fertile ground to consider the functions of private photo albums in public archival institutions.

Part of the Art History Seminar Series, convened by Mary Roberts, and presented by the discipline of art history at the University of Sydney, with support from the Power Institute.

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