#1 The Charlotte Museum - Collective Heritage of the Lesbian Community

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From masquerade balls to public demonstrations, the Diverse-city 2024 display vividly illustrates how collective organising within the rainbow community has been a catalyst for raising public awareness and instigating profound societal, cultural, and economic transformations.

As part of the exhibit Auckland Research Centre at the Central Library is hosting a series of talks at different libraries around Auckland.

Sarah Buxton will discuss collective organising in lesbian communities, highlighting the museum and the collectivism that drove its formation, ensured its survival and has enhanced the museum’s role as a community-based organisation.

Collective Organising has played a pivotal role in the lesbian community, instrumental in creating many organisations and supporting activism and political protest both in Rainbow+ and mainstream society. And this collective impulse was the force in the modern historical era that enabled lesbian community to become a recognisable entity. And a community that evolved to have its own distinct lesbian cultural experience - now with a cultural heritage to collect, preserve and share.

Sarah is the Museum Coordinator at the Charlotte Museum Te Whare Takatāpui-Wāhine o Aotearoa. She has held this role for three years in a period where the museum has transitioned from being a solely volunteer-based organisation to having some paid staff and moving into new premises.

A second talk on this topic will be held at the Auckland Central Library on Thursday 7 March at 12pm.