2019
During my residency at the Gay Archives of Quebec in 2019, I came across a press clipping of an add announcing the upcoming release of “Efebos: The First Polish Magazine of Male Nudes (1991)”. When I was in Poland, I searched for that magazine in Lambda Warsaw Gay Archives. I found more of the same adds, but I was sad to realise that regardless of multiple enthusiastic announcements of it's imminent release, the magazine never actually came out. Having learned this, I decided to make an issue of this magazine myself, as a tribute to all the great queer DIY activist initiatives that failed - the art projects that were abandoned and collectives that fell apart before their first action. The result is a work of speculative fiction - a utopian erotic magazine focused on representing some of those whose absance hounts the queer archives: lesbians, bisexual women, trans and non-binary folks. For this reason I renamed it “Efebia”. I did an open call for photo submissions and for participants in an erotic shoot. I received 1 photo series and 6 model submissions. I rented a room at the legendary hotel Czarny Kot in Warsaw. We shot all day and made friends. I placed one copy of the magazine in Warsaw Gay Archives in the 90s section.
Installation view, Tender Debauchery, cutated by Agnieszka Razjacher, lokal_30, Warsaw, Poland, 2023.
Installation view, Tender Debauchery, cutated by Agnieszka Razjacher, lokal_30, Warsaw, Poland, 2023.
Installation view, Tender Debauchery, cutated by Agnieszka Razjacher, lokal_30, Warsaw, Poland, 2023.
Installation view, Tender Debauchery, cutated by Agnieszka Razjacher, lokal_30, Warsaw, Poland, 2023.
Cover image featuring Sonia Milch.
Archival photograph featured in the magazine.
Installation view, La présence de l’absence - Absence is Present, curated by
Virginie Jourdain, Veronique Boilard, Never Apart, Montreal, Qc, 2019.