Sunday, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. Safe Link Alberta (formerly known as AIDS Calgary) Calgary Queer Arts Society and Contemporary Calgary have come together to present an afternoon called ARTS and HIV. Reflections, Joy & Hope.
Hosted by drag performer Misty Meadows, the celebration will feature a recorded interview with Joe Average, an acclaimed Vancouver HIV-positive artist, a screening of award-winning filmmaker Laura O’Grady’s Undetectable and a Q&A panel moderated by James Demers. ARTS and HIV begins at noon and runs until 4:30 at Contemporary Calgary.
There will be inspiring drag performances by Misty Meadows, Argintina, and Shane OnYou. The event will also offer attendees a chance to bid on an online silent auction featuring Joe Average’s original piece Thinking Cap.
In lieu of admission, the organizers suggest leaving a donation in remembrance of someone lost to HIV/AIDS.
The Calgary Underground Film Festivalloves queer history! This year, their documentary festival running November 20-24, is featuring the Canadian Premiere of Flashback about the legendary gay bar in Edmonton that existed between 1974 and 1991.
Flashback is the story of a defiant disco dance culture of sweat and sex and drugs and fashion. Despite community hostility to queer people, Flashback became a sensation on the international club circuit facing police raids, threats of violence and the scourge of AIDS. Flashback is a ghost. However, it comes alive again in the memories of the people who were there and the legends they left behind.
Cool kids in the feature documentary Flashback
In Calgary, the Parkside Continental was the analog of Edmonton’s Flashback—they are of the same vintage—and there was frequent to-ing and fro-ing between the two cities for those looking to dance with a different crowd.
Flashback features more than 30 interviews recounting the story of the beloved gay bar: a tribute to a place where young people could just be themselves. A soundtrack with two new disco recordings (recorded at Calgary’s National Music Centre) and archival photographs and footage takes us back inside the famous venue and blends with re-enactments shot with today’s club kids in Edmonton’s last remaining gay bar, Evolution Wonderlounge.
All this is framed by the rediscovery, restoration and resurrection of the club’s iconic neon sign. The blue glow of the old Flashback sign now shines from a wall of the Neon Sign Museum in Edmonton, and its journey to restored glory is documented in the film. Flashback is a TELUS original feature documentary film shot in Edmonton, Alberta.
The Calgary Gay History Project is pleased to be a community partner for the screening. Learn more about our Province’s queer history and join us for Flashback on Saturday, November 23, with Calgary director Peter Hays in attendance!
Peter Houston, the Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, says, “This is such an important and valuable collection, documenting queer communities, identity, activism, oppression, and culture across Canada, the United States, and around the world. This will be a wonderful historical resource for Mount Royal University students and the wider community, who are welcome to come explore the collection.”
The finding aid was constructed in the largest part by honours student and emerging queer historian Sydney Morrissette. Sydney is a student and friend of the collection donor, Dr. David Aveline, who is advising Morrissette in the Sociology Honours program at MRU. At Aveline’s request, Morrissette continues to document queer history and acquire further accruals to the Aveline-Vázquez LGBTQ+ collection.
Sydney posted on Instagram: “Exciting news!!! The finding aid for the Aveline-Vaźquez LGTBQ+ Collection is now live! Go poke around and check out some of over 50 years of queer history I have had the privilege of documenting.
Dr. David Aveline and Sydney Morrissette and the matchbooks!
Sydney added, “I am going to toot my own horn just a little bit; I am incredibly proud of myself for creating this database (with the help and patience of the rest of the team at MRU Archives and Special Collections). Also, I want to give a shoutout to MRU Library for giving me this job where I have been able to embrace my passion for history and take my life in a new direction I did not think was possible.”
One unique part of the collection is 107 matchbooks and their historic slogans of gay liberation.
Promotional postcard for the Aveline-Vázquez LGBTQ+ collection at MRU Library
The MRU Archives are open to the public Monday through Thursday, 10-4. However, check the calendar on the archives site before you visit; the reading room isn’t available when classes are in the archives. We can’t wait to dive in!
Calgary Gay History 