Qtopia Sydney: Let there be light – and love – where for so long there has been darkness
Anthony Albanese on Friday will open Qtopia Sydney, the world’s largest museum and cultural centre dedicated to queer history and the LGBTQIA+ community.
It still stands there on the strange triangular corner of Forbes and Bourke Streets in inner-city Sydney, the brutish slate and sandstone edifice that was for a century the Darlinghurst Police Station.
Within those walls, people unexpectedly died, women were attacked, homosexuals were routinely brutalised – and for a time the killer cop Roger Rogerson had an office.
On the night of Saturday, March 24, 1978, dozens of members of the gay community were arrested and held there following a street march that would become known to history as the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
In the grandest of ironies, the old police station, epicentre of decades of darkness, has been miraculously exorcised, replaced with light and love.
Celebrating queer history and culture
It is now the headquarters of Qtopia Sydney, the world’s largest museum dedicated entirely to the queer history and culture of the LGBTQIA+ community.
And it will be officially opened on Friday by Anthony Albanese, NSW Premier Chris Minns and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. About 400 guests from the world of politics, the arts and sports, including gay former rugby league hardman and icon Ian Roberts will be in attendance.
News Corp chairman Lachlan Murdoch and his wife Sarah – donated $1m through their foundation towards the realisation of the museum.
The museum will celebrate queer stories, the community’s historical struggles – particularly during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s – its setbacks and triumphs, and its ongoing contribution to Australian life.
All this, ahead of the latest annual instalment Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
Less than two years ago, outgoing ABC chair Ita Buttrose and former High Court judge Michael Kirby advocated for the city’s first queer memorial and museum to put down its roots in the former lock-up, near Taylor Square and Oxford Street, the Sydney gay community’s spiritual home and stomping ground. After the City of Sydney Council approved start-up funding of almost $300,000 for the museum in mid-2022, momentum and goodwill quickly followed.
First the Murdochs, then the Minns government which would ultimately contribute $3.85m to the museum. And ensure its unique address.
Edwina McCann, editor-in-chief of Vogue Australia and publisher of News Prestige Titles, as well as a powerful advocate for Qtopia, says the new museum is an extraordinary addition to not just Australian but world culture.
“Having been a young, fashion assistant on Vogue magazine back in the 1990s, I mean, the impact the HIV/AIDS epidemic was traumatic and I lost friends, I lost colleagues, I was a very young girl confronted with some pretty traumatic losses of extraordinary individuals,” McCann said.
“So you want to make sure that those people and their stories and their talent – and just how much Sydney has been given by this community … it’s one of the things I think that makes, and has made, Sydney such a special place in particular.
“You hope that a museum like this can really assist particularly young people, hearing stories and storytelling, which they may relate to or find peace and comfort in hearing. What’s been delivered here, for Sydney, for Australia as well, and to the world, frankly … we should be thankful that we can record this history now and that it’s not forgotten.”
Setting the record straight for the LGBTQIA+ community
Qtopia’s head historian, award-winning writer Garry Wotherspoon, said the museum had an important role to play in the national conversation.
“Like many minority groups, our history, our past, is often obscured, lost or just misrepresented,” he said.
“So I think Qtopia plays a very important role in outlining what you might call the queer past in Australian history. We have been here as long as everyone else, but we have expressed ourselves differently or we have been recorded differently. So part of Qtopia’s role is certainly what you might call setting the record straight and bringing forward a lot of these stories, many human interest stories, many stories about what you might call broader social change.”