Vogue Australia
Jonah Waterhouse
The opening of Qtopia, at a culturally significant building in Sydney’s Darlinghurst, represents new beginnings for Australia’s queer community, as well as recognition of the past.
Australia has a long history of LGBTQIA+ people paving the way for recognition and acknowledgement. On February 23, 2024, a new exhibition space has been opened directly adjacent to Oxford Street, which is the largest centre for queer history and culture in the world.
Qtopia—which borrows its ‘Q’ from the word ‘queer’, an umbrella term to describe the LGBTQIA+ community—opened Friday, a week out from Sydney’s 46th annual Mardi Gras parade. The space is home to several different exhibitions divided into ‘stories’, dedicated to the queer movements that have shaped modern Australia—from pre-colonial queer existence to contemporary touchstones, like an exploration of the historic Dykes on Bikes motorcycle club. Its opening comes a year after Qtopia was introduced in a temporary space at Darlinghurst’s Green Park to commemorate Sydney WorldPride.
An installation at Qtopia Sydney in the old Darlinghurst Police Station. Image credit: Richard Dobson
“We secured significant additional funding to allow us to engage curators so that we could get the first 18 stories going,” says Greg Fisher, the CEO of Qtopia Sydney. “During the past year, we’ve been working with the New South Wales Education Department and Teachers’ Federation to create curricular linked education programs, which we’ll roll out later this year.”
David Polson (emeritus founding chair) at Qtopia Sydney. Image credit: Richard Dobson
The new space, inside the old Darlinghurst Police Station, is large and permanent and occupies an important chapter in Australia’s LGBTQIA+ history. In 1978, protestors participated in what would become the first-ever Mardi Gras parade, and many were arrested at the police station. The protesters became known as ‘The 78ers’ and are considered the catalysts for what’s become Mardi Gras today. Among the exhibition pieces at Qtopia is a letter from Mick Fuller, the former New South Wales police commissioner, apologising to the 78ers for police involvement on the night.
Ian Roberts and Premier Chris Minns. Image credit: Justin Lloyd
“It’s a really interesting exhibition, which shows a policeman inside the cell—you can only sort of see it by looking through the food-hole [into] the cell,” Fisher says. “It’s now reversing the situation to have queer people on the outside—a powerful exhibition.”Elsewhere, there are exhibitions dedicated to queer-designed fashion and the clothes worn by drag performers, among many other pieces that chart the progress of queer recognition across the country. “There’s been a massive community input into making Qtopia happen—it hasn’t just been a board, myself, and the team, but a really big community.”
Qtopia is now open—click here to visit the Qtopia website.
