ABSTRACT
Photographic albums are valuable sources for understanding public presentation and private identities of white LGBTIQ persons in apartheid South Africa. When these albums are housed in a public archive dedicated to queer histories, such as the Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action (GALA) LGBTIQ Archive in Johannesburg, the public/private, or frontstage/backstage, dynamics take on greater historical significance. This chapter investigates the photographic albums of three queer album makers: psychologist Renée Liddicoat, gender-bending socialite Michel/e Bruno, and an unknown sailor named “David.” Liddicoat and “David,” used captions written on the backsides of photographs to both record and hide information. Bruno's album has no hidden captions and depicts relative openness about his queerness as it reminds viewers of police crackdowns against male gender-queer behavior in Johannesburg in the 1960s. Each album was used to both mitigate and reveal their makers’ queerness, and had private and public functions for their makers. In the GALA Archive, the albums’ public functions and historical significance are amplified as these artifacts speak for the LGBTIQ community.
